Goodbye Edinburgh!

We said our farewells to Edinburgh this morning, our home for the last week. And what a great home it was. We stayed at Glenhouse Apartments which, for only a few more pounds per night more than what you would pay for a cramped hostel room, had twin beds, a living area with TV, kitchen, bathroom and small dining table. The location was great - at one end of the street was Brauhaus, a small warm bar with a huge variety of beers, and at the other a church, which you could walk through the grounds of to get to another great pub, Cloisters, which serves top quality pub meals. Not only this but we were walking distance to everything - Tesco, Grassmarket, Victoria Rd shopping, Royal Mile, Princes St etc. And, of course, whenever we got a bit lost we could just look up to the castle and position ourselves from there. Easy!



Sam enjoying a beer brewed by monks at Brauhaus.



Brauhaus, on the corner of our street.



Our apartment in Edinburgh.



Cloisters, at the other end of our street : )

We seem to have brought what I call 'traveller's mojo' with us, that is, a certain kind of luck that wouldn't usually follow us around at home. We could walk into a very busy pub or bar, and within minutes, a table for two would become available. The weather was mostly well behaved as well, with the sun coming out on the days when we wanted to do more sight-seeing, reserving the rain for days when we were going shopping or would be indoors.

We did encounter a small amount of insane weather yesterday though. We dragged our sorry hungover butts out of our apartment at about midday (pub crawl the night before, read: cheap whiskey shots) and stumbled out on to the street for last minute shopping. As we trudged up the Royal Mile the rain started to pour and and the sky turned a menacing colour. In Edinburgh, no one really bothers with umbrellas because they all get turned inside out from the wind and discarded on the streets. So you just pull your hood up and trudge on. We were standing outside one shop when Sam let out a sound of pain - he had been hit on the nose by a hailstone, and they were suddenly coming down quick and hard around us. We dashed inside a shop, braved it on down to the Victoria Rd shops and happily found refuge inside the Cheesemonger and the Liquid Delicatessen next door (beautiful olive oils, whiskeys and infused alcohols). By the time we left (blue cheese and whiskey bought) we were amazed to walk outside and see the sun shining!



Demi-john, the Liquid Delicatessen.

Now back to London town - seeing La Clique tonight - very excited! Especially for Mario! Yay!