Edinburgh

Settling in to the hotel in Edinburgh, after a lovely train trip through the English and Scottish countryside. For once, procrastination paid off for me, and the cheapest way from London to Edinburgh was a first class train ticket. (Hmm...thirty pounds less than the cheapest flight and I don't have to get to the airport and go through Heathrow security; no brainer.) I grabbed the chance, since I've never gone first class on any method of transportation. Totally worth it. Nice comfy seats on a nearly empty train, and lots of feeding. We got a (surprisingly good) breakfast and lunch included, and near constant coffee/tea service. Since I didn't realize we'd be fed, I passed on lunch and enjoyed the sandwich and basalmic vinegar and sea salt crisps (so good, one of the things I'll miss most) I picked up at the station with my very civilized glass of wine. I arrived very relaxed (did I mention the refills on the wine?) and well fed.

So far, I've been hitting the highlights, which for me includes the Impressionist Gardens exhibit at the National Gallery, and theAnother World exhibit of surrealist art at the Dean Gallery, I've seen a couple of shows, and I've just been enjoying exploring the city, which is great with the Fringe and other festivals on. There's music on every block, street performers everywhere, and tons of people walking around in costume promoting the plays they're in (well, mostly anyway). The city architecture itself is also so wonderfully dark and dramatic. There's a quote up on a poster here from Henry James describing the downtown skyline here as "operatic." Unfortunately, to call the wifi in the hotel spotty would be overly kind, so you probably won't hear more from me until I'm back home.

I'll leave you with a little bit of England--while we were in Oxford, we visited Christ Church and our guide there showed us the places that inspired Alice in Wonderland. Since Alice was my favorite book as a child, this was a real treat for me. (Note: The music in the peice was generated by Photo Story 3).