In that it is actually colder, thus more chill, and this allowed me to relax more.

I left myself with plenty of time to get to the train station (King’s Cross), so I had time to kill, which I spent sitting at a table on a balcony level, watching the huge train schedule board update & the 1300h Edinburgh creep steadily closer.
(The most immediate departure is on the left-most board, so they slowly work their way right-to-left)
Password-Not-Required WiFi from one of the food places helped while away the time, by which I guess I mean “give me access to the final episode of Season 6 of Game Of Thrones”, though I did make a tactical blue by zipping away the straps on Big Red before getting to the platform.
The train, you see, was a billion carriages long, and I was at the one at the far end.

Train wasn’t crowded, and I got a window seat, so that I could do my usual trick of falling asleep, but with a nice view!
Briefly considered taking the trip down-train to get a coffee, but as it was 8 carriages away, I decided that I didn’t need one that badly.

Getting to the hostel in Edinburgh wasn’t without complication; The GPS Navigation Thing on my phone, which I’d decided to test out, was getting confused by tall buildings and the fact that Edinburgh Waverly Station is several stories below old Edinburgh, so it was having a tough time figuring out a route, and kept directing me up & down the same road.
I just went with climbing a lot of steps (The Scotsman Steps, in fact) while ignoring the GPS until it started giving me directions which weren’t flatly contradicted by observable reality, then followed those.
GPS, and assisted navigation technologies in general, are tools for navigation, not replacements for it. Can’t stress that one enough.

My first three nights were in a 4-bed dorm. Once again, I got a top bunk, which is no big deal.
Room-mates this time included a German chap who I don’t think I ever talked to, who had carefully arranged his stuff at night to create, unintentionally I’m thinking, a barrier for me to get to the ladder to my bunk, someone in the other top bunk who left absolutely no impression on me at all, and … D.

D. was an older lady, who started off the afternoon seeming OK, came across as a bit … off … by early evening, and was bitterly ranting and smelling of booze by nightfall. Frankly, I was glad of the window being open, because the booze-fumes were strong with this one.
Fortunately there was no vomiting, bed-wetting, or other obnoxious hostel-drunk behaviour, and the bitter ranting was confined to that one incident. Or my demeanor of  “Frankly, I don’t give a crap” paid off?
She eventually left, to go teach somewhere else in the UK, but not before she upset another resident by eavesdropping on a phone call and going into a racist/nationalistic bigotry diatribe about the subject in question; One of the staff told her where to put her opinions.

The hostel itself, which I’m not naming because of reasons, is architecturally … interesting.
It’s two terraced housed knocked together into one space by putting doors through on the Ground & First floor landings, and because the floor plans are mirror images, there are two spiraling staircases on either side of a wall, one counter-clockwise & one clockwise. Also, there are two kitchens, so you can pick which one suits your mood better.
Reminds me a little of Tamson House, from Charles de Lint’s Moonheart & Spiritwalk.

And, Edinburgh.
Well, there’s a castle, which we visited, as you do, and learned various historical things from tour guides.
There was a chap who was in character as the Earl of Moray, talking about the re-capture of the castle from the English, and demonstrating on a willing volunteer the armour & weapons of the day.

It took me a little while to work out that he was in character, and not some miscellaneous title-holder who happened to be interested in re-enactment; The references to being captured by the English sort of gave it away.

On the way back from the Castle we stopped in at a bar Gulo T. used to work at, mostly because it was open, to see how it was going. Ended up staying a while, for a very nice evening of sitting at the bar, chatting to the barman & the other patrons, and watching him curse at the register for not having the actual stock listed, and for being vastly too expensive when it did.
They’d only recently re-opened, and there were issues, like a couple of the keg lines which were just producing foam, and a coffee machine he had no clue how to work.
(I was tempted to offer to take a look, based on having played with the one at AECOM, but wasn’t quite sure how to make the offer)
In any case, probably one of the best pub evenings I’ve had; Gives me an idea of what having a local must be like.

 

Getting to & from Edinburgh’s centre involves going through the Meadows, and there’s often something entertaining happening, such as people playing cricket while wearing kilts, presumably because they can.
There have also been people practicing slack-line walking, and recently some very committed Mormons, given how long they’re out there.

Other Things, …

We climbed Arthur’s Seat, which has some spectacular views of Edinburgh, and where I took no photographs because it started lightly raining and the rocks get really slippery.
We also climbed, some days later, Salisbury Crags, where the weather was less trying-to-kill-you, and where I took these.

They’re setting up for the festival, or more accurately for many festivals, so there’s an enormous cantilevered seating structure outside Edinburgh Castle.

Over the course of the week-and-a-bit I’ve been here, I’ve noticed a lot of general-purpose Scottishness going on.
There are people wearing kilts & the like who are obviously dressed up for an important event of some sort, stores selling miscellaneous Tartan things, and the odd Piper in public places where tourists might spot them and comment favorably.

There are also people just wearing the things because, apparently, they want to, and bands who’ve included a piper … Well, it’s distinctive as all hell.

I’m not sure where the haggis-flavoured crisps come in.

Went to a Tai Chi class, which was a lot of fun, and a new thing for me.
Granted, I had no clue what was happening during the run-through of the form at the start, and only noticed the bit of said form that had been taught at the class once it was already gone, having been too focused on trying to face the right way, not collide with either of the other students, and at least be standing on the correct leg with my limbs in roughly the right directions.
The process of learning one move, and one move only, on the other hand, was rather relaxing & quite fun, as it turns out.