Edinburgh

At the moment we're staying with an old friend from school, Olly. Its good.
Amateur travelers that we are, we were worn out from too much sightseeing and moving around after three short weeks in Ireland, so its been good to have a real bed and stay put for a while. And it helps that the place we're in is huge and gorgeous. Olly and Doug get to 'housesit' this place. They've been doing it for 5 years apparently cos the dude, a family friend of Dougs, lives in London and just comes up here a few times a year. He must be loaded cos its a gorgeous high ceilinged poshly decorated apartment in the city center.
So we've been drinking wine and taking in a few shows at the Edinburgh festival. Oh so civilized.
Edinburgh is grand, to use the local vernacular. I can see how all my old school buds have been drawn to it, its got castles and mountains and beautiful architecture, all in a fairly compact city. But at the risk of sounding repetitive, its friggin freezing here! Its 'summer' and I wish I had my big thick coat cos there's this icy wind. For that reason I think Edinburgh will just remain a place I will enjoy visiting. And the festival is quite overwhelming but once you take the plunge and start going to stuff, its hard to stop. Troy and I did a day of sampling free comedy, which was , eh, worth it. There were a few laughs to be had, but the same lame comedian appeared in the 3 shows we saw, doing the same routine word for word. We've taken to paying for shows now and its been good. Saw a guy called Stephen Grant do some comedy about being pedantic, which I appreciated. And Troy and I went to this play yesterday, clean alternatives, which was just brilliant, and another one, less brilliant but also good, by Jane Bussman. And we're going to 2 more tomorrow and to see Michael Franti on Wednesday before we head off to explore the rest of Scotland. Yay!