It was raining when I left. I had a kind of plan. First was the Grassmarket. I still don't know what it is. It might just be a street. That's all it was at noon anyway. A really wide street with a median thing in the middle that looks like it would be a great place for a farmer's market. I'll have to look it up and see if I missed something.
I ducked into this tiny art supply store and asked the guy why my oils are so thick. He said to buy paint thinner. Makes sense. I have some now. Apparently it smells.
Greyfriars is a cemetery and church. The cemetery looks just like the other one I went to yesterday. They were doing some kind of construction or maintenance in the church itself so I couldn't go inside. There were a couple lads getting locked in one of the bigger tomb things. I don't know why you would think to do that unless you knew the person, but they couldn't have. It was weird. 1 in the afternoon getting drunk in a graveyard. Evs. Right outside is Greyfriars Bobby. It's this little statue of a dog. I thought it was going to be so much bigger. I wouldn't even have seen it if I wasn't looking for it. It's this huge deal too. It's like the Mona Lisa--a little disappointing.
Then the Elephant House. That place is the shit. My favourite cafe in the world so far. That's where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter. You'd think it would be crawling with people all the time, but it's not and it's awesome. They have mostly big tables all over the place but it's cool because they just have you share with other people and it's not weird at all. And from the back room there's a perfect view of the castle. The food was really good and my latte was perfect. I was very happy for that hour.
Not that I wasn't happy after that. I went to the National Museum of Scotland. It was alright. It was crawlin with kids. It is the science festival going on right now so I guess it makes sense. The whole thing was a little random though. They have a car from the 60s, a piano from 16something, ancient Greek pottery, modern art, the animal section with skeletons and figures hanging from the ceilings and then this whole Asian wing. It just seemed a little mixed up sometimes. It was cool though. I just wasn't blown away.
I got lost for a bit. It wasn't raining anymore though. I walked generally toward Calton Hill, passed the Royal Mile again, kept going until the train station and decided what the hell I'll just keep walking that way. It was only 4 o'clock by then. And bam there was the Scott Monument. For Sir. Walter Scott. It's very cool. You can climb it! For 3 pounds. Fuck yeah. The views of the city are beautiful from up there. Seriously. It's 287 stairs and 200 feet tall or something. There are 4 different landings and the first one was flooded because of the rain. Not really flooded but my shoes and socks were wet after that. The stair well gets more and more narrow the higher you go and there is only one, so if someone is coming down while you're going up, you have to negotiate the space. I ended up having to maneuver around them. It wouldn't matter if they didn't act like it was your fault.
Then I spent two hours in a pub eating dinner and writing stuff. I had a steak and ale pie that was tasty. The waitress told me what ale to get cause I was just like give me something Scottish. It was alright. I read that cider was big here too so I got a pint of that too. I don't think I'm really a cider person. I haven't tried any that was excited about. After a while I decided that I wanted dessert too. The special "of the moment" was bread and butter pudding with custard. It was delicious. Like, so good. I don't remember ever having bread pudding before. I always think it's soft for some reason, but it's not. And I always think custard is firm, but it's not. It was hot and not that sweet and just really good.
Now I'm back here at the hostel and they're playing songs from Grease in the bar. Weird.
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