Edinburgh in Summer

Obligatory shot of Edinburgh Castle
Obligatory shot of Edinburgh Castle

As I’m writing these posts, I’m realizing just how far behind I am. In June (six months and one week ago), we went to Edinburgh pretty much immediately upon our return from Iceland to see Billy Bragg. We decided to make a trip of it, and stayed three nights at the Lochend Apartments.

It was about a 30 minute walk from the CBD, but that’s fine, because the CBD is mostly just full of tourists. The distance from the center also meant that for the same price as a chain hotel room, we got a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and washing machine. That’s my kind of trade off.

While we were there, we also decided to go to the US Embassy, so I could get extra pages put in my passport. I could have gotten a new passport with my married name and nothing but blank pages, but we didn’t think we had ten days. HAHAHAHA! Oh, well, live and learn.

A little slice of America: gripy government workers with short hours.
A little slice of America: gripy government workers with short hours.

The embassy was an entertaining way to while away a morning, if you have absolutely nothing to do. There were three people, including myself, there for “citizen services”, but one woman (of the three staff visible) carped for about an hour about how we should really be going to the London office, because none of us were Scottish residents. Apparently, that ratio of one staff person per passport was too much for her to handle.

After a lengthy wait, my passport was taken off me and I was told to return several hours later. Sticking one booklet inside of another booklet and affixing it is time-consuming. Suddenly with a bit of time to fill, we decided to to for a walk.

Arthur's Seat from the bottom.
Arthur’s Seat from the bottom.

Arthur’s Seat is a nice little hike, if you want to feel like you’ve done some exercise, without actually really doing any. It’s only about 100m high, and you are rewarded with 360° views of Edinburgh. The down side is that about a thousand other people will be there, too, and the path is only 1.5 people wide.

Arthur's Seat from the top. This is the angle that doesn't show all of the tourists around us.
Arthur’s Seat from the top. This is the angle that doesn’t show all of the tourists around us.

As it was conveniently located nearby, Arthur’s Seat fit the bill. At the appointed hour (the embassy has very short hours for dropping off/ picking up passports), we retrieved my passport from the guard– apparently peeling off backing and sticking the pages in had tuckered out the actual staff.

All that was left for us to do was head over to Queen’s Hall for Billy Bragg. I tried to find the set list, but… it wasn’t on the first page of Google. At any rate, what I can reliably report six months on, is we had good-ish seats and he played a bunch of new songs, most of which I quite liked, as well as all the old ones you expect to hear. In other words, a great show.

Billy Bragg, Queen's Hall, 3 June 2013  (I said good-ISH seats. )
Billy Bragg, Queen’s Hall, 3 June 2013
(I said good-ISH seats. )

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