These words come to you from The Elephant House, on Edinburgh's George IV Bridge. This coffee shop is where J.K.Rowling used to come to when she was writing the first Harry Potter book. Other authors who've worked here include Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall-Smith. And now me. Just as I'm a volcano-climber, I'm also now as officially a writer as I'm going to get. It's difficult being this great, but I'm managing.
The Elephant House is rather nice, just on the comfortable-side of 'quirky'. The food's great and arrived quickly, but if the counter service is is a little more "leisurely". We queued there for 10 minutes easily, and there were only two customers in front of us. No wonder Ms Rowling had time to write a fucking book...
This is our last full day in Edinburgh, and we did the touristy-thing of walking around the castle and taking photos of everything. Not that anyone could criticise, as we were surrounded by a) other tourists, and b) the staff of the castle, who are effectively profiteering from us. As clichéd as it is, I highly recommend the castle if you get the chance. The views alone are worth it, but there are a lot of exhibitions too, as well as the National War Museum.
After the castle, it was a walk down to Greyfriars and a mooch about the vintage-shops in Grassmarket. I've enjoyed Edinburgh very much, and will definitely return. Although I may go for a city-centre hotel the next time round. The part where we're staying (opposite Leith Links) is fine, and obviously Edinburgh is lovely, but Leith Walk in the middle is fucking terrifying.
I other news, my crippling hangover lasted until the early afternoon, and I honestly thought I was going to throw up on our way into town this morning. Since I caught the sun on my mountaineering jaunt the other day, this would have resulted in a man with a bright red nose, being sick in the street before 10am. The people of Leith would have embraced me as one of their own.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
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