Festive August is over. With the beginning of September, summer winds down. Where recently the sun wasn’t truly set until 10:30pm, already Edinburgh is dark by nine, and the growing shortness of the days brings winter ever closer to the city. The Fringe, Film and Book festivals all finished this past Monday, leaving the International [...]
From Rose Street to the Royal Mile, roaming crowds of tourists and flier-hawkers clog the veins of Edinburgh. Yet despite needing 20 minutes to walk the same distance as 10 used to suffice, the city thrives, pulses with a vibrancy that is understated or in hibernation much of the year. Even at 11 on a [...]
“How in the world can all these people possibly fit in there?” a woman next to me asked her companion. A hundred meters and a thousand Military Tattoo attendees in front of us, the stadium seating in the esplanade – on three sides, with Edinburgh Castle on the west – did not look as if [...]
July 17th Yesterday afternoon I hopped the bus from Galway – leaving behind much gratitude to Aisling and the other girls, for letting me stay with them – to come to Dublin for the night, to catch travel company Celtic Connection’s Dublin-Edinburgh shuttle (the Thursday shuttle was already booked up, leaving only today’s). My night’s [...]
July 10th Up in the morning, I put on my dress shirt and pin-stripe trousers, then trekked out for my 30-minute walk from my new home in Newcastle, into city centre for work at noon. A bit of chill, a bit of mist, but the air was nice, crisp, refreshing – always good for a [...]
July 4th There used to be a mainland. I remember it well, when I looked out from the pier, from the crags across the road from the hostel. When I arrived last night, I could look north, out over the bay and see the mainland and Rossaveel, could look to the east and see Clare, [...]
July 3rd Something that I love most in life is riding through rain, rain that falls so hard it makes the bus windows seem like they’re rippling. I love to look out my window, see the rain still block the horizon, and then to look out the window opposite, and see through unrippled glass a [...]
No matter when you get off the bus, after dropping your gear at the hostel you know you’ll want to make the pub one of your next stops – or first, depending on just how much you like your Guinness! Sooner or later, depending on how much you have in the pub, you’ll probably want [...]
If Ireland has surprised me in any way, it is that the coffee here is actually pretty damn good (as opposed to Scotland, where the brew still tastes a bit like it’s been mixed with gasoline). Even more surprising is that a small city like Galway has so many coffee shops. Quality and atmosphere vary [...]
Bookstores For fellow bibliophiles, should you go to any of these places, leave your wallet in the safe at the hostel – especially if you have credit cards. Leave your pack in storage as well, because if your reaction is anything like mine you will want to simply move in to one of these kickass [...]
