To Edinburgh! - 31 July to Aug 1

Annie scooped me up out of my predictable last minute rushing around and took me in to the airport, and I had a pop-in visit there from Cheng - not something I've benefitted from in the past! Year-away farewells are hard :(

Cattle class from Melbourne to Hong Kong wasn't fun - surly service and dreadful "food". I was sitting with a 20 year old Scottish boy Chase, and a pouty, grown-up 17 year old northern Italian girl Renata. I took a couple of Annie's over-the-counter sleeping pills and a swig of scotch and drifted off into squishy delirium. Renata hopped off the plane and was sorely disappointed to find that Hong Kong wouldn't accept Australian dollars for the coffee she was determined to get. I took her in as a guest to the Qantas Club lounge for her coffee.

Hong Kong from the air looked remarkable. I only thought to take this picture too late, when most of the best images had flown by. After take-off, the grouped clusters of identical tall buildings around the bay looked like silicon memory chips stuffed into the ground, nothing like buildings I've seen before.


To my delight, at check-in, I found that I'd been upgraded to Business Class for the 13 hour leg from Hong Kong to Heathrow. YES! I had a 50% wider reclining cocoon seat with the electronic works,

noise-cancelling ear-covering headphones, an extensive and delicious wine and spirits list, lip balm and moisturisers in a designer case, would you like some pyjamas sir, will you have the steak or the snapper, can I make you a toasted roast beef and caramelised onion panini...

I arrived at Heathrow feeling much less beaten up than I'd anticipated.

But how DOES your body make that STINK in the air, which infests your clothes so abominably? The first time I travelled to London two years ago, I had thought the English woman next to me was the source of the odour until I got off the plane, and had been cursing her the entire trip.

I treated myself to a guilt-free marathon shower at Heathrow's British Airways lounge. Kevin from Deloitte would LOVE that lounge. I accumulated some fancy biscuits to keep me company on my travels.

The BA plane from Heathrow to Edinburgh was delayed, and I had almost 5 hours to kill from arrival at Heathrow to departure. Yet another meal on the plane - after all this endless eating and only some secretive yoga stretching at each airport stopover for exercise, I sure had my share of the famous Heathrow Injection by the time I'd reached Edinburgh. There were framed pictures of cities hung on the front walls of the plane cabin on the BA flight, and announcements sounded like they spoken in fast forward. My luggage arrived in Edinburgh, yay! Sheesh, ALL the luggage - I had to acknowledge a woman I overheard commenting on it to her partner! :P

The convenient three pound bus from Edinburgh airport to the city centre took me past riches of old buildings, domestic, scholarly and religious. When people had been telling me Edinburgh was beautiful, I had the wrong scale of beauty in my imagination. It's stunning. I was saying, "Wooow!" out loud as we drove. I was glad I had the pamphlet of the bus stops, as, yep, I couldn't quite make out what the driver was saying when he announced them.

I got the WARMEST welcome from Yas and her bright and cheery fiance Mat on my arrival. They talked about the excitement of the pending Edinburgh festival season and how they'd be introducing me to all their mates. I might have a guitar teacher in Yas' best friend Alex.

They made gnocchi, and we cracked open the Whyte and Mackay Glasgow 13 year old scotch. What a fabulous way to start a stint in a new home town.


And this is the shared backyard allotments (vocab?) as seen out their loungeroom window. You don't see this out of windows in flats in Melbourne.


Well, I'm off to see things, after a sound first night's sleep - walkabouts in Edinburgh, some random meetings hopefully. Time to get acquainted with my new town!

Love to all back home.