It appears that i've been a bit of a ludite in regards to my blog over the past few months. It's not that i haven't been taking pictures or pondering cultural juxtapositions: it's just that time speeds up and slows down so often that i can't keep track anymore. In any case, as it's better late than never, here are my first few weeks in Scotland (starting with the day I left Vancouver).
When you step outside in Edinburgh, you are hit by the hanging, pungent aroma of barley and car exhaust, so dense you could chew it. The skyline is cut with a jagged, gothic knife. The towering walls, built for protection and power, are stained with photosynthesizing micro-greenery clinging to hospitable stone crevices. Construction and restoration, preserving precious antiquity, carves a maze from cobble streets. Old, shrunken ladies smoke cigarettes and continue to climb up flights of sunken stairs to their fifth floor flat. Church's have been converted into restaurants; cemeteries into parks for cheerful walks; fast food into a fancy night out. It's strange and beautiful: eccentric and quaint: cold and cloudy. I love it very much.
