Wednesday, July 3, 2002
Location: easyInternetCafe, Edinburgh
Weather: Mostly cloudy, scattered rain showers

I'm going to have to make my posts shorter... Not enough time to make it to internet cafes as frequently as I did on the Mediterranean trip. However, I'm pleased to have found this place, which has sold me unlimited time for the next week for what now seems a very reasonable £5 (after the exhorbitant £1 per 12 minutes in Oban!).

Monday night a group of eight of us headed to the Waterfront Restaurant in Oban where we had an excellent seafood dinner. It cost a lot, but hell, we're on holiday.

Yesterday we got on an early ferry over to the Isle of Mull, where we boarded our bus for a scenic trek across the island to the far side. On the way, the weather gradually improved and when we got to the ferry crossing at Fiannphort the sun was out. We boarded a small ferry for a very small trip across the water to Iona, a lovely little island with a single village, and a very famous Abbey. There we attended a short ecumenical service for peace and then sang a concert, which went quite well. It was a lovely setting. Afterwards we had a few group photos and then wandered the island for a while before retracing our steps back to Oban.

Back in Oban I went with a group of 9 others to India Palace, a restaurant with decent indian food and abysmal service. We enjoyed the food, and didn't enjoy the techno soundtrack that they refused to change.

This morning we got up early and after breakfast loaded up for the trip to Edinburgh. On the way we stopped at the Famous Grouse distillery in Crieff for a tour that was somewhat educational but involved forced exposure to rather a lot of expensive advertising. Their cafeteria fed us a very good lunch -- I had haggis, tatties and neeps -- and we continued on to Edinburgh. After checking in at our (last!) hotel, we slowly got ourselves organized and headed out to check out the town. After stopping at the tourist information centre, we rambled aimlessly over to St. Mary's church where we met Bruce and Steph and admired the stained glass and classic proportions of the building. We walked back into the middle of town and found a place called Mussel Inn (yuk yuk) where we had, surprise, 1 kilo buckets of mussels and surprisingly good coffee.

Tomorrow is Edinburgh Tourism Day. Our tour package includes access to the castle, so I think we're all going to troop up there in the morning, though I've already seen it and so has Anne so we may duck out quickly and head to some art galleries. Friday we have a noon hour concert in St. Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile, and our final group dinner is that evening before most of the rest of the choir heads back to Canada.

I have to say that we've all been very pleasantly surprised by the food here. The hotel food has, predictably, been heavily into starch and grease, but in general there have been a lot more salads and vegetables than any of us were expecting. It would appear that Scotland's palate has become more sophisticated (and much healthier) in the last few years.
posted by Tom at 8:32 PM | link |