Edinburgh the second

Plenty of Royal Mileage today.

Edinburgh Castle. Inside I saw the Stone of Destiny. I love Stones of Somethings and Somethings of Destiny, so it was an incredible opportunity.

Castle in relation to the city. It's like a sci-fi story where history starts to merge into a single point in time. Then the world ends or something.

View from the battery, with Calton Hill far left.

Aslan's all like, "What do you mean, no jam? I'll tell you where you can stick your marmalade".

Christmas tree in the castle's Great Hall. That woodwork though. Delicious.

Down at the other end of the Royal Mile, the Scottish Parliament building.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, Batman! This is the Queen's Scottish bach.

I quadranged like a monarch.

Narrow winding steps up to Mary Queen of Scots' bedchamber, wherein was a plaque stating "Here lay the body of David Rizzio after his murder in 1566", one of the best things I've ever seen at a historic attraction.

Holyrood Abbey, from the inside and from the gardens.

Old Calton Burial Ground, apparently. I chanced upon it through a door in a wall while heading up Calton Hill.

Robert Burns Monument.

Dramatic monument is dramatic. Although formerly it was known as "Scotland's Disgrace" as this is as far as they got with what was supposed to be a complete replica of the Parthenon.

View back to the castle from Calton Hill. Hopefully not within range of cannon from earlier.

Christmas tree of the day.

And just in case I hadn't stood around gaping in amazement enough today, the Street of Light, a light show set to Christmas music on the Royal Mile. So amazing that I used my phone's video function for perhaps the first time ever:

Finally, Ann, if you're reading this: it happened. I am in the presence of The Headboard. It's more glorious than the human brain can comprehend.

Edinburgh the first

I was momentarily dismayed to find I was arriving in Edinburgh as darkness fell and that somehow a 45 minute flight had sucked up an entire day, but investigation of a clock face revealed it was only 3.30pm. As someone who enjoys a closer relationship with the equator, I find this hard to comprehend.

Edinburgh might be alright, but it's hard to tell under all the Christmas (that's a total lie it's CLEARLY amazing).

Edinburgh's main Christmas market stretches along one bank of what I can't stop thinking is a river. But there is no river. It's just a gully with train tracks in it.

Traditional yuletide centrifugal forces.

Acceptable level of festiveness attained.

Looking down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle, which I hope to storm tomorrow.

Christmas tree of the day.

Now I must get back to this Irish folk ballad I'm composing - "I Left My Toothpaste in Galway".

Galway the third

Back in Dublin now, the second of three arrivals I'll be making here as part of the most poorly planned trip ever. But who cares - I've already seen more Christmas markets than Starbucks, so totally worth it.

Merry Christmas from Claregalway, a place I did not know existed yesterday. But Cormie spotted there was a market at Claregalway Castle so away we went, about 20 minutes from Galway by bus. 

Claregalway Castle. We didn't go into the tower because as part of the market there was puppet show inside and we caught a peek at one of the puppets and it was more terrifying than any number of armed guards would have been.

Claregalway Castle dragon. Given where it's perched, I don't want to know what its hoard consists of.

Claregalway Friary. It's pretty much a ruin, but still with an active graveyard, within which I gave Cormac a dramatic recitation of my poem about Symonds Street Cemetery:

Upon a cold and stormy night

Two drunken bums got in a fight

'Twixt gravestones was the battle set

And ghosts arose to place their bets

...while crows provided the requisite creepy atmosphere with occasional cawing and swooping in and out of the tower.

Back in Galway we visited first St Nicholas's Church, where that cross started flashing a warning signal, clearly detecting mass amounts of sin and cynicism in the vicinity soon as we approached.

We then swung by Galway Cathedral. Guess how many hundreds of years old this place is. 

Half. Half of one hundred years - construction finished in 1965. I feel like the residents of Galway tried to put one over on God here, like "what are you talking about dude, this has been here the whole time, it's CLEARLY ancient".

We capped off Galway with a quadrang at the university campus, where we pondered deep questions such as whether we'd have been inspired to put more effort in at uni if we'd been studying at an institution as impressive-looking as this. We also coined the verb 'to quadrang', which is, to traverse a quadrangle - our small contribution to a fine academic legacy.

Galway the second

I arrived in Galway after a plane, a plane, a plane, a bus and a train, unscathed but slightly befuddled, although I did manage to navigate LAX, operate a platform ticket machine and find a Cormac in the process. We got into Galway late, set out in search of dinner and found Christmas markets and I remembered why I was here and everything was amazing.

The next day, exploring:

Statue of Oscar Wilde. I've been trying to exercise my wit in his honour, but it's mostly been taking the form of mocking Cormac's turns of phase, which is ridiculous considering I'm the weird foreigner.

Galway Bay. Did a moderately epic walk along the water's edge.

During our walk we promenaded to and through Salthill. Salthill Promenade went moderately viral last week (see here for the Shatnerian original and here for the funky remix) and there was seaweed where there shouldn't ought to be after the flooding.

Green post box, which is apparently a standard thing and I don't know why I had to come to a museum to photograph one.

Art installation in Galway Museum. It was a cute and interesting museum, much like Galway itself. 

I don't know what happened here though. We either wandered into the future or the fiction wing of the museum, because this exhibit concerned some scientific research from the year 2400, involving eerily illuminated crystals in a dark room.

Pop-up Barvarian-themed bar at one of the Galway Christmas markets. The singer did a Sting cover in such a strong Irish accent that he actually sang "Every little ting she does is magic," which was delightful.

This is why I can never have an Instagram, because I don't photograph my drinks until after I'm finished. Also, did you know mulled wine has spirits in it? Because we did not, until the bartender said "Rum or brandy?"

This carousel is terrifying and these are clearly the 26 ponies of the apocalypse.

LA-London-Dublin-Galway the first

I had to leave the entire hemisphere to escape the temptation of the bottle of fancy wine in my fridge that's earmarked for Christmas Day. So now I'm in Galway. Touristing to follow.

Cool view from the plane on the runway in Auckland.

New York the fifteenth

I picked a good day to escape from New York. There's lootings where the power is out, violence in the gas station queues, the distinct smell of garbage piling up - the sanitation services have all been reassigned to storm cleanup duty.

Not to say New York still isn't amazing. It was crisp and sunny, the subway was free, and I had 90 minutes for a final fling.

The Lincoln Centre is a bunch of performing arts venues all together in a huge amazing complex. It's also where the Juilliard School is - you know, that place that people get accepted to and then can't attend because of dramatic reasons.

Lincoln Centre doggie.

The Metropolitan Opera House is currently showing a season of The Tempest. How spookily prescient.

I had no idea Chuck Bass lived on the West Side.

My last view of New York from the cab. The car service I had booked to the airport had to cancel due to no gas. I was super lucky to get a cab, and the driver told me he queued at a gas station from 1am until 6am. I suspected he was exaggerating, until we passed a queue for gas at least a kilometre long. Bloody hell. Needless to say, I tipped like a Rockefeller.

This was scribbled on the back of the driver's seat in my cab. How appropriate.

New York the fourteenth

Mostly shopping today. I only like shopping under two conditions: that I know what I want, and that I know where to get it. Souvenir shopping does not meet either of these requirements - but it's the unspoken price for getting picked up at the airport at the other end.

This is actually yesterday - Halloween cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. I hope that the storm had thrown them off their game somehow and these are not the cupcakes that built an empire, because the half of one I ate was really really awful. I do like the black cat hiding in the icing though.

Amongst the Ns at the United Nations. Hi Helen!

O...K then.

Oh, this is really cool - the Helmsley Building on Park Ave. It's built over the road and the cars tunnel through it.

Not that I haven't already passed this way several times, but I finally got a photo. Wheeee!

Yikes. Overkill much?

Self portrait, Saks Fifth Avenue window.

Rat sculpture. Tee hee.

The astute reader will have noticed I'm not at the basketball right now. Postponed. Bah. No giant foam finger for Amy.