I really like Edinburgh.

It is a city which looks very ancient. There is a castle (a big one, and pretty old, too), there are old stone houses, there are narrow streets. The city looks like it has several levels, with at least three big hills and stairs and steep streets. (The hills are most likely ancient volcanos.)

On Friday, my arrival was smooth, without a problem. However, there was a guy who could not say the same. He was a member of a bigger group (probably a stag party), and they were drinking a lot in the train already (when I came, they had had probably 2-3 beers, and since Preston, they have emptied maybe another 4 cans (0.5 l) each. They were loud, making stupid jokes, talking randomly to people (me included), and acting like drunk people in a train. The funny thing was, they wanted to alight on Edinburgh Haymarket, and one of them forgot his stuff in the train (?!), so he had to go back, running through the car like crazy, and then the train just closed the door and left with this guy in it. Thinking about it now, he was actually kinda lucky. If they had wanted to leave the train in, say, Carlisle, and he wouldn't make it, then that would be a problem. But Haymarket is maybe a mile from Edinburgh Waverley. Not a big deal, just a funny start of an undoubtedly difficult drinking weekend.

On Saturday, not much happened. We just wandered the city, and then watched some rugby in a pub. Mind you, the game makes absolutely no sense. People are fighting pointlessly over a weird ball and running into each other all the time. I thought that the point was to bring the ball somewhere, which is better done if you do not run into other people all the time, but who am I to tell English people how to play rugby...

Today, we went for a long walk which almost turned into a mountain hike. There is a 'mountain' in Edinburgh, called Artur's Seat. It is not high, so it is probably only a hill, but it seems impressive, it's relatively high and with some steep cliff-like stones and things. We wanted to go to the top of this mountain (hill). We did not know that behind this hill, there are other hills / mountains hidden, which are even bigger. We've decided to climb the highest one, and found that a) there was an incredible amount of mud, b) there was an incredible amount of people, c) it was not the best idea to climb a muddy mountain in our not-so-sporty shoes.

It seems that these hills are very popular destination, there were many people - students, families, tourists, dog-owners. And once we got there, we immediately understood why - the view is stunning. You can see everything, the sea, the city, the castle, everything.

It was all very nice.... but then, the way down, well, that was a bit more adventurous. On our way up, at least half of the mud was still frozen so it was possible to walk (the possibility was limited but it was there). On our way down, 80% of mud was really mud (the finest Scottish mud), and the rest was grass covered in morning frost. Guess what is more slippery!

Anyway, we survived. When we came down the mountains, we immediately noticed something very Scottish. It was maybe 4 C today, but the sun was shining, and for the Scottish Highlanders from Edinburgh, it was probably too hot.... because there was an ice-cream van, selling ice cream, and there was a queue, and people (some of them in T-shirts) were buying and actually eating the ice cream. O_o

In the afternoon, we went to Scottish National Gallery to see some paintings. That was also very good, and very high culture, and the space is nice, and while the collection is not as huge as in Paris or Munich, the paintings are still stunning.

But honestly, I just wonder they let us in. We were not exactly covered in mud after the mountain hike, but we were not exactly in our Sunday best either!