I arrived in Edinburgh yesterday. I left the Rainbow Gathering two days ago. Apparently travelling by bus and train in England is quite expensive, unless you book in advance on certain discount bus lines. Not having done this, I was faced with buying a pretty pricey bus ticket to Edinburgh. Instead, I decided to try hitch hiking, having met lots of hitch hikers at the Rainbow Gathering and in Ireland. I was having fair luck at this, but ended up getting stuck at a service station outside Glasgow and had to spend the night in the woods. The next morning I got a lift into Glasgow and took a cheap bus to Edinburgh (just 45 miles away). I found hitching in this part of England to be fairly safe (this is a friendly part of the country, and none of my rides where at all dodgy). It’s pretty boring though. It was raining on and off yesterday, and standing in the rain watching cars pass you gets old fast. I think I’ll try to book buses in advance from here on out.
I was only in Glasgow for a few hours, but I took the opportunity to visit the National Piping Center and learned a great deal about the history of the highland bagpipe. I was a bit disappointed that the museum didn’t have much to say about other types of bagpipes or non-traditional uses of pipes (fusion music and such). In Edinburgh I wandered around a bit, and visit St. Cuthbert’s Cathedral, which turned out to be the burial site of John Napier, inventor of logarithms.
Edinburgh seems like a great city. And there’s tons of stuff going on, since this is the high point of the Edinburgh festival season (there are like six different festivals going on right now). I’m staying with Orion, a friend from back home.