The Highs and Lows

We have one day left in the United Kingdom. The place we have called home for the last 347 days. It is a place we have both loved and loathed in equal measure and I think we will be genuinely sad to say goodbye to the old girl.
We thought we'd list a few of the things (high fidelity style) we will miss terribly and some which we will be kicking the door on with gusto!

So in no particluar order, here are the downers.

Kick List

1. London Water
That film on the top of your tea and the limescale that coats the in-erds of the kettle is just gross.

2. Black boogers from the Underground
Upon even the briefest journey in the London Underground you will find, on exiting, that your schnoz is now black and it's contents will remain so for the next few days.

3. Overdraft Fees
It will never be ok to take £25 in fees from anyone.

4. Chavs (Bogans in Aussie)
The best example of why sex education should be encouraged in schools.
(although, we have to say, the chavs over the road from our flat in Edinburgh did provide a lot of entertainment with their daily sagas in the street)



5. British Customer Service (or lack of it)
Waiting on a phone for an hour to be transferred five times and end up back at the first person who ends up telling you, they just don't know why the internet doesn't work and no, they can't do anything about it. Nice.

And now to finish on a high:

Miss List

1. Holyrood Park Edinburgh
Easily one of our favourite places in the world. This gloriously rugged parkland, bang in the centre of the city, is a little bit of paradise. You could easily be forgiven for thinking you were way out in the Scottish highland when rambling over the hillside, except of course for the view of the castle just up the end of the Royal Mile that runs between the two landmarks.



2. Tea Cakes
These gooey, choclatey, biscuty, foil wrapped parcels of goodness make everything ooooorr-rite.


3. The Shopping!!
The vast range of the clothing stores is like a revelation. The fabric shops are the stuff dreams are made of and the comic book stores are reasonably priced and well stocked.

4. Earning Pounds
Earning a legitimate currency is nice. Especially when you change into meager currencies like the the Croatian Kuna or say the Australian Dollar.

5. Black Boogers from the Underground
Yes, this does appear on both lists as you cannot help but be disgusted and enthralled at the same time. Come on, you know it's true.

Haddo, Cavalcades and Rain

Well we are counting down the days now until we pack up our bits for the last time and hit the road for home. We are trying to see and do as much as we can in our final weeks and therefore have been a little slack on the ol' blog. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on at the moment, making for plenty of activities. The only downer is that about 100,000 other people are also trying to see as much of Edinburgh as possible (of which about 50,000 are trying to stuff your hand with a flyer). Nae bother. Here are a few pics from what we have been up to in the last few weeks.

We spent one balmy Sunday arvo in Haddington. A beautiful market village about a half hour from Edinburgh.

This was our view of the Festival Cavalcade that kicks off the start of the festival. Some genius decided to put up a 7ft opaque fence along the street so that you can't actually see the parade pass. Nice.

Dunsapie Loch in Hollyrood Park in the twilight. The Loch was overflowing that evening after two and a half solid days of rain (this is supposed to be Summer).

View from our flat- advantages of being on the top floor.