I arrived in the capital on Tuesday and have been busily running around town. First night, my mum’s uncle Fred took me out for a pint and — of all things — McDonald’s. The hotel is a lovely old club building at the quiet end of Grosvenor Street, with a view of St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Wednesday was me up at 5am and out for a walk around town. I hoofed it down Princes Street to just past the Nelson Monument in Calton, then across the bridge to the Royal Mile. Missed Holyrood, but walked under Edinburgh Castle, where I chatted up some Royal Scots Guard guys — they up on the tattoo field, me about 100 feet below on the street. I then managed to get horribly lost and wandered about 8 miles total, south past the Meadows, before finally finding my way back to Princes Street and the hotel.

Finding good wifi is impossible in the town. I finally got a rescue from Starbucks this morning. Bad coffee, good wifi — life’s a tradeoff. The buildings are heavy stone here, and I suspect the signals gets interfered with heavily. Also, the city council is too busy investing in 19th century technology — trams (that, apparently, NOBODY wants) rather than the 21st century infrastructure of ubiquitous free wifi. But they have CCTV cameras everywhere… So long, and thanks for the surveillance!

Weather was great yesterday: sunny and warm. Nice this morning but looking to rain tonight and tomorrow. There was, I thought, a random thunder blast last night that shook the hotel…turns out it was a suspected gas main explosion in an apartment building. Shockwave was felt throughout town, killed two kids and injured their mother. My first thought hearing the story: meth lab.

Pictures will follow. Due to the nature of iPad’s file system, I can’t upload pics right now. I did email them to Facebook.