Edinburgh is for the Weird Kids

           Today a friend’s dad told me about a conversation he’d had with his thirteen year old son: imagine if we could drill a hole directly through the earth and figure out who or what was directly opposite us, better yet imagine if they were people you already knew.  In just over a week a plane will land this Aussie halfway across the earth, ending a journey that began early August of last year and criss-crossed from an apartment in New York, to the warehouses of London, a house in the middle of nowhere on the Isle of Man and the castles of Edinburgh.  Right now I hover in the in-between and am thinking about the two places on either side, places that have made me feel like a tectonic plate with a giant crack through the middle.  Dramatic yes, but I fall in love with places like I do with people.      
          People here have a horrifically outdated image of Australia.  Kangaroos are still the main mode of transportation, all musical talent is still solely possessed by Kylie Minogue and the men are still clones of Paul Hogan or the Crocodile Hunter.  Seedy is the only word for Australia Day at the Oz bar and my friends may never visit me because of it.  The best discovery has been the reality show “I’m a Celebrity Get me Outta Here” where a bunch of UK celebrities are dumped in the Australian ‘jungle’- jungle being the official word used by the show. If you’re wondering where Australia’s jungle is, it’s Murwillumbah in the Tweed Shire of New South Wales, the valley inland from Byron. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to describe Edinburgh and the UK to my Australian friends and Australia to my friends here, for the benefit of all I’m going to write a mini blog series, starting with Edinburgh.

 

          Edinburgh is the weird kid who wears the kilt to the party and confuses fiction and fantasy.  Maybe that’s why I love it.  Edinburgh is where I lived with a med student from South Korea, a sorority girl who changed my understanding of a sorority, a linguist who plays Quidditch, a lyrical genius Geordie and a mountain-climbing illustrator.  
          In Edinburgh/Scotland/the UK there are no things crawling on the walls, flying through the air, or slithering across the ground.  The air-waves are eerily still and quiet.  It’s not something you think will make all that much of a difference but then you go from a patio where you spent hours watching a battle between a stick insect and a gecko, or where the underside of lizards are like art deco stickers on windows, or where Summer nights are symphonies of crickets, to this... emptiness.  I didn’t even see an arachnid until last week and it was a sorry excuse for one.  But the air can be heavy with other things, like the mist or hail that descends on a perfectly fine day and lasts only a few minutes.  
          Edinburgh wears a mood ring.  In winter the Meadows can be shrouded in a dark mist, gales blowing through the park while a few dark figures with hoods pulled over their heads walk through the archway of bare trees to the warmth of their houses.  In spring the same walk is through cherry blossoms in full bloom, past bright orange tulips, daffodils, daisies and the most emerald green grass I’ve ever seen. On a sunny day the city is completely different, everyone pours out onto the streets and parks to stock up on much-needed vitamin D.  
          Edinburgh is the storyteller’s city.  With the Castle overlooking the city and the dramatic Arthur’s seat like a wall on another side, the city is unusually designed.  After a ghost tour we discovered the city doesn’t just extend upwards and sidewards but down into the Edinburgh vaults, a series of chambers underground which housed taverns, brothels, was a meeting place for cobblers, tradesmen and a storage space for illicit material, reportedly including the bodies of people killed by serial killers Burke and Hare for medical experiments. The narrow laneways and cobblestone paths winding up and down off the main street create a labyrinth effect.  Sometimes the city feels like a village from the past, like on Bonfire night where half the city forms a procession onto Carlton hill and releases fireworks and Chinese lanterns into the sky.  But then you realise the city is racing into the future, leading in innovation in Science, Art and culture.  The City of Festivals: international festival, film festival, book festival, the Fringe, this city is built on festive.  During November and December the city is The North Pole.  

         Edinburgh is the only place you can sit in a tiny packed old man’s pub and sing along to the band next to a dog named Whiskey; be serenaded by bagpipers on the main street; use a Castle as a compass; order sheep organs off normal menus; feel closer to Hogwarts then you might ever get in your life; and find out what is actually under a kilt, yes I unintentionally obtained such knowledge.  Right, going to abruptly finish here as there’s a creepy man staring at me from across the room (not in my house, at a cafe).   Thank you to the people of Edinburgh who gave me sun where it lacked. Smooth. Ok creepy man being extra-creepy. Have a great Summer UK people and Aussies I’ll be seeing you soon.  For yet another winter.  Next post on the Australia where you don’t have to journey for days to find provisions and a waterhole and so convince all of you to come visit one day.