Is it the squealing that makes you think I'm a tourist?

This is what the tube platform at Angel looks like when you're on your way to catch a train at 7:15 on a Sunday morning:

Everyone standing around at King's Cross Station wondering why there are almost no seats in a waiting area.  Also, possibly one of us (not pictured) was wondering why the platform for a train leaving at 8:40 had not been announced by 8:35. 

Views from the train at various points north. (NB to parents of small children going on a long train journey:  Please bring something for them to do.) 

Those are sheep! 

Beautiful!  Ignore the squashed bugs on the window please! 

JY on the train.  He's crocheting and trying to pretend that his daughter is not across from him saying, "Sheep...sheep...sheep!" every few minutes.  I am not, incidentally, the child referred to in the previous note.  I *did* have things to do.

We arrived in Edinburgh, Waverly Station, after 2:00 and took a taxi to our flat.  The taxi driver was very nice to us and did not point out that the flat was merely about 2.5 blocks from the station. 

We had two little flats in a building that looked just like these (we are on the third side), and this is the view of the garden from our windows.  Not pictured:  Squirrels Of Unusual Size, which were abundant. 

We walked up (or maybe it was down, I'm not really sure) Princes Street, which is a shopping high street on one side and has gardens on the other.  As a first-time visitor, I would describe Edinburgh as a sort of sideways "W," shape, with the old part of town on the first peak of the W, then dropping sharply down toward Princes Street Gardens, and rising up again more gently toward New Town (so called because it has merely been around since the Georgians) and then dropping off again toward the botanical gardens and the Firth of Forth.

 Part of Edinburgh Castle.

 Looking toward the old town from Princes Street.

The Waverly Station.  On the corner, if you squint, you can see a token Highland busker in his kilt.  JY said he was glad the piper was there, otherwise he would not remember he was in Scotland.

Eventually we turned toward New Town, and had dinner in George Street, at Brown's.

It looks empty, but filled up shortly.  We were early because of post-train hunger and tiredness.  (Special to A Certain Reader: Two orders of carrot and coriander soup for starters, then Sunday pork roast with tatties, Yorkshire pudding and cauliflower cheese and steak and ale pie for our mains.)  The waiter was also very nice to us and made sure that, after our meal, we knew where we were going.  My friend Patty, who lives in Dalkeith outside Edinburgh, says that the locals are nicer to Americans in the winter, when the city is not overrun.