It's my final day in Edinburgh - tonight, I will take an overnight train to London. Although it's only been 10 days since I left Australia, it seems like I left months ago. Yesterday, I perused the local newspaper and found pages upon pages of cricket analysis - Australia and England have just finished the Ashes series. Two weeks ago, I was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, hearing the English fans sing "God Save Your Queen" (quite clever) and the Aussie fans respond with chants of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi oi oi!" (I think the Aussies need to come up with better chants - or at least a greater variety.) Now, I'm sitting in the cafes of a city with a castle perched atop a hill, and the newspapers are filled with stories from journalists who are spending months in the cities of Australia, trying to put their Down Under experience in perspective for their British readership.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend church at St Giles, most famous for being the home church of John Knox, the founder of Presbyterianism in Scotland. Later that evening, I attended a concert at the same church, a musical and liturgical portrait of 18th century Scotland as seen by travelers. Through the songs of Haydn, the sounds of the harpsichord, the words of Lord Cockburn, and the visual delights of a grand cathedral, I could connect with travelers from 200 years ago.
I can only imagine what people 200 years from now will think about modern-day travel: airport pat-downs, blogs, Lonely Planet, discount airlines, hostels.
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