Jolly Times in Sandy Bells and Royal Oak

This is a pub in Edinburgh, Scotland, where we spent many hours. Every day, there is live music at night, half 10, and on Saturday & Sunday in the afternoon. It is messy, it is dark, hot and steaming when it is a rainy day. As you may know the habit from all over GB, the pints are filled up to the edge, you pick them at the counter and offer the local spirits a sip before you can reach your seat. People who play instruments just come round to join, sometimes playing together for the first time; sometimes people who give concerts later come and just have fun with others.

They put a violin in my hands! Help! This is the
first time I ever touched such an instrument.
This was not my idea, but it felt good.

Anyone who will not spoil the session can join, they even passed the guitar over to me, sometimes the session goes a bit jazzy when Freddy has his Grapelli hour. He is well able to play the traditional violin, he just thinks it is too boring.
We listened to a man with Scottish small pipes, sorry for the dark pictures, and it is just a snippet, as an appetizer.
Here is another video from the same place, but taken by someone else. Sorry, my camera wasn't really made for taking videos.

What the Driver said

What is in the black waters of Loch Ness? The driver of our bus is a very skeptical man, and from the start, he had not believed in the legend. First, he read about the Irish monk Columba who reported his sightings of "sea horses" in  the year 565. Then, our driver had an opportunity to talk to an eye witness who used to go fishing to a remote and hard-to-reach loch which is almost as deep as Ness. He said he had seen such phenomena and -- as our driver said -- he was not the kind of person to lie to you; our driver looked straight into his eyes when he spoke.
Another person who was familiar with the story: A marine biologist who made sonar research. He said that there was something definitely "but we don't know what it is. Sometimes it is gone completely".
Recently, someone promised a 1 Million £ reward for evidence which means that nobody shares his knowledge any more.

Guess where we were

Yes you guessed right. This is Loch Ness.

We spent most of the time in Edinburgh. This picture was taken on a day trip to the Highlands.

I will make galleries out of my photo collection, but not tonight; we just returned, it is almost midnight, and we had a flight through bad weather that rocked us a lot.

We saw most places by walking! From our B&B, we took the bus to the center of Edinburgh, then walked and walked.

No, we did not take this taxi, just one from the airport to our bed & breakfast and one on the way back today. This country was the right choice for our trip! We enjoyed every moment of it.

J: Flying to Scotland and back with me