The statues and street signs know where it's at

After last week's walk, where I neglected to see the statue of a certain Austrian bodybuilder, I vowed to correct the omission as soon as possible.

That happened today.

I'm not sure how life sized or proportionate it is, but it stands tall among the skyscrapers.

Not only does Columbus get pumped up one weekend a year, we're also one of the seven most intelligent cities in the world.

And here's proof.

William McKinley is pleased.

And so ended today's downtown walk.

Plans and ambition

I live in a city, yet am on the west side of downtown and rarely go there. My blood pressure is stupidly high and needs to drop, along with about thirty pounds. So I decided to run a few errands and include a downtown walk as part of an early Saturday afternoon.



Did you know that Columbus has on the downtown riverfront, a full size replica of the Santa Maria? Now you do. It was built for the ill-fated Ameriflora exhibit in 1992 and has been docked down there ever since. If I recall right, the ship is rotated every year to keep the deterioration even. It's not the money maker the titans thought it would be, but neither was Ameriflora.



Naturally, our City Hall has a statue of one of the most renowned creators of genocide in history. We also have a statue of Arnold Schwartzenegger just on the other side of the river from City Hall. Next walk I'll get a pic of that.




I've lived here 22 years and swear I've never noticed that sign until today, despite having been by it hundreds, if not thousands of times. Maybe it was the angle?



Setting up in Columbus Commons for Picnic with the Pops tonight. There will be fireworks. I have thoughts about that stage.



This is another stage I have thoughts about, and it may be more realistic than the one at Columbus Commons, or not.

Good little walk I hope to repeat often. The route can be altered to form a decent circle with the Scioto Mile as a starting and finishing point.

Auld Reekie

The only time I was in Edinburgh was in December 2007. The winter sun blinded me as we exited Waverly Station, the wind was persistently cold. The walk toward the castle was an intimidating tourist trap of age, bagpipes blaring out of every shop window and history.

Sunday's visit was different. We took a cab from Waverly to our B&B, got the key from the owner, put our bags on the bed, stopped at a shop for some snacks and went to Arthur's Seat



That was the view from the window of our B&B. I'm just going to post a few pictures here to depict our ascent. We took the hard route, which we probably should not have, but we did not know any better. We did not know about the relatively easy path on the other side, the one we took down!

Some things you have to work for, and the wife and I worked hard for these pictures.










If you look there, you see Emma doing some rock climbing. She did the rock proud!

As you see it's a clear day, it was also a lot warmer than we expected. Going the tougher route really took a lot out of us. But we continued and prevailed.





Em' decided not to make it all the way up, but I continued, only to be rewarded by a Midge attack. As you see, I'm happy, but being swarmed by the beasties, as was everyone else up there.



Em's down there somewhere.






There's the path down, which eventually led us to what is alleged to be The oldest bar in the U.K. The refreshments were well needed, and we beat the crowd.






The image above is of the legendary Heart of Midlothian. That is not my spit.

We were in the city on the last day of the Fringe Festival, and I have to say the service workers in bars and restaurants were more than a bit surly. I get that they wanted it over, but there was one wanker bartender who did not seem to want to sell us the refreshments we wanted. I'll call him a tASShole.



Here, they were nice.

There's something about the city that gives me bad vibes. Sure, there's plenty of history but the citizens have to realize that tourism is giving them work, and not a reason for them to act like douches. Oh, the guy who sold me Buckfast (more about in an upcoming post), he was cool. I was respectful the whole time and nearly had my head handed to me when I made a wrong turn in the B&B and put my head into the owner's private quarters. It was not just bad luck, they're not as friendly a bunch in Edinburgh as they are in the rest of the places I traveled to in the country. I think it's time to go someplace else during our next trip over.