Yesterday I took the train from Edinburgh, Scotland, back to the Manchester area after spending a couple days exploring Edinburgh. During my first visit to Scotland, I had a chance to try some haggis (as part of a full breakfast), do an L-sit on top of Arthur's Seat (pictured below), see a statue commemorating Adam Smith (not pictured below), see and hear the 1:00pm cannon shot, browse the Scottish National Museum, take a look at the Crown Jewels of Scotland (and the Stone of Destiny), and make some new friends.
It was too windy for me to do a handstand here. My baseball hat blew off three times.
At the half-way point of this trip, I have had heaps of fun, and met a wide variety of interesting people. As one would expect, I have met lots of people at the track. The velodrome has a curious ability to bring together people of different nationalities, languages, and customs to simultaneously attack each other in points races but have fun and become friends.
I have also met quite a few people outside the walls of the National Cycling Centre. At hostels, on trains, in restaurants, and walking along sidewalks, I have crossed paths with all kinds of interesting people. They have been traveling around, having fun, exploring, and broadening their world view.
Last week in Manchester, I crossed paths for the 2nd time with a Canadian who has been traveling the UK and Europe. We first met at a hostel in Liverpool, and kept each other company will cooking and eating dinner. When we crossed paths two weeks later in Manchester, it was a bit like seeing an old friend. To be fair, we barely knew each other, but when you are far from home, even a half-way familiar and friendly face can be comforting. Since we met up a 2nd time without specifically planning to, we made a point of going for beers and spent some more time hanging out before continuing on our separate ways.
Upon arriving in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening, I checked into a hostel there and was rather surprised to walk into my room and see another Canadian who had been in the same dorm room as me in Manchester about two weeks ago. What are the chances? Well, not overwhelmingly high, but also not so low as to be terribly surprised. So, my three days in Edinburgh ended up being spent primarily with a group of Canadians who were all traveling separately but whose paths intersected in Edinburgh.
At this point I am feeling very fortunate to have crossed paths with so many nice, friendly, and interesting people so far. Here's to another four weeks of good paths! Cheers!
While writing this blog post (riding the train from Manchester to Birmingham), I found a couple of old draft blog posts. They'll be added over the next couple weeks.
Here is one about an interesting conversation I had in Boulder, shortly before embarking on my drive to California for velodrome nationals:
The morning before I left Boulder, I had a brief (but strange) conversation at the traffic light at the intersection of 13th and Pine. A fellow cyclist on a mountain bike rolled up next to me. The conversation went something like this:
Guy – Nice day for a ride.
Me – Yeah.
Guy – Are you riding far today?
Me – Just heading home from a doctor appointment. You?
Guy – I'm going up Flagstaff.
Me – That's a bit of a climb.
Guy – Yeah. I'm going to do hill sprint repeats.
Me – Ok.
Guy – They are pretty awesome for some people.
Me - …
Guy – Like me.
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