{"id":79,"date":"2007-08-31T09:05:39","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T08:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rad.net.nz\/blog\/archives\/79"},"modified":"2007-08-31T09:05:39","modified_gmt":"2007-08-31T08:05:39","slug":"first-day-in-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/2007\/08\/31\/first-day-in-edinburgh\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day in Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have spent my first full day in Edinburgh after arriving here on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The new Air NZ Boeing 777 I took out of Auckland was awesome featuring more leg room and a brilliant entertainment system (but too hard to navigate, and the handset should have a lock on it to prevent calling the hostesses by accident). The plane made even the long trip to LA bearable. The shorter trip to Frankfurt was a nightmare by comparison.<\/p>\n

I was disappointed by the lack of free internet at various airports. One kiosk charged 18euro an hour for access. A real hardship when one has to wait several hours in an airport.<\/p>\n

I saw three movies on the Auckland to LA flight: Blades of Glory (6\/10); The World’s Fastest Indian (7.5\/10) and Shrek the Third (6.5\/10). On the jounrney also I read Faith and Politics After Christendom: The Church as a Movement for Anarchy (After Christendom)<\/a>\"\"<\/em> by Jonathan Bartley. It is more of a survey of the shifting grouns in church and state relations in the UK than an Christian anarchist manifesto, which is what I was expecting. But such changing grounds means something else when one lives within a soceity with an established church. Just as the coloniser has trouble understanding decolonisation, it may seem to be anarchical to disestablish the Church of England.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I walked into town through the Royal Botanic Gardens. I was pleased to see a cabbage tree and later saw some gorse (a native of Scotland!). There was an insatlled exhibition of Hard Rain – the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song pset to photographs. It was quite striking – check out the website: http:\/\/www.hardrainproject.com\/exhibition.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

I then headed into town and tried to find a call phone. While I abhor the lack of competition in NZ there is too much choice here -not only of companies, but also plans or lack thereof.<\/p>\n

I then walked up the Mound to New College and also sussed out where I’ll be living g soon. Then i walked across the Royal mile and down into the main University Area. There isnn’t much of a campus to speak of – it is mixed up with houses and shops and parks. But I’m sure it will have its own charm. I found a new favourite bookstore Word Power<\/a> and had a feed at a wholefood cafe.<\/p>\n

It is hard to believe that I’m fianlly here in Edinburgh. I feel a bit like Burt Munro in the the World’s Fastest Indian – having a dream and seeing it through.While I don’t expect to set a world record (a meaningless concept in theology) I hope to do some good and have some adventures. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have spent my first full day in Edinburgh after arriving here on Wednesday afternoon. The new Air NZ Boeing 777 I took out of Auckland was awesome featuring more leg room and a brilliant entertainment system (but too hard to navigate, and the handset should have a lock on it to prevent calling the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edinburgh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}