Joachim Breitner's Homepage

After about 18 hours of public transport, I arrived tired but savely in Edinburgh. Chairs in DB night trains are not the same as chairs in CityNightLine trains, but if you have only two people in a compartment, you can atleast spread out on three seats. I still didn’t get too much good sleep. The Eurostar train from Paris to London behaves as if it were a plane: Long queues before check in, security and passport checks. The benefit of taking a train (hassle-freeness) gets somewhat lost there, and it feels as if it was the marketing department’s descision. The train itself is comfortable and has power plugs − nice.

In London I had to take the underground from Waterloo International Station to Kings Cross. If I had bought a simple one way ticket paid in cash, they would have charged me £4, but with the so-called Oyster-Card, it’s only £1.50. But please, if you put ads and leavlets for that card all over the place, mention somewhere that the card itself is basically free! Well, I had to ask to find that out and got myself the cheap ticket.

The train to Edinburgh was not different to German trains, besides the fact that it offered on-board wireless network. Pricy, but still reasonable, and not entirely secured.

In Edinburgh I tried to go to the hostel first, but walked too far and ended up in Teviot, where the DebCamp is happening, just in time for Dinner. My first brief impression of Edinburgh is: Massive, Dark, Old. Not bad! Also the room I’m sitting in right now, the Hack Center, looks lik an old curch, with coloured glass and a balcony around it.