It's a magical world

• People in the UK still smoke like chimneys and I had forgotten that it is absolutely disgusting. This tells me that cigarettes are way too cheap. Incomes in the UK are low! Make smoking more expensive and people will stop!
• Since the UK shot itself in both feet with Brexit, the exchange rate is no longer murderously against the U.S. dollar. It was about 1.67 when I first visited in 2000 and maybe about the same when I went back in 2014 and 2015, but now that it's about 1.28 the prices are pretty comparable to California. Which enabled me to finally realize that price levels even in London are actually pretty low -- which isn't to say that London isn't an expensive city or that you can't spend £££ on everything you want, but yeah, this is definitely a country where the GDP per capita is just 27th worldwide. It's a shame that Labour is ruling out most tax increases, because an actual wealth tax would give them much more money to fund public services and actually improve things.
• The LNER high speed trains are pretty slow for HSR and they need to double the luggage rack space. I suppose since the track isn't elevated/grade separated there's only so much they can do, but they should definitely go faster.
• Edinburgh Waverly is a nice station but it is at or pretty close to capacity, it was a real zoo getting in and out of there.
• They really need to revive HS2. There are still signs up about it in Euston (awkward), and there's really just no alternative. 
• We were able to get around entirely by bus, subway, walking, and train, which is expected in London but I was proud of us in Edinburgh and Glasgow, where the mass transit basically stops between 6pm and 9pm on Sundays and we just wound up hiking back and forth around town. In Edinburgh we went to Craigmillar Castle on foot from Duddingston and then had to tramp through a field to get to the bus stop back into town, which I was very proud of us for. All in all the buses were great and ScotRail is definitely a pretty reliable operator (the £5 convention train pass is also quite nice), except when they had to cancel trains because they didn't have enough staff.
• We took the Caledonian sleeper from London to Glasgow, and then in the seats cabin from Fort William to Glasgow. It was a nice experience and I'd do it again but I will also bring duct tape to stick over the awful bright LED indicators in the sleeper cabins. I have a line on a travel memory foam pillow and a travel pillow that supports the neck and I need to get them.
• I am a museum person, so we ducked into the V&A, which is excellent as always, but my favorite of the trip was actually the Kelvingrove in Glasgow, despite the weird taxidermy everywhere. The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh is chaotic, poorly organized and laid out, and crowded. 
• We took a lot of tours and they were mostly pretty cool -- the Barbican architecture tour, the Aldwych Tube stop tour, and a ghost tour in Edinburgh. The latter was through Mercat and yup, the vaults are definitely haunted. I didn't feel anything emotionally, but I definitely felt cold spots and heard some unexplained noises, as did my brother. So if you want a ghost experience, do that tour.
• Edinburgh was so crowded. I was warned, but it's been ~20 years since I was wandering around bona fide tourist areas at the height of tourist season in Italy and Prague, and I'd forgotten. Plus the geography of the Old and New Towns means that there are really only a few north-south streets for everyone to walk on so it's just a bunch of choke points. The Fringe definitely added a fun vibe of markets on the streets, don't get me wrong, but I while I want to go back I would definitely not go back in August if I could at all avoid it. 
• Relatedly, we did a lot of outdoors-y things which enabled us to get away from the crowds--climbing Arthur's Seat and then walking to Craigmillar Castle, hiking the loop trail near Rosslyn Chapel (which we didn't get to see; next time, although why they don't extend opening hours in August is beyond me), going to Kew Gardens and Highgate Cemetery (in the rain; the last time I tried to go see Karl Marx's grave it was also raining and so cold that I turned back, but not this time), the Necropolis and the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow (except the signs in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens were written by a weird anti-vanilla truther??? Sorry, but vanilla does actually have a flavor, you numpty!), going to see the bandstand in Battersea Park, and on my last day in London I went to see the Crystal Palace dinosaurs and ate a chestnut crepe and a chicken cranberry sage Scotch egg from the weekend vendors. We also went to see Grimaldi's grave and wandered along the canals near King's Cross, which was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
• We took the West Highland line from Glasgow to Mallaig, though not the steam train because they are fighting with the regulators about the doors on their trains. Not taking the steam train meant that we had time to take the ferry to Knoydart and have a pint at the remotest pub in Britain, the Old Forge, which is now community-owned and was delightful.
• I really liked Glasgow, and I need to go back to check out the rest of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings we didn't get to see, which makes sense as I had never heard of Mackintosh until I went to the Kelvingrove, despite the fact that we booked afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms on Sauchiehall Street, which was quite good.
• Haggis was very tasty, as was the black pudding. I'm realizing now that we didn't really eat enough Scottish cheese, another oversight to remedy on a future trip. We went to The Aragon in Glasgow, which was fortuitously having its weekly traditional music night, and also had the best Guinness I've had since I was in Ireland. My brother: "This tastes like soy sauce." Me: "That's how it's supposed to taste."
• We ate at Dishoom twice, in Battersea and in Edinburgh, and it was so good. I have the cookbook and I need to see about making the Ruby Murray with tofu.
• I successfully bent the algorithm on one of my Instagram accounts to deliver me Scotland content and we got some pretty good stuff to check out because of it. Between that and Reddit and Seat61, we did pretty well, augmented a little by the trusty Rough Guide.
• My brother and I take vacations that would kill other people. I walked around 130 miles and he walked around 150 since he spent some of the days I was at the con hiking. This was a good one, and also my feet were much less destroyed than when I went to Japan last year (when we walked more miles per day). I mostly wore my hiking sneakers and that was a good choice.
• The Elizabeth line is so good. It would have been so good in 2014 when we were all sitting on the poky DLR out to the Excel Centre. I love it and want it for the States.
• Also London was full of Swifties on our last weekend and it was a fun vibe. Also we walked from Tottenham Court Road to Seven Dials and saw a dude doing heroin in the street in broad daylight. Which makes me realize...I guess people in the UK aren't doing fentanyl? In San Francisco it would have been fentanyl or maybe crack.
• We were pretty conscientious about masking indoors and on transit, with the exception of restaurants and bars, although we did take the opportunity to eat outside as much as possible. I did unmask to eat in the convention center a few times--the Clydeside Bar was right under the HVAC so it felt pretty okay--but I didn't go to barcon in the Crowne Palace at all. It sounds like a lot of people got covid, which, yeah, not surprising. I was expecting more people to mask, honestly, especially since the UK is also in a summer covid surge.

The result is immediate: an impeccable performance. Instruments that everyone plays constitute a melody of memories of past presentations. They treat each musical instrument as an extension of stage presence. The ritual on stage exploded by Edgard Guillén`s Peruvian theater, remains in force with the "yuyas". They have a well defined group culture, not only between the actors and the director, but they work at La Casa Yuyachkani. At Con-cierto olvido, mask work is impeccable: before, during and after use, are respected for their meaning to cultural tradition. Con-cierto olvido collected poems, songs and musical pieces that evoke texts by authors such as Edward Gordon Craig, Bertolt Brecht, Jorge Manrique, and the "yuyas" own plays. In this review of the memory of his service, the actors play different instruments like guitar, charango, mandolin, violin, saxophone, trumpet or clarinet. Great musicians and actors. Yuyachkani, which means "I'm thinking, I'm remembering", invites us to take a cultural tour and a tour of life we can not miss. This is one of the best theater groups in Peru and the world. True to form, seeking truth "not believing they are the owners of it" as they say. The play is over, but [I'm] still standing, clapping.