‘Oh.’ Elle brightened immediately, understanding. It was a rather overcast, dull-looking day, but she was so happy to finally arrive that she hadn’t really noticed.

‘Where’d you fly in from?’

‘Australia,’ Elle said. ‘I can’t remember what day it was when I left,’ she added dryly.

‘Long way,’ he agreed.

A bloody long way. Elle sat back in her seat and tried to soak up as much of her new surroundings as possible as they drove through the streets of Edinburgh. The driver happily chatted away as he deftly manoeuvred his cab along roads no wider than a narrow residential street back home, which here had to fit massive tour buses and other vehicles side by side through the ancient city.

They made their way from the relatively open spaces of the airport and through house-lined streets, until eventually the roads became cobbled and the buildings grew decidedly older. Brightly painted fronts sat alongside restaurants, cafes and tourist shops, as well as instantly recognisable chain stores, all flashing past in a rainbow of colours. Tourists carrying maps and backpacks stood in the middle of the rocky roads taking photos, while locals moved briskly around them, going about their usual Wednesday. Cyclists rode in and out of traffic, swerving effortlessly as pedestrians and cars pulled out around them.

Cathedrals and statues, churches and fenced graveyards sat between fashion stores and gift shops. The buildings, most made from stone blocks, ranged in shades of sand and brown and light grey, to darker greys that reminded Elle of the wet rocks down in the creek they swam in back home.

Maybe it was the dreich day—she smiled a little at the new word she’d learned—that made the city look so morbid and dark, but she suspected that even in bright sunshine these old buildings would look eerie, like something out of medieval storybook. This was in stark contrast to the atmosphere, though—it was anything but bleak. There was so much life here.

Cars merged and cut in front of them and Elle held her breath, expecting a loud curse or the blast of a horn, but none came from her driver or from any of the vehicles around them.

‘Everyone’s so polite on the roads over here,’ she ventured after another car decided it was in the wrong lane and swiftly cut across a bus in front of them.

‘There’s no point getting upset,’ her driver said, catching her eye in the rear-view mirror with a lopsided smile. ‘It doesn’t get you where you’re going any faster to blow the horn,’ he added with a shrug.

The taxi dropped her off in front of a row of elegant townhouses in the new part of Edinburgh. Elle chuckled a little. Even the new part of Edinburgh was older than most buildings in Australia.