Oh, Ello Edinburgh!

Today was the best day yet! I took a ton of pictures and this story just wouldn't be the same without most of them, so this post will be chock full! Me, Liz and Andy actually got our butts out of bed before noon and got ready to explore Edinburgh around ten. We got to the train station and realized we were half an hour early for our train out. We waited around for a bit...

and then decided - what better way to kill 30 minutes than to have a drink? 

So we walked down the street to the nearest pub and ordered a few pints.

After our Scottish breakfast, we walked back to the train and enjoyed the beautiful scenery all
the way to Edinburgh. Since Liz and I had already been a few times, we were Andy's
official tour guides to the city (there seems to be a pattern emerging here...).
Andy had forgotten his camera so I gave him mine and told him to have at it.

We started on the Royal Mile.

Made our way past the Scottish Monument.

Passed some sweet old buildings. Not sure what they are but maybe I should
by now as many times as I've walked past them all...

Took in the beauty of St. Giles Cathedral.



Passed by the Spitting Heart. The myth goes that you're not supposed to walk through it or you
will be cursed in love, and if you spit into the middle of it you will be lucky in love.

So we all spit on it (who doesn't want love?) and continued on.

There was a wee detour into a costume/joke shop, just to see what we could see.
Here's what we saw - that I have a pretty amazing/scary Viking face.




We were hungry after all that walking, so we stopped for lunch at this cute little place called
Biddy Mulligan's. It was a gorgeous day so we sat at a table outside and perused over the menu.
I was pretty stoked to find that they had a baked potato stuffed with sausage and baked beans!!
Talk about yummy. A nice cold Carlsberg rounded out my meal.



After lunch we decided to walk up to see Edinburgh Castle and the awesome view of the city
from the top of the Royal Mile. We walked around the entrance to the castle before being politely informed by an employee that tickets were £15 a piece. So we walked back outside, took a few pictures, and went on our merry way. We had just been to Stirling Castle and we figured,
if you've seen one castle you've seen them all. How different can they be?

Arthur's Seat was our next scheduled stop, and as we made our way back down the
Royal Mile we ran into a bunch of cool stuff on the street that distracted us for at least an hour.
First was a statue of David Hume, a famous Scottish philosopher. Liz and Andy weren't thrilled,
but I spent a lot of time in my undergrad Philosophy classes learning about Hume,
so I was (possibly) more excited than one should be about a statue.

How did I miss this the first time I was in Edinburgh?

Then there was a guy who was trying to escape a straightjacket and and some metal chains. I was slightly entertained so I convinced Andy and Liz to stop. We watched him wiggle around for about 10 minutes before he said into his little microphone that he appreciated tips, but didn't want anything except bills or £1 coins! I couldn't believe the audacity of this guy, turning away what were the American equivalent of quarters, nickles, and dimes, especially since he wasn't doing anything especially amazing, so we left.
Doesn't he know that quarters add up with a quickness?




Up next was a man in full traditional Scottish garb playing the bagpipes,
which has most definitely got to be harder than it looks.
I might look into taking a lesson while I'm here...

A flame-stick juggler caught my attention on the other side of the street,
so we crossed over and checked out his skills for a while.



I got as close as possible (as close as I thought was safe so as to
keep my eyebrows intact) to get a picture.

It was now high time for a mid-afternoon snack, so we stopped into a little fish and chips shop
and got a few fried Mars bars (it's basically a British version of a Milky Way), wrapped them up in some napkins (they are really messy), and went on our way. We finally sat down in a nice
little park beside a fountain and with a beautiful view of Arthur's Seat in front of us.



Andy and I immediately took our shoes off and sat down in the grass with our fried
Mars bars, which are basically what I like to call a food-gasm!



After a little persuading Liz decided to join us in the grass. We all laid down and basked
in the gorgeous Scottish sunshine and marveled at the wonderment of God's creation!

We took a few pictures and were well on our way to enjoying a little cat nap...

when we were interrupted by a gang of Asians (there were seriously at least 17 of them)
who leaned over and asked if we could take their group picture. Did I mention that
EVERY one of them had their own camera? After our mini photography session we
put our shoes back on and headed towards Princes Street to do a little shopping.

On the way out of the park we passed the Scottish Parliament building.

Did I mention that the Scottish Parliament building is 47.6% constructed of bamboo
and looks ridiculously out of place being surrounded on all sides by gorgeous
stone buildings that are hundreds of years old? I understand their aim of architectural
modernization (like those big grad school words?) but in reality it just looks silly.

Anyway after that disappointment we continued on down Princes Street. We passed a
telephone booth and Tom Cruise (Andy) decided to hold a little photography session of our own with a great view of Edinburgh Castle in the background. Here's the best one of at least 10 pictures.

I spotted our next distraction from at least a half mile away,
and I instantly knew I was getting a picture with this guy.

I walked up and threw a few coins in his coin box and asked for a picture. "Can I hold your sword?" just kind of slipped out and I didn't really expect him to say yes, but he did me one better.
I got to hold the SWEET sword and he whipped out two daggers from a hidey hole on his kilt,
and we had a battle right there in the street! It MADE MY FREAKING DAY.

After our battle he said, "I'm gonna pick you up now" and I said, "Awesome! Are you gonna
lift me over your head and pretend you're about to bodyslam me?? Because then I would just die of happiness." But instead of a response he just picked me up....

Ok, so it wasn't a fake bodyslam but I was still ecstatic!

After a little man shopping with Andy we headed to our last
destination of the day, the Old Calton Cemetery.

There's a lot of cool stuff in this particular cemetery.
There's the only monument dedicated to Civil War soldiers outside of the U.S.

There's the headstone that's rumored to be haunted, that I didn't get a picture of.

And my personal favorite...Hume's body is buried here!

The story goes that Hume was an atheist till his dying breath, but the guys in charge of
burying him were afraid that Satan was going to come steal his soul. So they built this badass
tomb thing and locked his body up inside so he could rest in peace.

Supposedly on the night he was buried, people from the town came and hid behind neighboring tombstones to get a front row seat of Satan taking Hume's soul to Hell. Cheery stuff right?

After all this sightseeing we were exhausted. We walked back to the train station and got back to Dunblane just in time to eat supper and collapse on our mattress in front of the TV. It was a fanTAStic day, and I can't wait till we go visit Andy in Prague so he can return the favor of tour guide!

Stirling Castle, Round Two

Monday we had planned to take Andy to Edinburgh to show him the sights. But we were all so exhausted from the weekend, and Beth decided upon waking that she was going to take the day off. Andy was only here for a week though, so me and Liz volunteered to take him to Stirling so he could squish as much tourist stuff in as possible during his stay. Not to mention that Stirling Castle takes about 3 hours, and Edinburgh takes a whole day. We had planned to get up at 8 and get there early so we could take our time, but somehow 8 turned into 9 and then into 10...we eventually made it into Stirling at lunchtime, which was perfect because the weather was gorgeous!

We walked up to the castle and got in line for tickets. Residents of Stirling get in for free, but you have to have paperwork with your address on it proving that you actually live in town. Since me and Liz are residents now, but we don't actually LIVE in Stirling technically (yet), we did a little sweet talking to the girl at the counter and she let all three of us in free. If there's one thing me and Liz are good at, it's talking to you/persuading you/wearing you down until we get what we want! We arrived just in time to catch the next free tour, so we followed the tour guide around while he explained the history of the castle. An hour later, the official tour was over, but the tour guide had missed a bunch of cool info that we learned the first time we visited the castle. So me and Liz gave Andy the abbreviated version of our first tour and let him in on all the good stuff to know.

Not much had changed since the last time we visited. We did get to go into the Queen's gardens though, which we didn't even know was possible last time! It was so pretty with all these different types and colors of flowers. After we spent a few hours there, we decided to head home since we were all pretty tired from the previous few days. We waited at the stop for our bus to show up, and when it finally appeared...it was a double decker bus!! I know this isn't really a big deal, and Andy and Liz were like "Seriously? You're this excited?" but I had never been on one before so I was pretty stoked! I ran straight up to the top and sat right in the front row so I could look out. I started taking pictures out the window, but soon realized that I was being one of those annoying tourist-y people who takes pictures of the most retarded things. So I calmed down, put my camera away, and enjoyed the ride home looking down on traffic and out into the beautiful countryside.

We were glad to get home, and were welcomed with the news that Beth was making us a traditional Scottish dinner of haggis (a sheep's stomach full of other organs like liver, heart, and all the other gross things inside an animal, which is then baked and ground up to look like hamburger meat), neeps (smashed up turnips), and tatties (mashed potatoes).  I wasn't thrilled about the haggis for the simple fact that I knew what it was, but I agreed to try it anyway. I decided when I got here that I was gonna try everything at least once, including the really gross stuff like organ-stuffed-sheep-stomach and blood pudding (which is exactly what it sounds like - the blood of an animal mixed with oats and cooked up into a square, then served on a plate beside sausage and bacon). Surprise! I actually liked the haggis! I mean, I would never crave it, or order it in a restaurant, or cook it myself - but it wasn't disgusting. The neeps and tatties were really yummy as well. After we polished off supper, we all crawled into our beds and watched a little TV before passing out.

Keith's Magical Mystery Tour!

Last Sunday Liz, Andy, Beth and I had the pleasure of going on Keith's Magical Mystery Tour of the Highlands! Beth has been a few times already, but I get the impression that it's a little different each time so hopefully she wasn't too bored. We got up early (by early, I mean the earliest since we landed here, which actually ended up being 9-ish), got showered and squished into the Honda. The Peanut Gallery was in the back (me, Andy, and Liz) and started off with Liz in the middle. We got on the road and got comfy in the back, and not ten minutes later Keith whipped the car into a parking lot beside a big pen with two coos (cows) in it.

We got out and took a few pictures next to Hamish the Scottish coo, then quickly hopped back in, this time with Andy in the middle. We couldn't have been more than 30 minutes down the road when Keith made another unannounced (and very rapid) stop. This time we got out and walked down to the shore of a beautiful loch (lake) - not sure which one it was though. Apparently there are about a thousand lochs here, and Keith and Beth were a bit rusty on their Scottish geography. It was no matter though, as the countryside here is amazingly beautiful!

The picture to the right is my best attempt at a Captian Morgan stance, but unfortunately I just look...awkward. What's new? I've been told numerous times lately that I tend to stand like a lesbian. If you're wondering what that entails (as I did the first time I heard that) it means I stand like a guy - both feet planted shoulder-length apart, hands in my pockets or down at my sides. Apparently a lady stands with her weight on one leg and is constantly popping a pose, with one hand on her hip. I'm working on improving my standing-in-place posture, but don't expect too much from me. Let's remember that I grew up in a house full of males! Even the dog was a boy! Anyway, the point is that a lot of my pictures are awkward, but I always find them quite funny, so who cares? Moving on. Here's a fantastic picture I snapped as everyone else was running back to the Honda.

So we all piled back into the car, this time with me in the middle. Unfortunately for me, the next time we would get out was an hour and a half later. Wasn't too bad though, we were all recently bathed and I was actually quite comfy sandwiched between Liz and Andy.

We were having such a fantastic time on the tour that I decided to write a song about it, called "The Magical Mystery Tour Song". I only wrote a few verses (and haven't made any further progress up to today), but I wrote all my random ideas down in my little handy dandy notebook that stays in my purse, and I fully intend on finishing it sometime soon! Beth has a friend Euan that records music, so once I'm finished writing it I plan on recruiting him to get it onto a CD. It's gonna be...magical! Here's another picture of the breathtaking Scottish landscape.

Somewhere around noon Keith decided that we would stop in Fort William for lunch. We ate at this quaint little pub, where I had the best tomato soup, Beth and Liz had fish and chips, Keith had some kind of Sunday dinner roast beef special, and Andy had the biggest piece of sausage I've ever seen in my life. And of course we all had pints.

After lunch we had a potty break and walked around outside and admired the views in a park for a few minutes before piling back in the car. Next stop up, Loch Ness! Another hour in the car inspired a few more lines in my song. There's a lot of people here who do silly things like hill walk and ride bicycles, and Keith just so happens to hate all of them, which makes for a pretty entertaining ride when they are EVERYwhere!! Granted, it IS pretty stupid that a cyclist would ride on a windy highway road with deathly turns and blind spots. But I'm not really sure why he hated the hill walkers so much, as they were pretty far away from the roads and really just looked like little ants on their trails. Anyway, we finally made it to Loch Ness sometime in the afternoon. It was beautiful!! We took some pictures and I tried my darndest to spot Nessie, but I had no such luck. Below is a picture of me pretending like I saw her anyway. Add it to the "silly picture" pile if you will, but I think it's fabulous.

I then decided that I hadn't come all this way to just simply LOOK at the loch, so I walked down to the shore, took my shoes off, rolled up my jeans, and walked in! After I convinced Liz that the water wasn't freezing, she decided to come join in on the loch action. We probably looked really stupid, but how many other people can say they actually stepped foot in Loch Ness? Not many, if I had to guess. I don't have the pictures of that, but Liz does, and she put one up on her blog: http://epn0413.blogspot.com/ - shameless plug, you say? Possibly. Here's the newest best friend picture since we're on the subject:

So after about 30 minutes of picture taking and loch-wading, we piled in the Honda one last time and headed home. The ride back was a little more boring as we had seen it all already, so most of the ride was spent in silence with everyone in the Peanut Gallery dozing in and out of micro-naps. We thought we were headed home for an early night (finally!), but we were mistaken. Sunday happens to be quiz night at one of the pubs in Stirling, so as soon as we got home we called a cab and made our way on to the next adventure of the day! We got to the pub and met more of Beth and Keith's friends; this time it was Graham and his girlfriend Lana.

We started the quiz, and it turns out Graham is a freaking genius in many areas of random, otherwise useless knowledge. Except in the realm of current affairs, where our team got every question wrong. Liz, Andy, and I were no help there either since we had just arrived in the UK a week earlier! We ended up getting third out of six or seven teams, so we didn't win, but at least we weren't the stupidest (or drunkest) group there. The pub closed at midnight since it was a Sunday, so we hopped back into a cab and headed home. Graham and Lana came in and we drank and talked for a few more hours, before everyone finally hit the sheets at around 3am.

THIS is a petting zoo??

So I'm still a little behind, but I'm gettin there! Day after the 50's party....

Saturday we woke up (after about 3 hours of sleep) and there was a Scottish breakfast waiting for us. By Scottish breakfast, I mean MEAT buffet. Sausage, bacon, blood pudding - all smothered in baked beans. I know for a lot of people that would be amazing, but as I've already mentioned I prefer to tickle my sweet tooth in the morning, so for me it was just kind of nauseating - especially coupled with my hangover. I ate a few pieces of bacon and sneakily raked the rest of my food onto Knoxie's plate, then cracked open a beer and called it a meal.

We all hung out for a few hours in the living room before getting dressed to go to a school fundraiser for Lee and Trish's kids. Everyone was still feeling kind of gross, as none of us had showered, and Andy and Knoxie still had on their party outfits from the night before! The first thing we stumbled upon as we entered the school grounds was a "petting zoo". Now, every petting zoo I'VE ever been to had cute furry little baby animals, like sheep, goats, ducks, etc. I'm not sure if it's the Americans or the Scottish who are confused, but this petting zoo had only owls. Big owls, little owls, white owls, black owls...all with beaks and talons. The thought occurred to me - "It might be kind of dangerous for 5 year olds to be petting things that could stab their eyes out with a quick head movement", but seeings how I'm 23 and not 5, and I thought it was pretty effing cool that there were all these birds of prey just WAITING for me to get close to them, I decided to go for it and hold one on my arm. There was a bunch of cute little owls, but I figured since I was already sticking my foot in dangerous waters, I might as well go ahead and just jump in. I picked the biggest owl out there and the owl-handler man tied him to a glove and slipped it on my arm.

I should have known right away that he was gangster, because as you can see in the picture to the left, immediately after the man put him on my arm, he spread out his wings as if to say "Watch it little white girl!".  He calmed down after a few seconds and I got to pet him (do you pet feathers? hmm...) and admire his huge eyes and sweet beak. I never let my head get too close to him for fear of getting pecked in the face, and after a few minutes I was over it and called the handler over to take him back. I started to take the glove off and during the transition between my hand and the man's hand, gangster owl decided he was DONE with it all and tried to fly away!! He got about two feet in the air and the handler jumped up just in time to grab the bottom of the glove and yanked the owl back down! I was SO glad that man caught him. I would've been mortified if the owl had escaped!

So after the near-owl-jailbreak-fiasco, the group decided to head on to the other "attractions". There was kids playing tug-of-war, two giant inflatable bouncy castles (that I was a little sad I was too old to get into) and some version of a three-legged race. There was also a guy with his head one of those wooden things from back in the day that they used to punish people with, I think it's called the stocks? Anyway, you could pay 1 pound to throw three wet sponges at his face. The group stopped and Lee, Knoxie, and I took turns aiming right for this guy's face with giant sopping wet sponges. Lee and Knoxie didn't even get CLOSE to this guy, so I stepped up and showed them how it's done, pelting the guy square in the head on the first throw. Next we walked inside to check out what was going on in the school gym. It was mostly stuff for the kids, like face painting and that game where you fish a duck out of the kiddie pool and win whatever is taped on the bottom. Trish was working the temporary tattoo table and only had 8 or so left to get rid of. Knoxie kindly volunteered to help and contributed his 50 pence before going on to pick one of the 8 designs left. He was going for a beetle, but I spotted an American flag/eagle tattoo sitting there. I doubted that anyone else here was gonna choose to brand themselves with another country's flag, and I needed to do my duty as an American and represent! By represent, I mean I pointed to it and told Trish to put that one on Knoxie.

He very politely obliged, which I thought was pretty nice considering the Scottish are a very proud group of people, and I guarantee you that no one else there would have been caught dead with an American flag on their arm! We all moseyed back outside and headed over to the owl zoo again, since it was the only remotely interesting thing going on. Liz spotted a cute wee one and decided that she was gonna brave the talons and hold him. So we called the owl-handler man back over and he tied the little guy to the glove and slipped it on Liz's hand.

I was petting it and decided that Penny was a good owl name, before we were informed that it was A) a boy owl, and B) from Africa, so clearly Penny was out. Liz instead named him Clik-Clik and had a good 10 minutes of bonding time with him before she gave it back to the handler. Soon after that the fair was over, so we walked back to Lee's house, packed up the car, and headed home to Dunblane. We had a tiny detour though. Keith had been talking about this mysterious pineapple thing for a few days now, and he was finally taking us to see it in all it's glory. About 20 minutes outside of Dunblane, we drove down this tiny dirt road and parked the car. We got out and walked up the prettiest path lined with trees and flowers, and then - there it was. A giant stone pineapple. On top of a massive house. I'm still not sure of the exact purpose of the thing, but it sure was interesting to look at!
Apparently, whoever's house it was back in the day wanted to show off how much money they had, and pineapples used to be a status symbol because they were a rare treat for people in Scotland.

 So, they had a huge one built right on top of their house. Anyway, we took a few pictures and we were on our way. We decided to stop at this cute little Italian restaurant called Corrieri's for supper since we were all too tired to be bothered with cooking. The food was fantastic, and I had the best ice cream sandwich EVER for dessert!

It was two scoops of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two wafers, and on the bottom there was two more chocolate covered wafers with nougat in between!! Makes every other ice cream sandwich look like a joke now. Keith had something called a Knickerbocker Surprise, which came out in a tall sundae glass and had a cute little Scottish flag stuck in the top scoop of ice cream! After dinner we went home and pretty immediately crashed.