Okay, so onto day 3 in Scotland. I split this into two because it is ridiculously long and I didn't want to somehow lose what I had written and have to start all over. So we got up around 8 and had breakfast. Then we called a cab and went straight to Edinburgh castle. There weren't too many people yet as it had just opened. It is a beautiful castle that was built on top of an extinct volcano and incorporates the rock into the structure. It kind of reminded me of the Andes and how the Inka built things. They do guided tours so we decided to do one. We were the only ones that showed up so we got a private tour, which was very cool. The girl showing us around was from Greece and was doing a museum studies course in Edinburgh. It was very interesting because you could see that different parts of the castle had been built at different time just by the colors of the stone and the masonry work. One of the oldest parts was St. Margret's chapel. The newest is the war memorial, which I would swear from the inside is brand new, and from the outside is very old. The war memorial has lists of all the Scots killed in every war and conflict that they have fought since like WW1 or something. You couldn't take pictures inside though. In the hall you could see a small window high in the wall that the king would have used to spy on people in the hall after feasts when they would be drunk.
Then we got to see the Scottish crown jewels. They had been locked away when they dissolved their parliament to join the UK but were "discovered" in the 1800's I think by Walter Scott (of the tall monument fame). They were still in the box that they had originally been locked in in the castle. There is a sword that some pope gave the kind, a scepter and a crown. There is the coronation stone. This is the stone that generations of Scottish royalty sat on to to crowned king. In the 1200's the English took it and brought it to Westminster Abbey and had a special coronation chair built for it so English kings would be coronated on it. It was there for around 500 years when in the 1950s 3 Scots went down to England and stole it back. I don't know exactly how they did it, but they got it back to Scotland and to the castle in Edinburgh. They broke it along the way, but it's been patched up. The kicker is that they weren't arrested for it. Because they didn't want to stir up a Scottish nationalist movement they let the people go and let the stone stay in Scotland. So now the deal is that if there is a coronation the stone can go to England, but only for 5 days and then it has to be returned to Scotland. Apparently there is a movie about this.
After the crown jewels we saw the dungeons where American prisoners of war were kept during the Revolutionary War (although that isn't what they call it here, but I can't think what it is offhand (American War of Independence, possibly)). They actually had it pretty nice and could sell stuff that they made to the townspeople. It seems a bit silly that they shipped them all the way to Scotland though. Seems like the waste of a ship, but what do I know. Anyway it was kind of cool to see. They kept many other POWs there too from many other wars. After that we looked in a bunch of the other buildings and saw the dog cemetery where soldier could bury their personal dogs or the dogs that were the mascots of regiments. The castle is still a military base so some of the buildings were closed as soldiers and government people use them. Anyway, the pictures are way better than the description so check those out.
From the castle we walked down through the park to Prince's street to do some shopping. We looked around in a few stores and then stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut, lame I know, but I really wanted pizza. Then we continued our shopping walk until we got to a big hill with an observatory on top. I can't think what it was called but we walked up to look around. It was a very high hill so we got an excellent view of the city. There were also some monuments to different people up there. There was also a war memorial that had been started but never finish because they ran out of money. The main structure was the observatory though. It is still in use, but there is another one outside the city that is used more due to light pollution at this one. We spent quite a bit of time up on the hill because it was very nice and grassy and quiet up there. We were meeting Danielle's friend for dinner at 5:30 so we went to the mall for awhile and then went to all the souvenir shops on the Royal mile. We got I <3 Scotland sweatshirts and I got a really pretty thistle necklace (the thistle is the symbol of Scotland, I don't know why). Then we found tartan bowties. I thought it might be funny to get one for my dad since he wears bowties to work, but I wasn't sure. So I called him and he said he wanted 3. They are now in the mail on their way to him. But first me and Danielle had to model them :)
We met Danielle's friend and she took us to the pub where she first had haggis. I'm not sure what haggis is and I don't care to find out. We all got haggis stuffed chicken breasts so that if we didn't like the haggis we'd still have something to eat. And it was delicious. It was like spicy stuffing. I know it is made out of gross stuff, but I don't know what and decided to keep it that way since I enjoyed it so much. After dinner we went to Greyfriar's cemetery. On the way we passed the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. In the cemetery, which is just up the street, we were told there is a gravestone for Tom Riddle. And through the cemetery gates there is a school for geniuses. The legend is that people used to think that the kids that attended that school were taught magic. They also used to play a game in the school yard involving brooms and balls. So....yeah. The cemetery itself was very cool with some neat gravestones. We didn't see the Tom Riddle one, but didn't look very hard. One section of the cemetery is gated due to a poltergeist living in one of the tombs. Although the alternate theory is that plague victims were buried back there so they don't want anyone to break through the bottom of one of the tombs and get infected or something. The churchyard is also much higher than the street because so many levels of burials are contained in it. Sometimes they would just remove headstones and buried new people on top of the old ones due to lack of space.
After touring the cemetery we went to a pub called the World's End. It is named that because it is where the Edinburgh city walls were located. You had to pay a fee to pass in or out of the city and because most people were poor they couldn't afford to go through the gates, so the city wall was the end of their world. It was a cute pub and they sold t-shirts so I had to get one. They were sold out of most of them, but I ended up with a pretty nice one. After being at the pub for a couple of hours we headed home because we had to be up early to catch our train in the morning. Before we went to bed we put on all our Scotland gear and took a photo for posterity :)
The next morning I was worried about having to sit on the floor of the train again, but I actually got a seat despite most air traffic still not running. So I got a bunch of work done on the trip and got to see the country. We ran along the coast for awhile so I got to see the North Sea. We also passed through some very cool looking cities that I'd like to visit sometime. In London I had to find Danielle because she was in first class and then we had to get to another train station. We had plenty of time once again so I got some food and then we eventually got on our train back to Poole. This train was much more crowded, but I had a seat once again. Finally we were back in Poole around 5:30 so I could just relax and do nothing.
Wednesday I attempted to work on my skeletal report and then went to lab on Thursday to take a few more pics of things that I had missed. Then Friday I worked on the report most of the day. I have also been determined to make iced coffee, but have been unable to find caramel coffee syrup. I found vanilla and bought it so that I would at least have something, but I've been to almost every store and I don't know why they don't have it. There is one more store I can try, but I have to take the bus there so I won't be doing that until next weekend probably. So I guess that's about it. I order Chinese food with some friends last night and watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Which was more bizarre than good. I don't recommend it. So I suppose that's all I have. Next week will be completely boring as I have to be in lab from 9-5 every day to record my animal bone assemblage. So here are the pics. There are a ton, but I took even more than what I put up. Have a nice week.
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