Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh. Scotland.

 

Landon loved Edinburgh.  I think it was a combination of having conference over, loving the medieval castle and town, and the hike up Arthur’s seat.  On the first day there, Landon presented.  Then we went to Edinburgh castle and took a tour.  We got the audio tour pretty much every place we went.  They had a dog cemetery there.  Pretty funny when you think they have a special place to bury their dogs, yet they behead people – even royalty.  Weird.

 

 

 

 

The next day, we went to Holyrood Palace.  I don’t think I’ve ever been there before.  I didn’t realize the Queen stayed there during the summer.  That was neat.  Although I have to say I’d like my home furnishings better.  I wonder if you’re a Queen, what you get to decorate? You probably have to keep a lot ‘as is’.  My favorite part was the ruined Abbey.  After the palace, we walked through a church’s grave yard.  I thought it was going to connect to a walk I had done years ago with Kate.  I didn’t, but we ended up finding that one anyways.  We had lunch (cheeseburger) on a bench looking towards the Edinburgh Castle.  We took a tour of ‘The Real Mary King’s Close”.  I was disappointed to realize some of the exciting, yet bad stories I had heard were just rumors.  Basically, it’s just an old set of buildings and alleyways that had been built on top of.  They had a figure of a doctor (reenacting a scene) helping someone during the plague and he wore a mask that looks scary, like a bird’s bill.  It held good smelling stuff while he treated the disease, which could be stinky.  That was scary.  I actually thought that guy was going to turn out to be real and move or something.  They tried to make it creepy with the low lighting and their stories, but there just wasn’t much there. Disappointing.  Hee hee.  They did open a door of someone’s house they bought years ago and claimed no one’s been inside because they couldn’t be sure of the floor structure of something.  He shined in a flashlight.  That was freaky and cool.

 

We called home and wished Cam a Happy Birthday (from a stinky, stinky pay phone).

 Walked down the main street -- walked through graveyards ---

 You can see Hollyrood Palace in the distance above.

 

Anyways, after that we picked up some snacks from a store called TESORO, I think.  We went back to the hotel to get off our feet for a while and eat some snacks.  Then we headed up Arthur’s seat.  Landon loves this kind of stuff- which is a recent finding on my end, that he enjoys hiking so much.  It was misty and as you got to the top, you started to lose sight of the peaks on neighboring hills.  You couldn’t quite see the castle either.  It was a fun yet easy and fast hike.  The next day we flew out.  We got up about 5:45-6am and then headed back.  We flew into Amsterdam and then I didn’t have a seat assignment. They gave us separate chairs and we couldn’t figure out a way to change them.  Landon gave up his nice (Delta sky miles status) extra leg room seat to me and went back to sit by the crying child. I tell ya, that’s true love! :-) Flying is no big deal when you don’t have kids and have dozens of movies and TV shows to watch.  I watched “The Book Thief” and rewatched “Saving Mr. Banks”.  I saw a few TED talks.  The most worth mentioning was the one about Bill and Melinda Gates.  I had no idea how much money they gave away to help people.  That’s amazing.