Edinburgh, Scotland

It occurs to me that I have never posted any sort of info or news about my trip to Scotland. Shame on me, yes? Rachel and I went to Scotland ummmm.... I'm not quite sure now when but we went there to visit a friend we made from the UW. She had been an exchange student in the physics department and now we were getting to visit her. Needless to say I was quite excited to visit and see a place that I had always wanted to visit. Moreover, they speak English there and it would be nice to be surrounded again by conversation you could understand (if you want to drop some eaves of course). The first experience of Scotland was wet. It was raining and looked simply miserable outside. I loved it. Everything was green, rain was gently falling, the sky was lit but overcast gray...it was beautiful. And then of course there was the sign in 6 languages as you were leaving the airport reminding you to drive on the left side of the road. Ha! Those were the first impressions.

I would have been completely okay if the weather had remained like so for the duration of the trip, even though hiking around Edinburgh would have been wet nastiness.  But the next day let me tell you.  Clear skies, light wind, comfortable outdoor walking temperature and amazingly dry ground!  Let's just say we spent the whole day hiking walking around.  Since it was such a nice day, we decided to hike up Arthur's Seat.  Why it's called that I never really found out but it was quite the hike up a very steep hill and it got windier and windier.  By the time we reached the top, I thought for sure that I would get blown away if I jumped.  From the top, you could see all of Edinburgh and opposite the city, was the sea.  It was the first time seeing the ocean since going to Germany.  It was nice.

There was a ginormous field called the Meadows next to our friend's place and the first thing I thought was frisbee. Oh yes, lots of frisbee could be played here. This picture hardly does it justice since it was about 4 or 5 pictures worth of flat grass.

A store nearby had a wide variety of beers (microbrews!!!) including a ginger beer.  Very crisp and tart.  I couldn't drink it and stuck to my first IPA since coming to Germany.  It was so unlike anything Germany has to offer.  But as you can see, I was more astonished with the Kettle chips!  I couldn't believe.  They are my favorite chip and they were here.  I thought I'd be waiting the whole year to see them again.  Alas no!  Ha.

We visited the Royal Mile which has a very old cathedral that is being renovated.  It was amazing inside.  And though I wish I had more to say about the rest of the mile, I believe we will be visiting again and I'll get to talk more about it since we would like to visit Mary King's Close.

I do apologize for not talking about this sooner and will be better with my next visit which will be in late March and will also include the coastal town of Elgin.