Edinburgh

I just got back from our brief but amazing time in Edinburgh. We plan to do something or another in London tonight but for now I have the time to regale you with the story of our travels. Again, I'll start from the very beginning as I've found that doing so helps me to remember the trip in full.
We got up quite early to get to King's Cross for out 8am departure and the place was packed. There was a line to the Edinburgh platform, it was really a good thing that we'd made reservations. On the train our seats were a bit sporadic and I ended up seated across from a very old woman who was a retired professor of law, we made friends after I helped her to get her suitcase into the overhead bin. She was really an interesting lady but I have to say that the gang of women across from me were a bit distracting , but man they were a hoot! Just think of the Women from the movie Calendar Girls at their wildest and I think you'll have a pretty good sense of what they were like. It looked like they were out for a hen party for one of the women. (A hen party is a bachelorette party and a stag party is a bachelor party, we've run into lots of them and the participants are always good fun to watch and talk to). Anyway, they gav e me some good advice on things to do Edinburgh and made for lots of laughs on the train. After our 4.5 hour ride we hoped of the train and got our very first taste of Scotland. As we walked from the platform into the station we noticed lots of men walking about in kilts, the full Scottish garb. And then... as if it had just been waiting for us to finish taking in the clothing, the sound of bagpipes cut through the air. It was the perfect arrival! So as we're taking all of this in we grab a cab to take us to The University of Edinburgh, Pollock Halls. When we were just shy of Pollock Halls we stopped to get some lunch (it was still a bit early to check in) and to see the cafe where J.K. Rowling first began writing Harry Potter... it was magical. It's easy to see how this part of the world could help to inspire such stories. Once we got all checked in we immediately set out to climb to the very top of Arthur's Seat, which our dorms happened to be at the foot of. It was amazing. No picture I post can possibly do justice to it. We climbed all the way to the top, and when I say climb I mean it literally, we opted for a tougher route so a couple of times were going almost straight up, like a rock wall... but real. Once we reached the top we were beat but we certainly felt like we'd earned the view. It was perfect, on one side there was the city of Edinburgh and on the other there was the sea. We took lots of silly pictures up there and just talked and enjoyed ourselves before we began our journey down. Once down we cleaned up a bit before heading out the Fringe Festival and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. I should explain that bit I suppose... You see, we were in Edinburgh at the absolute perfect time. Every year Edinburgh has it's military Tattoo, a program taking place in front of Edinburgh castle that showcases military bands and the like, namely the Scottish though, that means lots of bagpipes. It's really quite popular here and this is the first time in 2 years that Baylor has been able to secure tickets for us. The festival will last for the rest of this month and will play to sold out stands every night. Now because the Tattoo attracts such huge crowds to the city another festival has popped up on the outside of it, this festival is called the Fringe and it can be found all along the Royal Mile up to the castle. Namely it consists of shows, especially comedy. Lots of these shows are free because they're kinda like dress rehearsals or pilots. We managed to get into a free comedy act when we arrived at the Fringe and it was pretty good. After a thorough investigation of the Fringe we made our way up to Edinburgh Castle for the Tattoo which began at 9pm. It was stunning. I'd heard it would be good but it really exceeded my expectations All the acts came marching out of the castle with torches lighting the way. And the music was awesome. Again, pictures just won't do it justice. If you ever happen to be in Edinburgh during Tattoo... you should go! It absolutely blew my mind. After the show we went out for coffee and played stupid games like Hot Seat and Make it or Break it. Talk about a good way to get to know people. haha. We had a really good time just hanging out together. This morning we simply dragged ourselves out of bed, had breakfast, checked out, then caught the train home to London. It would have been fun to stay in Scotland a bit longer but we had to be checked out by 10:30am and had nothing to do with our baggage. Hopefully I'll make it back it there some day. Edinburgh was certainly a highlight of this trip.