The Royal Mile

Talk about an exhausting day. I got up bright and early (downstairs at 6:15) with only some of the group to go on a hike up to "Arthur's Seat".  It was a short but pretty steep hike up, and then Dr. Holland gave us a short devotional about the history of the church in Great Britain.  I'm so glad I got up early because it was definitely worth it.  I wish I had taken better pictures, but it's so hard to capture what I saw.

Next (a couple hours later), was our tour of Edinburgh castle.  I liked it better than the Tower of London.  First of all, it's on top of this mountain and it's just so gorgeous everywhere.

This is kind of a dark picture, but it's what the castle looks like from far away

Katie and I aren't quite sure that we would like to be prisoners in Edinburgh castle.

After a few hours at the castle, we started our journey down "The Royal Mile", the street in between the castle and the Holyrood Palace.  Some things we saw on the way:

St. Giles Cathedral

I've already talked about how I'm obsessed at looking at the architecture of old cathedrals.  Yep, I'm still obsessed.

I heart stained glass

A statue of Adam Smith with a pigeon on his head

Adam Smith is basically known as the father of the American economic system.  Ever heard of "The Invisible Hand", or The Wealth of Nations?  Yep, that's Adam Smith.  And this is where he is buried:

After our unfortunate failed attempt for Chocolate Soup, we found out the real address and headed there for lunch.  None of us even actually got the Chocolate Soup specialty, but my milkshake was definitely good (ps my face is ridiculous)

Outside of the Holyrood Palace, the royal residence in Scotland since the 15th century.  It's still used now during the summer by Queen Elizabeth (II).  We got to walk through some rooms that are still used today, as well as some that were used by previous royalty and are now preserved in the same state they were in.  No pictures allowed, but a one-word description I would give is ornate.

Behind the palace were the ruins of an Abbey

I love love love daisies.

This statue was in the garden.  I think it's kind of funny because he doesn't really seem to have a nose

Ok, so we were pretty much exhausted by this point, but we wanted to get all the way back up the hill of the Royal Mile to go to some old bookshops we had heard about.  So... we gave up about a pound each and just took a taxi. haha.

(the back half of us: Stephen, Me, and Molly)

I wish I had a picture of the bookshops we went in.  They were pretty cool and they had some crazy old books.  I ended up buying an old copy (unfortunately I don't know the publishing year) of a Sir Walter Scott novel (which I thought was fitting since we had just gone to Abbotsford).  

For dinner we went to a "Chippy" recommended by Dr. Holland.

Fish and Chips have never been so greasy, yet never so good:

Jacki and Me with our fish and chips

After dinner we decided to stop by "The Elephant House", which claims to be the "birthplace of Harry Potter", as JK Rowling wrote down her first ideas of Harry Potter on a napkin while eating here.

We ended the night by finding a park and just chillin' on the grass.  It was the perfect ending to such an exciting, but exhausting, day.