Edinburgh

We had the opportunity to spend a day in Edinburgh..actually we arrived in the afternoon, and left the following afternoon. It was a wonderful experience..a beautiful city. We spent the night in a hostel, with bunk beds, but all of us able to sleep together and we had a dedicated bathroom..although the toilet was in the same stall with the shower, which was a little weird, and the sink was in the hallway..ok sometimes that happens in lots of hotels. The most surprising thing was the the bar/restaurant that was attached, which had some pretty amazing food for not a lot of money..always appreciated when we can eat well for not too much moolah.

We also ate lunch the first day..before we checked into the hostel..at a Chinese buffet that was pretty outstanding. We did the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour and got a good feel for the city. We visited Edinburgh Castle, which is in the center of town on a high hill that overlooks the city. The castle is amazing, and the thing that impressed us the most was the prison. You will see in the slide show, a picture of a wooden door that has graffiti carved into it by the prisoners, and one of those is of a ship with stars and stripes of the newly formed United States of American..this prison actually held prisoners of war from the revolutionary war! Also, Mary, Queen of Scots, bore her only son, James VI of Scotland and later James I King of England.

The girls got to hold some owls on their arms, and they were pretty excited about that..yay dad for paying for that. I got a nice stroll around the center of town after dinner and had some really wonderful light..and got a couple of a rainbow that I really like. Got a picture of a yellow Maserati that looks like it is speeding even when it's just sitting still.

We visited a natural history museum and learned a lot about geology and the creation of the earth. The system of geology is a lot like the weather, only the motion is much, much slower. Rocks are formed by sediments that gradually increase pressure as they build up, they are deformed by the movement of the crust, and by volcanic activity, and they eventually erode and return to being sediment and the process keeps going.

There were lots of wonderful things going on, and I've put together a little slide show to highlight some of them. Hope you enjoy it!