Edinburgh (Part 1)

My first day in was a bit of a wash. Despite feeling energetic upon my arrival, I crashed pretty quickly. The most exciting thing I did was take a walk around the free chip-and-putt course in the Meadows, which is a really nice park in Micah's neighborhood. I could not keep myself awake to see Eben. He arrived from Manchester after I was in bed.

The next day was beautiful, and we were up and out.

We climbed Arthur's Seat which overlooks the city and the Firth of Fourth, a river on its way to the sea.

I was very excited to find thistle growing along the path to the top.

There are two natural high points in the city. The first is Arthur's Seat; the other is the volcanic plug which Edinburgh Castle sits upon (in the center on the green hill), so we had great views from our high vantage point.


The seat was covered in holes and little dried up poos, which meant there were bunnies lurking about....

I caught sight of only one in a clearing in the low shrubs, but judging from the ground, dawn and dusk must be pretty fluffy experiences.

The woman I sat next to on the plane told me a fantastic place to get lunch was at the mosque. I was promised yummy curries for very cheap. Unfortunately, the mosque was not marked on any of our maps, so we took advantage of our bird's eye view and spotted what looked like it could be the minaret of a mosque. We made note of a couple of churches around it, and set off down the hill into the streets. I was very psyched when the building we thought to be the mosque actually was! We wandered around the back of the mosque to a tented area labeled 'Mosque Kitchen' and had ourselves a fantastic lunch! I was so hungry that I failed to take any photos, sorry!

With full happy bellies, we ventured downtown through the old city.

We wandered through the Princes Street Gardens and to the Walter Scott Monument. We climbed the narrow twisting stairwells to the top and had another look at the city with 360 degree views.


Arthur's Seat and the old city from the top of the Scott Memorial.

Edinburgh Castle growing out of the rocks!

That evening we met up with Eben's friend Ian (who enjoys quoting Sean Connery in the proper accent). Ian had run a half marathon the day before and still came to visit us in Edinburgh from Glasgow. We had some tea together and walked around downtown while Ian taught us interesting things about Scotland and Edinburgh while he and Eben caught up. Ian was very nice and very good at giving Eben a hard time!

Micah would like to share now too (he's speaking as me):

Micah is the best guy EVER! Eben constantly smells of poop, and my nose has expelled approximately 6 litres of snot today already.

I just want to reiterate how awesome Micah is.