edinburgh

We didn't get to spend very long in Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-in-burr-uh), but it was just long enough to make me really fall in love with the city.  After we checked into our hostel, which was actually really nice, we walked up to Edinburgh Castle, which is at the top of Princes Street.  It was a true Scottish castle -- none of that ornate flowery gold stuff or those murals on the ceilings (yeah, I'm talking to you, France and England).  Everything was simple and stone with coat-of-arms everywhere, which was a nice change after the femininity of Versailles.  I really enjoyed the Scottish War Memorial, which is mostly dedicated to World War I but also contains dedications to the other wars and a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (that's not what it's called, but I forget the actual name).

We saw the Scottish Parliament building, which is this weird modern-stone thing with bamboo on the front, then walked up to Calton Hill.  During the Scottish Enlightenment, people started to build a copy of the Parthenon.  But they ran out of money so instead just one wall stands and overlooks the city.  The view was beautiful.  As we were walking back, we saw a bagpipe/drum performance that was really impressive and then hit up the little shops up and down the streets (some of them, especially the Christmas shops, were so cute).  Then, to continue my try-one-weird-food-in-every-country kick, I had a little bite of haggis.  I say little because although the taste wasn't bad, the texture was really mushy.  You'll understand why if you read the wikipedia definition of haggis: "Haggis is a kind of savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver, and lungs)" -- yummy.  Luckily when the waiter that served it to us commented about us leaving basically all of it still on the plate, he confessed that he didn't like it either ("it freaks me out a little" were his exact words if I remember correctly).

The people were really friendly, tons of them wore kilts, and I got to see the restaurant where JK Rowling first started writing Harry Potter, so I was a happy girl.  Plus I have to confess that I love bagpipes.  Weird, I know.  We only had about a day there, but I'd really like to go back someday because Scotland was so beautiful and the people were great.