But Wait! There's More!

Well folks, this is it-- the last of the mid-semester break tales.  But don't worry-- it's quite long (or perhaps that is cause for worry for some of you who probably fancy my ramblings to be entirely too detailed and lengthy, in which case, I apologize).  And it still doesn't have pictures... but I solemnly swear to have all of the pictures up by the end of this week.  These things take considerably longer than one might expect (so yeah... please appreciate all of the hard work that I'm going through for you!).

Right.  Onwards!  So, Saturday morning began as Friday morning did-- I found breakfast in a little cafe (which was sadly not nearly as tasty as the Chocolate Soup place, but at least I didn't leave with a sugar rush) and then met up with Dylan and Liz before heading off to Holyrood Palace-- the official residence of Her Majesty the Queen when she resides in Scotland during the summer months, which is on the opposite end of the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle.  We took the lovely little audioguide tour through the palace (and normally I hate those things, and they are simply everywhere nowadays, but this one was actually quite tolerable--nay, even decently good!), and saw the impressive Forecourt (between the gate and the palace itself, with a big fountain, into which 8,000 people pack themselves for the ceremonial procession when the Queen arrives):

Then the quiet courtyard...

And then some lovely staterooms (which we couldn't take pictures of, as usual) including the throne room, and the chambers (plus personal effects!) of Mary Queen of Scotts.

We also saw the ruins of Holyrood Abbey (very Gothic novel, very picturesque), and the gardens, surrounded by thousands of acres of untouched park land.  The palace itself was nice, but the gardens are what must draw the Queen here every summer-- they are beautiful, even when not in bloom.

Across from the palace are the new Parliament buildings, which have a rather... distinctive... style to them.  Many people call them horrifically ugly.  I think they're kind of cool.  You can decide for yourselves.

By this point, it was about time for lunch, so we headed to a pub called The World's End (which made us think of Pirates of the Caribbean, but apparently, it is so named because it was built into the furthest corner of the old city walls!).  I had an absolutely wonderful piece of salmon-- the seafood has proved to be quite good in Scotland, which makes sense, seeing as it is surrounded by a good deal of ocean (sometimes I amaze even myself with my brilliant powers of deductive reasoning).

Post-lunch, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland-- a very modern building containing some astoundingly old (and, admittedly, some very new) artifacts.

 This is just the entrance...don't be fooled, it's rather enormous.

The museum basically covers over two thousand years of human history in Scotland, as well as a few million (maybe billion?) of its geological history.  It is HUGE.  And I have to say, not particularly well organized-- you kind of wander from section to section, with little indication as to where one is supposed to go next, and no indication as to how to get out, or get to the next floor.  But I kid you not-- they covered every detail that they possibly could about all of those years of history.  It was pretty impressive.  We saw everything from Viking tombs to Roman tools to Medieval alter screens to the flags of old Scottish kings to medical equipment from the seventeenth century to a gigantic working engine to DOLLY THE SHEEP.  Yes, the cloned one.  And yes, it's stuffed.

So yeah.  Pretty impressive museum.  By the time I got through it, I needed a break-- so I did some frantic shopping (relaxing, right?).  Edinburgh has amazing shopping, but I hardly had a chance to do any, so I took two hours and covered as much ground as possible.  In the end, I came away with one beautiful Scottish cashmere scarf, and one fabulous coat (I'm sorry Mom-- I couldn't help myself.  Now I may need to ship things home).  I was pleased.

We had dinner at a tapas restaurant, and Liz and Dylan ran off to go on a ghost tour, which I flat out refused to join them for.  If I had gone, I would not have slept for the next three weeks.  So I headed back to my hotel.  But sure enough, twenty minutes later, they called to say that they would have to go on a later one, so we went out again in search of dessert.  We found a little pub that had a good menu-- I had rice pudding with plum compote (which made me incredibly happy inside-- I've been craving rice pudding for a month), and I tried Irish coffee for the first time (and determined that it gets better as you drink more of it).  They headed off for their tour, and I headed back to the hotel to pack and finish reading Emma-- a nice, quiet night.

I had set my clocks back that night (daylight savings just ended here), but something funny happened with my iphone, which I use as an alarm, so I woke up at 9 am thinking that it was 8 am.  This resulted in me meandering about looking for breakfast until I looked at my watch and realized that it was actually 9:50 and that my train was leaving in an hour.  I grabbed some food to go, quickly checked out, and made it to the station with plenty of time to spare.  Whew.  Close call.

The ride home was unexciting.  I was in first class, which was great (the ticket was for some strange reason cheaper than a regular ticket when I booked it), and the scenery through the first part of the trip was incredibly beautiful-- but I was still on a train for seven hours.  I got back to Bath and took a taxi home (I really didn't want to drag my bags uphill for half an hour), saw a few trick-or-treaters, had some pasta for dinner (it was the only thing in the house), caught up with Clay, unpacked, and pretty much collapsed.  What a trip!!!

Now, I'm trying to get back into the swing of normal life again.  Going to classes again, doing homework, writing my dissertation (ehhhhhh), buying food... but hey, I'm not complaining.  I had a fantastic trip, and I'm recovering back in my beautiful 'home' city (where the weather is much warmer than in Scotland!).  Life is wonderful.

I leave you with a collection of pictures of the city itself (which I couldn't find spots for in the last three posts)-- taken from Edinburgh Castle, the streets, etc.  Enjoy!