Craigielea Guest House Galashiels

... already know all the best spots!

We plan to visit Edinburgh before going onto London. As my husband is of Scottish heritage. I need MUCH advice on getting around Edinburg, Scotland without driving ourselve. We only have a few days before we head down to London so we would like to maximize our time there without being frantic

... is screaming for mercy. Found some very nice cookies though, yum!

Time for some wandering! We didn't hit the Royal Mile unfortunately, but we did get a good wander up and down Princes Street. Waiting around in Pizza Hut for some food, just having a general laugh.. who needs to be touristy when you get the full-on local effect?

And the best part was.. SNOW! Very random and very light, but it was there :)

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom kilgiraffe

Well I was all set to leave, my brother arrived to pick me up and told me that my father had passed away that morning. Devastating news. Rang Real Gap straight away and they were really good about everything. Have postponed trip until after the funeral which is this Friday.

Will update when I have details of my flights and my new itinerary.

... we chose to only repair the 2 broken bags instead of 4 (until we can field test this to see what is better). It would be horrible to destroy 2 good bags without knowing it!

Brian also finally caved in and bought 2 new chains for our bikes (only at double the Canadian price). Stretched out very far from hauling so much weight, they were both starting to grind a bit when pedaled. Getting them both oiled and set we were ready to ...

... At 1:00 everyday they fire one of their big guns and I caught the tail end of that which was quite alarming and exiciting at the same time. I walk into the the castle and BOOM! Quite an entrance if I do say so myself :) Just kidding. There were several military museums inside the castle including one of the Scots Guard, the Scots Dragoons, and the National War Musuem. The oldest part of the castle was St. Margaret's Chapel which was little ...

... over the festive season with Christmas presents and New Years Eve celebrations - all combined with unexpected bills such as the one we got yesterday stating a rather exorbitant amount for three months council rates which apparently we have to pay for unlike in Australia - you've gotta love the fine print! Anyway, there's not a lot of use in complaining, so we are just figuring out the best way to go about our plans which may mean cutting them a bit shorter...in ...

... it is a good thing with both love nature and the outdoors because those things are free and we did not have much money. The gardens were... you guessed it beautiful with grass and leaves changing colors and small children romping around talking with very cool accents. (Side note, yesterday we also learned that Golf was invented in Scotland I thought of you Grandpa :) ) I thought of that side note because it seemed like a pretty place for golf ...

... 40s), followed by a squadron of about 15 men playing Top Gun in full flight suits, and a crew of at least 20 female pirates, one toting a pirate-attired blow up doll (you know the kind I mean). The hooting and hollering didn't cease until sometime this morning. It was riveting, sort of like a night-long train wreck - Eric and I found it impossible to tear ourselves away from the window with the human comedy/tragedy staggering by below our ...

... and a home in a new country I've come a long way. However in other ways I digress, finding myself almost back to where I started more than a year ago - albeit on the other side of the globe. Have I sold out in taking the high road and then returning to the tedium of the IT industry? Or have I just shed some of my ...

... over a volunteer as well as a chainsaw and ate fire, a hilarious Japanese guy called "hangerman" - so funny, practically the only words he knew in english were "very dangerous" and "me hangerman" definetly my favourite!! Guess you had to be there for that one! Another good Aussie whose act included an ax, some knives, and a whip. He was great because he really got the crowd engaged and cracked up over his own jokes which came across as really sincere and ...