Edinburgh, Scotland the land of tartan
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2007
1
30
51
Trip End
Dec 22, 2007
Edinburgh,
United Kingdom
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Day 2 we began with a free walking tour to learn the history of the town. It once had a lake that of course the people used to drink out of and where all the poo from the streets flowed when the rain washed the streets clean.Rumor had it that the lake got so nasty that a crust formed on the top and small children could walk on top of the crusty from one shore to the next..
Edinburgh
. ewwww... We also learnedabout all the various forms of torture that the scottish loved to use... making their men wear skirts was not one of them :) It also seemed to be a common theme that those who introduced killing methods were than killed by them. The man who introduced the guilletin (Sorry my spelling is going downhill as I write more in spanish than english) that is the head chopper offer, to Scotland was executed using that because he was accused of commiting some crime. The same happened witht he guy who built the structure for the place they hung people he was executed in that way.They were a very bloody society and needless to say y skin was crawling. The not so bloody facts we learned included the Sir Walter Scot's books about edin. introduced tourism to the area because prior to that they were thought of a bloody uneducated folks (I wonder why)... We also saw the tavern that David Brodie carried out his many plans for thefts in-man whose life Dr. Jekyl and Mr.Hydewas based on. We of course also saw the cafein which JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books/idea on napkins oh and the castle she is rumored to have based Hogwarts off of and the tiny allyways that are like the passage to diagon alley... Ya we like our random literature facts! That afternoon we climbed arthur's seat which is a hill that over looks the town. We took loads of pictures, nejoyed nature, grass,cool weather, and the changing leaves :) That day ended with an exciting viewing of the Rugby game between New Zealand and the French
Andy Warhol..
. I like Rugby... I have come to tthat conclusion and the folks were absolutely hilarious/awesome at our hostel so it was loads of fun. One guy from British Columbia was so kind as to explain what was happening for the first 5minutes of the game or so so I hink I get the basics. For those ignorant folks such as myself imagine american football without the pads, breaks between plays, and teeth. Then you have the basic game of rugby :)Day 3 we got up for a mid morning walk to the botanical gardens... 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 courses. But yes, then we planned to go to the museum of childhood cuz we are just that cool but we neglected to see the day before that it is only open on sundays until oct 1st... soooo instead we went to the museum of scotland and the royalmuseum. I could have spent a whole day at this 6 or so story building... or two buildings really that were connecnted. I watched a 45minute dance exhibition of 16th century dances which were all a lot like walking to a beat so they were not the most exciting dances I have ever seen... Though I think that is becuase the women had to do them in corsets and millions of pounds of clothing so walking to a beat was enough excercise... At the end the audience even got to learn one of the dances... Which of course I tried :) That day ended with more rugby, Scotland was getting creamed by Argentina and kept turning over the ball so I went to bed... And that was Scotland
