Europe Trip - Day 20

Day 20 - Edinburgh, Scotland

This is the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Dad hiding from the rain

The Edinburgh Castle

The gates of most castles are always kinda creepy looking

This gun goes off daily precisly at 1:00 pm... except for like 3 days out of the year. I'm glad I knew about it before 1:00 or I would've crapped myself. :)

Cemetary specifically for the dogs of soldiers... can you see the headstones along the wall?

Ah Macbeth... I knew thee well... wait...

Memorial church where all the names of the soliders that were killed throughout the centuries are kept

This is where they keep the crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny

Heading down to the war prisons

Sleeping areas for the prisoners

Seems pretty cramped. Beds with hammocks over the top of them. How would you like to live like this?

Aww... how cute... all tuckered out

The Last Supper.... in Europe. HA

Me working on my blog in the lounge. Gotta love self-timers. :) HA!!

The weather finally caught up with us today in Scotland. It had been really nice the last couple days... and everyone had been saying it had been raining for two weeks before we showed up, but of course my last day here it rains. It's all good though. It wasn't a big deal. It rained worse while we were in Paris and London. :) We only had two specific spots we wanted to see today... Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Our hostel is almost exactly halfway between the two so we just decided to start at the bottom of the Royal Mile and work our way back up to the shopping areas and the Edinburgh Castle. So we headed down to Holyroodhouse... every so often stopping in souvenir shops trying to find something to take home. We got down there and found out how much it was to get in. Mom didn't think we really needed to go inside because she figured it was about the same as most of the other palaces we've seen. :) So we went to the gift shop and looked through a souvenir book with pictures of the inside of the palace. haha! Cheapest and fastest way of seeing something. :) The main reason we wanted to go to it was because it was the residence of Mary, Queen of Scots... who apparently somewhere down the line... the Rail family comes from. I've learned a couple things about my family while being in Europe... most recent is that I'm some sort of decendant of Mary, Queen of Scots (not sure how)... and from the Morrison Clan. So... I guess that's part of where the red hair comes from. HA! :) Dad was saying that we're also German... and he thinks some Irish as well. Anywho... after that... we started making it the little over half mile back up the hill to the castle. Of course looking in shops as we go. :) We finally made it back up and paid our fees to get into the castle. We also got me an audio guide. Mom and dad didn't want one I guess, but I find them very informative. We decided to split ways so I could follow the audio guide and mom and dad could look around as they wanted to without having to wait for me. We'd just meet up at the cafe once I was done to have lunch. It wasn't the biggest castle we've been too, but it was pretty cool. It seemed more like a fortress than a castle... there weren't as many rooms and stuff to see that people would have stayed in. I did learn a lot about the the armies and wars in Scotland though. Pretty interesting stuff. I got to see the Stone of Destiny (or the Stone of Scone.. pronounced skoon) and the Scottish crown jewels. I also got to go down into a war prison and see where they kept the prisoners during the wars and such. Besides seeing where they were buried... they had on display the wooden doors that the prisoners would carve initials... dates... designs... etc into while they were there. After I walked around the castle and was wet enough... I went to the cafe and grabbed some grub with the parentals. We then proceeded to head back down the mile. Mom wanted to stop and see how they weaved the kilts in the kilt factory place. I wanted to go across the street and see the history and how they make whiskey, but... that didn't happen. Mom and dad were going to go back to the room, but I still hadn't found a souvenir like I wanted to... so they left and off I was by myself. I just hit some shops and finally got myself something. And as I walked back to go warm up in the room... I stopped by a jewelry stand and ended up talking to an Italian guy... and the guy who ran the stand... who I believe was from Spain. It was pretty interesting and they were really nice. I bought a couple things there and left to go back to the room. I found mom reading and dad sleeping... so I got on the computer and talked to Jamey, Michael and Shawndra for a bit. :) Then we decided it was time to go get dinner... so we went to a nearby Italian restaurant for our last real meal in Europe. It's kind of sad. I can't believe it's my last night and then I have to go back to real life. I don't know if I can do it!!! I guess I don't have much of a choice. Well.. I have to go shower and get ready for bed. Gotta try and get to bed a bit early cuz I have to get up at 6:00 to get ready and get to the airport. Boo! I hate early mornings... which is all I've had on this trip. Blah! :) See you guys soon!!!