Perhaps our greatest accomplishment of this first day of midterm break was being on a train, with our luggage, at 7am in the morning. This was not leave for the train station at 7am, but rather be on the train, which is pulling out of the station at 7am. We tumbled off the train and into Ediburgh four hours later, and promptly declared the city beautiful.It's such a different city than London. The street are are narrower, less chaotic, but there is far less organization in the chaos. Tourist mingle with locals, bagpipers, street performers and the odd-pagan. After checking into our hostel, which was adorable and very granola, we set out for Edinburgh castle.
There seems to be a phenomenon in Britain, which is that every city has the requisite
Castle/Cathedral combination--and the United States seriously needs to jump on the bandwagon. We ate lunch in the gardens surrounding the castle, which were unreal in their pruned wildness. It was a little rainy, but we had a beautiful view overlooking the city. Lunch was totally uneventful until 1pm, when we heard gunfire. There has historically been a lot of unrest 
between England and Scotland, but we had no idea civil war was so immensity. Just in case, however, we planned the first of many unsent emails to St. George: Dear George,
Stuck in Scotland on account of civil war. Can we have an extension on the response paper?
Fortunately, it was only the one o'clock cannon salute.
We spent most of the day wandering the castle. We saw the Scottish jewels which are less impressive than the British, but have a more epic history: the crown at one point was smuggled away from the British under a woman's skirt. They also had a surprisingly extensive (larger on the inside than the outside) and even more surprisingly fascinating military history museum. But by the time we were finished comparing the types of knives issued to the various branches of the military, we were starting to fade. They did have a particularly cool exhibit on women's contributions to WWII, and it was refreshing to see a military museum that acknowledges warfare after 1500. Most British museums give the impression that that all wars were fought in shining armor until Winston Churchill.
Apparently, Edinburgh was the place to be Friday night because we ran into several other Carls.
E and K (this we were expecting) were in Edinburgh for the night before heading off to Ireland, and R was using Edinburgh was home base for several Scottish day tours. We (minus K, who was suffering from an ill-timed bout of food poisoning) went to dinner at the White Hart, and discussed our collective love for Edinburgh. We contemplated moving the program here, and considered sending the following email to St. George:
Dear George,
We like Edinburgh better than London, so we are going to have class here. See you Wednesday.
London is great, but it is one insane city. Even with men painted blue, armed with machetes, and collecting money for leukemia patients while helping direct tourists ("Die by my sword, not by the traffic"), Edinburgh seemed down right peaceful in comparison.
Up next, Fort William.
Love,
The Mouse
Fortunately, it was only the one o'clock cannon salute.
We spent most of the day wandering the castle. We saw the Scottish jewels which are less impressive than the British, but have a more epic history: the crown at one point was smuggled away from the British under a woman's skirt. They also had a surprisingly extensive (larger on the inside than the outside) and even more surprisingly fascinating military history museum. But by the time we were finished comparing the types of knives issued to the various branches of the military, we were starting to fade. They did have a particularly cool exhibit on women's contributions to WWII, and it was refreshing to see a military museum that acknowledges warfare after 1500. Most British museums give the impression that that all wars were fought in shining armor until Winston Churchill.
Apparently, Edinburgh was the place to be Friday night because we ran into several other Carls.
E and K (this we were expecting) were in Edinburgh for the night before heading off to Ireland, and R was using Edinburgh was home base for several Scottish day tours. We (minus K, who was suffering from an ill-timed bout of food poisoning) went to dinner at the White Hart, and discussed our collective love for Edinburgh. We contemplated moving the program here, and considered sending the following email to St. George:Dear George,
We like Edinburgh better than London, so we are going to have class here. See you Wednesday.
London is great, but it is one insane city. Even with men painted blue, armed with machetes, and collecting money for leukemia patients while helping direct tourists ("Die by my sword, not by the traffic"), Edinburgh seemed down right peaceful in comparison.
Up next, Fort William.
Love,
The Mouse
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