He arrived on a Friday of typical Edinburgh weather: cloudy, misty, depressingly grey. So off to the heated comfort of the National Museum of Scotland it was! We saw some great historical textiles, renditions of whales and other large animals, and industrial age machinery. We ate at one of my favorite Indian restaurants and that night Ben met some of my friends.
Saturday was a day that we had planned in advance. We booked tickets to go see the panda bears at the Edinburgh Zoo! We spent the ~30 minute bus ride on the top level of the double decker bus! This probably is nothing exciting for the UKers but it was a new experience for Ben and I. We got off the bus about a block away from the zoo and in the 4 minutes that it took us to walk to the entrance it rained...of course. But by the time we got through the ticket line the skies were sunny. We were off to see my favorite animals!
The zookeeper told us how lucky we were to see this female panda eating as they sleep almost 16 hours per day! Unfortunately we only got to see one of Edinburgh Zoo's two pandas. The zoo keepers apologized on behalf of their male panda who is quite "sensitive" and only comes out on days when he feels like it.
After a nice day at the zoo we hopped on another bus back to my dorm. Sunday we planned on hiking Arthur's Seat in the morning and doing homework in the afternoon. We could not have hoped for a better day. It was actually...almost...warm. Crazy! With not a cloud in the sky, I soaked up all the vitamin D that I could. But I wouldn't have wanted Ben to get the wrong idea about Edinburgh's weather...so it rained at least a little bit every other day. Anyway, after about half an hour of stairs up Arthur's Seat we reached the top. It was my first time up and the views are breathtaking.
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| View from Arthur's Seat looking north to the Firth of Forth |
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| The castle is to the right of us! |
Monday was a busy day of classes for me. Tuesday afternoon we went to Calton Hill. A famous park, Calton Hill has a tower to climb up in, the old city observatory and a half-built parthanon that is now the national monument of Scotland.
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| Calton Hill. Gorgeous views of the city from everywhere but where this picture was taken. |
With dreary days for Wednesday and Thursday the next outing of note was the castle!!! I still had not done the most touristy thing in town, and I must say it was worth the steep fee to get in. Friday was bitter cold but that means sunshine! (If there are clouds it is warm out and vice versa...go figure!) Ben and I made the walk from my dorm to the Royal Mile, about 25 minutes, then walked uphill to the top of the Royal Mile where the castle sits upon Castle Rock. (Castle Rock is a geographic feature made by ol' Arthur's Seat!) Up on the hill of the castle were some of the best views I have seen so far along with many interesting historical things to see. We saw the crown jewels of Scotland, the dungeons where POWs were kept, a tiny chapel about the size of a shed, and the royal chambers. Then we went off to find some authentic pub food! Yummy.
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| The inscription over the entry way says something like "No one attacks me and gets away with it." |
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| Calton Hill can be seen in the distance! |
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| Chapel (the bigger of two) within the castle walls. |
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| Ben and I and Arthur! |
Overall we had a great week! Tune in to my next blog post to see what we did the next weekend!
I love reading these entries! I guess I get criticized for too many likes---but I love to both see what you have been up to and get some context too! Wonderful!
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