Haggis, Whisky and Target Practice

After a few days in London, and a quick trip down to Kent to see Granny and have Sunday brunch with the Akenheads, I took a long bus ride up to Castle Douglas (Scotland) to visit Uncle Peter and Auntie Janet. I spent a few days with them in the country, away from big cities like London and Athens. Janet and I went shopping one day and visited a few of the surrounding towns; everything is really pretty around there. I went horseback riding one crisp morning for an hour, and Uncle Peter taught me how to shoot the day I left for Edinburgh. It was great to see them again, and their place would be well worth another visit. :)

I met up with Annie again not long after arriving in Edinburgh and she led the way to our hostel. It was located literally right below Edinburgh Castle, and not far from the Royal Mile (the main street in the older part of the city) and Grassmarket (a main area for food and some shops).

The next day we went wandering around the city, did some shopping, had dinner with some of our dorm mates, and did some general scoping out of the area. We met up with Riley and met more of his Herstmonceux friends that evening (I think they were on a midterm trip). We went of a free walking tour of Edinburgh the next morning for a few hours, and saw and heard lots, including the original inspiration for Hogwarts and the Burke & Hare body snatchers story. We went to Edinburgh Castle after the tour for a couple hours and walked back in the rain (not surprising, I guess). We met up with some Herstmonceux people again, for dinner this time, and some of them went clubbing afterwards (Annie included). A lot of sleeping in was done the next morning. We wandered around Edinburgh with several people, and bought some souvenirs. There is no lack of tartan everything in that city, that's for sure. We went on a ghost/graveyard tour at the same time as what seemed like half the students from Herstmonceux, which wasn't as cheesy as expected, but didn't successfully scare most of us. We went out to a pub (that we'd found the day before) after a classy Italian dinner with wine, and eventually found our way back to beds  - the Herstmonceux group was leaving around 9 the next morning, and Annie and I hadn't packed up to head to St. Andrew's yet. :)

At some point haggis was tried (by most of us), whisky names were listed, lots of aimless walking was done, lots of pictures were taken, eventually an ATM was found, and lots of laughing occurred.

We can't find the camera connector cord right now, so no more pictures are uploaded yet, but hopefully we'll be able to put them up soon.