Could this trip take any longer to post?

Scotland! I loved Scotland. It was beautiful. It was green. The views were incredible. The people were friendly (and sometimes hard to understand). The B&B's were perfect. The history was more than just a book, it is their life.

Our first Scotland stop was Edinburgh. We flew in from Paris (and had to pay for snacks on the plane! sheesh!) and wandered around a bit before finding the right bus to take to our B&B. Since we arrived later in the day, we decided to take it easy. We got to our B&B and settled in, then headed to dinner.

We ended up walking a block up the street to a hotel that had a great restaurant. This place was our favorite eatery the WHOLE trip. No joke. We ate there both nights we were in Edinburgh! The first night I got pan-seared chicken with a leek, bacon and cider sauce. I will learn to make this. The second night, we shared pan seared duck with a red pepper sauce and sweet potato and red pepper soup... oh my soul, it was all so good. (you know a place is good when it takes up a paragraph on your post about another country!)

Anyways- the next day we spent wandering around Edinburgh. But not before enjoying breakfast by the window at the B&B. I had this very yummy granola there and we bought some (at the grocery store) and brought it home. :)

We walked to and toured the Edinburgh castle and learned some incredible history. We were so grateful for the free twenty minute tour and our guide was pretty funny. It was really neat to see the Stone of Scone (which is a coronation object) because we saw, in London, the chair that was built to hold this stone by Edward I, King of Enland, who stole it from Scotland and it wasn't returned until 1996 - 700 years later!!! I must say that I was anti-England after leaving Scotland because of all the Scottish history that we became apart of while touring the country.

At the castle, we waiting around to hear the One o Clock gun that has gone off every day (except Sundays) since 1816. It was loud, but really neat to see. After the castle, we stopped by th Elephant House for lunch. This is none other than the place were J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. It was a hip little joint with good sandwiches.

We stopped by the National Museum of Scotland and looked around. We didn't stay long though and headed out for more walking and wandering. We did stop by a Kilt and Tartan Shop and found the MacBride/McBride tartan pattern. That was really cool! It could only be ordered, so we didn't get anything with that patteren. However, we did search a little more and found out that McBride is from the MacDonald Clan, so I got a MacDonald tartan scarf!

We walked in and out of several stores and had to laugh at the crazy souiveners they had available to "honor" your time in Scotland (as in, whiskey flavored condoms..gross!). We took a ton of pictures and enjoyed the scenery! We saw a portion of the old wall that separated the city. It was so incredible to imagine how the city was hundreds of years ago! We stopped by Angel's Espresso and got tea (Patrick got hot chocolate) and a scone. It started raining while were snacking, so we decided to take the bus home.

We watched some Scottish TV before we went to dinner. The shows were pretty funny and there was a weird British drama that was on three channels. Ha! Like I said, we went back to the yummy hotel again for dinner and raced back to our B&B (Patrick won...as always. I'm a terrible racer!). After our first full day in Scotland, we were loving this portion of our trip!

Now it's picture time:

This is a heart on the sidewalk. It is said that locals stop at the edge of the heart and spit into the center for good luck. We were going to do it, but we stopped and watched and NO ONE spit in the center. We opted to keep walking.
Inside the Edinburgh Castle....

The One o Clock gun ...A very old graveyard that I walked through...
The Old Wall remnant...

Me sipping some hot tea....

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh...