I Think I've Finally Caught My Breath...

The day has been long.  Long as in l-o-n-g.  This morning we caught a bus at 5:52 to catch a train to the airport to catch a plane to Edinburgh.  We dashed to the train platform, boarded the train and breathed a sigh of relief.  Ahem...a little too soon.  We had a delightful ride, not long but smooth.  We got to our stop, got up and made our way to the door.  It took awhile because lots of people were getting on.  We finally made it to the door right as it was closing.  Mom pushed the button to open the door...nothing happened.  She kept pushing, Dad and Mom working together.  Still, nothing happened.  Then, slowly we felt it: the train was moving.  We had missed our stop and were heading full speed away from the airport where we had a plane to catch.  We got off at the next stop and found out life wasn't so bad after all.  Some super nice train guys told us exactly what we needed to do and we boarded a train back to the airport and put on our sneakers (figuratively speaking) and started moving.  We got to the airport only to realize that we had forgotten about the liquid regulations for clearing security!  You know what? I lost my tanning lotion.  I was sad.  But, nothing else went really wrong and we made it to our gate with a whole 10 minutes to spare!  When we got on the plane we were finally able to breath that long awaited sigh of relief.  

Here's Mom and Dad on the train a little past six this morning...

I found out that huge bulky handbags are great for more than just carrying stuff in.   (Nope...not asleep here, promise.)

At our B&B in Edinburgh.

Now, let me start another little story for you.  When I was 13, 14, 15 something like that, I took violin lessons form a young lady named Kate.  She was great!  But, you know what she did?  She visited Scotland and fell in love.  Soon she was married.  Yes, you guessed it...she then moved to Scotland with her new Scottish husband.  As you can imagine, commuting to Edinburgh every Saturday morning for a violin lesson just wasn't in the schedule...imagine the jet lag.  But, even though I lost her as my violin teacher, I gained a contact and friend here in Scotland!  So, today, Kate became our amazing personal tour guide.  It was so wonderful to see her again and be shown about by her...I've found she knows a lot about this awesome city and she speaks in an accent I can understand...Texan.

Kate's telling us something very interesting.  This is the church that John Knox preached in, St. Giles.

Here's Dad inside the church with John Knox.

There are so many beautiful stained glass windows in the church.

Then we went down below the church to a great little cafe for a snack...scones and tea.

Afterwards, we started walking the streets of Edinburgh and would you believe who I found?  Remember Mr. Romano?  Well, he just didn't work out, but I met someone who's more my type.

Although, he doesn't look that interested.  Rather stony if you ask me...oh well.

A nice view from way high up.  It was petty foggy at this time but later on it cleared up.

By this time my hair had gone voop.  Now, it you don't know what "voop" means, you're a very blessed person and you don't have naturally curly/wavy/wacky hair.  With all the humidity yesterday it didn't matter how much I flat ironed or finger combed my hair, it was not going to lay flat and smooth.

Mom and I love really cool doors so we had to stop at these.

I like how the houses are so tall and squished together.

Then Kate took us up to the top of a museum to get a really good view of the city.  It was very high up but by this time the fog had started to burn off.

There was a great view of Edinburgh Castle (which we're planning on touring Wednesday).

This is King James' cradle and itty bitty throne type thingy.

A pretty place.

This is the prison where the Covenanters (those who remained faithful to Reformed doctrine) were kept.  It was amazing to stand at the big iron gates and look in thinking about those great men and women of faith, many of whom gave their lives for their Lord.

All the above stuff happened Tuesday but I'm not getting it posted until today (Wednesday).  This morning we had a huge breakfast at our B&B.  I ordered the traditional Scottish breakfast which had black pudding with it.  I was sitting there thoroughly enjoying my meal and thinking how good the black pudding was.  Mmmmm.  Then our hostess came in and Dad asked her what black pudding has in it.  Here answer: "pig's blood."  I wanted to throw up.  Gross.  Pig's blood?  I was only about half way finished with it at that time, but after hearing the main ingredient, there was no way I was about to eat any more.  I feel like I should go on a juice diet for the next three days.