The Joy of the Scottish!

Our day was filled up before we knew it and my body is telling me so as I sit here yawning.  It's only 11:30, why should I be tired?

We toured Edinburgh Castle today.  We had no idea how huge it is and stayed there for three hours.  We saw everything from the Scottish crown jewels to the room where King James was born, to sword fights and war museums.  Quite an incredible three hours.

 

Edinburgh Castle from afar.

In front of the castle.

A view from the castle.

In one part of the castle they have an amazing exhibition with lots of mannequins and colorful paintings that illustrate the story being told.  This scene shows the rediscovery of the crown jewels.

They have some amazing fireplaces!  My dad is like 6'2 or something and his head doesn't even reach the mantle!

Another huge fireplace.

Then, would you believe it!  Just one day after my hopes had been dashed with my Scottish beau, I found the one.  This guy even moves.  But, not only does he move, he can do sword fights and all sorts of other fascinating stuff with weapons.  He even put his hat on my head.  Now if that's not sending a signal, I don't know what is!

But, then again, there's always a draw back to these foreign fellows.  This time it was the sweat.  Ok, when he removed his lovely hat from my head I felt like my hair had just been washed.  Sweaty! I just don't know if I could live with that type of perspiration.

But really, I guess he did have a pretty good excuse:

Ok, back to reality now.  We walked into the "Great Hall" to find these two guys demonstrating how different swords and weapons were used "back in the day."  Basically, how they murdered each other.  It was very interesting.  At one point I was taking a picture (there were about 200 people watching) and my red guy stopped and started talking to me.  They began posing!  Great!  My red guy was like "do you have all you want?" and "is this good?"  Uh yeah, sure. Thumbs up.  Okay.  

Pretty awesome dudes.

  

A really cool cannon with a really cool name.

After a little more sightseeing, we met Kate and her husband, Simon for dinner. 

We were going to go on a tour but were never able to find the tour group, so instead we just walked with them and they were great company and also informative guides.

Mom saw a sign to some gardens  so we followed it and found a lovely garden tucked away off the street...an oasis in a busy city.

 

Simon and Kate (Kate, I'll e-mail the pics we got of y'all to you!)

Tomorrow we plan to meet up with Kate again to go to the Royal Botanical Gardens...I can smell some good picture opportunities.  Now, time to totally hit the sack (cause now it's nearly two hours since I started the post.)