6 Bus Trips, One Day

Today I got my money out of my Ridacard bus pass...

Craigmillar Castle

I hopped on a bus going east and went to Craigmillar Castle, a few miles outside of the city. This castle was where Mary Queen of Scots sheltered after the murder of her friend Rizzio, and also where plans were made to murder Mary's husband, Darnley.






Edinburgh Castle can be seen on the hill to the left. There is one smaller hill next to a larger hill on the right. I believe the smaller one is Arthur's Seat.

Just before it began raining (of course) I got on the bus and headed back to the city.

Botanical Gardens

The gardens were nice and green. The only excitement was that I missed my stop the first time, and ended up in a residential part of town by the sea. I figured it out though, and eventually ended up where I meant to be.


There was a very nice/large rock garden, emulating plant terrain in the Himilayas.

I had lunch at the cafe, and then headed back into town (once again).

Harry Potter

Met up with some of the international students to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was good. There was a scene or two they rushed through too much. Death shouldn't be a 5 second thing. Afterwards we attempted to find a pub without a cover, which is tricky on a Saturday night...but we found one. It was full of hen parties, lol. Kinda strange, but whatever.

Falkland Palace, St. Andrews, and Pittenweem

Another International Students trip, another day of quaint villages and crumbling castles.

Falkland (Palace)

First, the quaint village...

Falkland Palace is technically owned by the queen, but it has been under the care of keepers for hundreds of years.

...In 1402 the eldest son of King Robert III of Scotland was imprisoned at Falkland Palace, and died there due to starvation. The Scots have this great culture where it seems that someone important has been murdered at every castle.

It is also the home of the oldest tennis courts in the world. The precursor to lawn tennis, royal tennis (very exciting, I know):

St. Andrews

Next it was onto St. Andrews, the home of golf and the centre of much activity during the Reformation.

Since St. Andrews was the seat of the Bishop (and the seat of Catholicism in Scotland), much violence during the Reformation focused here. Many of the cathedrals have crosses marked on the ground where prominent Reformers had been burned at the stake by the Bishop to prove a point.

The Bishop lived in St. Andrews Castle. At some point in time, the Castle had been overtaken by Reformers and the Bishop's body was thrown into the bottle dungeon. There is an underground siege tunnel that goes from someone's basement to the castle, where the Catholics tried to gain back the castle. The occupiers dug three different tunnels to try and intercept the others. the third was successful.

And then St. Andrews Cathedral...which has been blown down by storms twice, burnt down once, and pillaged in the 16th century. It was once one of the largest and most magnificent cathedrals in Britain.




St. Rules tower, all that remains of the original church.


The view from St. Rules Tower


Only at the seat of the governing body of golf would there be a golf headstone.


???

After being all castle-ed and church-ed out, we went for a walk on the beach (after the castle, we all were essentially let loose on the city, which was very nice). I found some of the most delicious ice cream ever. Vanilla with chunks of butter "tablet" (i.e. butter fudge) in it.


Must pass the Old Course to get to the beach...


St. Andrews from the beach


See, proof that I was there.

Pittenweem

And as a final bonus trip, we stopped at the fishing village of Pittenweem on our way back. Of course, it began to rain. But we had nothing but nice weather earlier in the day, which was very un-Scotland-like.

Arthur's Seat

So. Edinburgh has seven rather large hill-ish mountain-ish things surrounding it. After a fabulous meal at David Bann I headed out to Arthur's Seat, one of the aforementioned seven hill-ish mountain-ish things.

It didn't look too bad from the bottom.

...but that was before I got halfway up and the wine kicked in a second time.

A pretty view during one of my breaks.

There were lots of slugs and snails along my way.

It only took about a half an hour to reach the top, and then I took some pretty photos:

What you see there is the National Monument on Calton Hill. It was supposed to be a model of the Parthenon, but they ran out of money after 12 columns. It has been known to be nicknamed the "shame of Edinburgh".

I determined that perhaps having the smaller glass of wine with my dinner would've been a better idea. Somehow, exercising immediately after it has left me rather impaired all evening.

CityKnitty

Tonight was the night in which much knitting was...left unaccomplished. I apparently cannot talk and knit lace at the same time. Hrrmph.

So. Here's what I accomplished at CityKnitty's SnB tonight:

It will be a shrug some day. But not today.

On the bright side, I did get to meet a handful of new people, my fellow knitters.

KIM Meeting, Birmingham

As stated previously, today I went to Birmingham for a project meeting. I woke up at 4am.



See, Edinburgh at 4am! It's already light out!

Birmingham was once an industrial city, but basic industry has been dying out here in the UK, much like back in the States. So now, Birmingham is the focus of many urban renewal projects. I'd say it's looking really pleasant.







Look. It's a beach. In the city. Weird advertisement.

Birmingham

Tomorrow I go to Birmingham for the day. I'm giving a 5 minute talk about my potential approaches to the project I'm working on at the KIM Meeting. Boy, am I excited about that.

Today I met an American. As in, a not-tourist American. I was paying for this weekend's international students trip to Falkland Palace and St. Andrews at the Chaplaincy, and he was talking to the secretary. We were both sort of surprised. Americans just don't live in Edinburgh (apparently), much less work/study at Heriot Watt University.