Exploring Edinburgh

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We got up nice and early and I had a traditional Scottish breakfast. I'm sure that somewhere in the back of my mind I knew what black pudding was but I think I blocked it out. When Heather asked me last night if I wanted black pudding I said "sure...why not?". I didn't really know what it was and no one told me...until after I tried it. I'm glad I didn't know. Now I can honestly say that I don't like it and not because it's a nasty concept lol. I really don't like the taste of it. Heather told me what it was after I told her I didn't care for it. I won't spoil it for you...try it...you might like it.

Scottish sausages, on the other hand, are great! I don't eat a lot of meat back home (I'm an almost-vegetarian) but I say when in Rome and all that. Scottish sausages are breadier than in America...no little grizzly pieces or anything. I really like them! I also had eggs, toast, tea (of course), tomatoes, bacon (more like Canadian bacon) and the black pudding. It was great 😊

We headed off for Edinburgh Castle...wow! What an incredible place! We bought the Historic Scotland pass in the gift shop. We scratch off the days that we're going to use it and we can get into most of the castles and stuff for free with one fee. At the very least we'll break even with it and might even save a little. If we had more time we'd definitely be able to visit more of the castles and historic places. I wish we'd had it before-hand. There was about a 30 minute line to get into the castle that we could have skipped had we had the membership...oh well!

We got the headphones for the self-guided tour. Ali, Meg and I all seemed to go our separate ways but kept calling each other on our phones so we could meet up again. The castle was huge...we would have had a hard time keeping up with each other otherwise.

After the castle we took the bus to the train station to drop Meg off. It's 2 pounds 30 pence for a day pass, which is SO worth it. It's a pound every time you hop on a bus so we get our money's worth out of a day pass. Ali broke her glasses frames on the bus...she had her contacts back at the B&B but no spare pair of glasses with her on vacation. I had a band-aid in my backpack...she used it to stick her glasses back together and we went off to find someplace to fix her glasses after dropping Meg off. They couldn't fix her glasses but referred us to a place where we could get some made fairly quickly. So, we went to the shop, picked out frames, and then called her eye doctor in the States to have them fax over a copy of her prescription so she didn't have to pay for an eye exam as well. That was such a pain!! It was an international fax, which they were reluctant to do but finally did.

Ali's glasses will be ready tomorrow, which screws up our plans a bit. We were going to head out of Edinburgh tonight and head up to Stirling so we could be up bright and early to see Stirling Castle. But, Heather and Giorgio have given us the room for another night so we can stay and do a bit more sightseeing.

We went back to Heather and Giorgio's to trade Ali's broken glasses for her contacts (which she hates, but at least she has them). Note to self...bring spare glasses when on vacation. We ate dinner at a pub and walked around Edinburgh for a while. We walked up to Carlton Hill and took some nice pictures with Arthur's Seat in the background and gorgeous pictures of Edinburgh's sunset. I really need a tripod.

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