Sept 16/11

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It was cloudy as we started today but not raining. Our bus driver, “Bob” , took us on our last tour today as our tour lady, Kirsten pointed out the main points of her home town of Edinburgh. Edinburgh as it turns out is made up of an old part and a new part. The old part was hemmed in by a wall for protection and that meant people had to build up or into the streets to house the growing population. Soon the buildings were so close to each other that people could shake hands out the window with the person across the street that lived on the same level. Since there were no elevators then the people would not carry their “nasties” bucket all the way downstairs to throw it out, instead they would just chuck it out the window. So many people were getting hit with the nasties that they made a law that you had to yell “handy loo” before throwing and if someone was below they would yell back “hold your hand!” The new town, born out of necessity of overcrowding was built 250 years ago. We visited Edinburgh Castle, the oldest surviving part of which was built in 1124. Some parts of the Castle are still used today and in fact still house the Crown Jewels of Scotland. We have some pics including the dining hall that really show the style of the time. There is also a war memorial on site that has some beautiful stained glass windows and internal pillars that gives it an eerie serene beauty fitting of a memorial. After that we tired ourselves out completely by going through the National Museum of Scotland. It is really a must see if you’re in the area and FREE.

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