Edinburgh, Scotland

What a beautiful city!!! I absolutely love it. I am staying right in the centre of the Old Town. Yesterday I spent the first part of the day checking out a few sights. I wandered down the Royal Mile and stopped off at a cemetary to see Adam Smith's grave. Being a capitalist, I was interested to see what was written on it. As I thought, it was in keeping with his laissez-faire view. I then went to check out the new Scottish Parliament. Recently completed, it caused quite a bit of controversy because it cost 10 times as much as it was supposed to. It looks like IKEA created it! It's nice, but I can see why people are making a fuss about the money that was spent. After that I decided to go to Holyrood Palace. Unfortunately, as it is being prepared for some prince (Albert?) to come, it is closed. Instead I went to the Queen's Gallery next to it. It had an exhibit on fans. Very cool. Some extremely elaborate, gorgeous (and old) fans that belonged to various royalty (Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandria, etc.).

After taking it easy for the first part of the day, I decided to do the walk up to Arthur's Seat. The walk gave amazing views all around the city. Unfortunately, the weather, which had been okay, turned. It showered a bit on the first part of my walk and got windy. By the time I was approaching the top, it had become so windy that it was hard to walk. The rain become steady and because of the extreme wind, it actually hurt when it hit your face. When I got to the top of Arthur's Seat, I actually had to hold on to the thing that they had put there to show you which sights you could see in the various directions. I tried to take some pictures without getting blown down, but I couldn't hold the camera very still. Despite all this, it was SO worth it.

I had a relaxing evening, heading out for a vegetarian jacket potato with one of the women staying in my room. The only excitement came when I was in the toilet just before bed and a girl came crashing in to get sick. Unfortunately she hadn't managed to make it to the toilet fast enough and the evil by-product of her exzcessive drinking could be witnessed in the hallway as well. : (

Well, it's day 2 and I am headed off. Looks like a sunny day so I am smiling. : )