Scotland! A wee little somethin' I nearly forgot---sorry!

Well, before Paris, after Ireland, we went to Scotland, the land of the brave hearts. We stayed in the gRrand (roll that "r", ye Scots) city, of Edinburgh.

Guess what? Another church!!! Yay!

Looks like something Sauron would hole up in. Honest to goodness, that's what I thought.

Below, are a couple pictures from a tour we got on the witchcraft that stole Edinburgh years ago, as well as just stories on ole Scotland. These guys were hilarious, but we thought the gentleman in the suit looked like the 10th Doctor, from Doctor Who. So, we snuck a pic of him passing a blue box thingy we dubbed a mock-Tardis.

This picture above got distorted badly with my camera. Squint, and it looks kind of nice. Sorta.

Edinburgh Castle! The old dwelling of the Queen of the Scots, who now takes up the palace occasionally down the road, called the Royal Mile, which is actually a Scottish mile---it's a WEE bit longer than the English mile.

It's amazing to me that they can get so much detail, shading and emotion with stained glass. They were really quite beautiful.

Above, we passed another tour with a Braveheart kind of guy. Love it! And below, we were walking along side a bicycle rally or something, cause people of all ages were in it. And we saw some funky bikes. xD

This is the palace the queen uses as she pleases. At the moment, she was somewhere else, I think in Warwick.

And below is my last picture, of a close, which pretty much translates to a Scottish alleyway. We had a tour of old Mary King's Close, but weren't allowed to take pictures. It was really dark, beneath the streets since they were leveled off to create the new Edinburgh. The buildings below used to be over 14 stories tall, made of wood so they leaned against each other, blocking out sunlight above. Chamber pots were dumped into the streets with a yell of "Gaude loo!" (Spelling's off, but say it like gawdy and loo, and you've got it right, just add somethin' a little Scottish to it.) So, torches making up for no sunlight, and muck up to your ankles, it festered with disease. The black plague was rampant in closes, especially in the lower housing, since the poor were packed into dirt hovels on the ground, the rich above.

And that's the end of my Scottish tale! It was a blast here, even with the rain we got slammed with.