There's sunshine in Scotland!

So since I'm terrible at keeping this thing up to date, this is about my trip to Edinburgh that was two weekends ago. Whoops.

Starting the weekend of the trip to the Ring of Kerry, I had developed a slight cough which turned into a full force cold the week before Scotland. Now for those who know me, I rarely ever get sick. It usually has to be something pretty drastic to make me feel miserable for days on end, so that being said, I was truly miserable with the cold straight from hell. I had hoped to be better by the weekend for Edinburgh, but because I tend to not have the best of luck, I was still sick come Friday. I obviously didn't let that stop me though because I had technically pain for the trip already. It was an API excursion that was included in the price I paid to API.

The point is, I strongly advise against flying whilst being so incredibly congested. I'm usually pretty good with my ears and the pressure changes, but that's when they're not blocked by all the loveliness that comes along with colds. Needless to say, it was not a happy flight for me. The silver-lining is that it was a propeller plane:

so I can check that off my bucket list!

Once we got there though, Edinburgh totally was worth the uncomfortable flight. Our hotel was pretty nice, my favorite parts being the shower I actually fit in (the ones in Cork are basically closets) and the HUGE buffet breakfast with delicious mini choco-chip muffins that I may or may not have stolen on several occasions for snacks.

We first visited the castle:

 which, ya know, is kinda hard to miss considering it's on top of a gigantic hill overlooking the whole city.

I was in favor of this being the next rock climbing experience rather than just the rock wall at the gym in Cork, but noooooo we need to be safe!

It actually turns out the the castle is the start of the main road in Edinburgh appropriately named the "Royal Mile". There's lots of touristy shops and over priced food places but it's a cool atmosphere with lots of good people watching:

 Especially when there's characters like this hanging about:

But let's face it, THIS is the real William Wallace anyway:

In all seriousness, William Wallace was actually a real person. Not so sure he was 7 feet tall or looked like Mel Gibson, but still real. I don't really know what he's famous for, but I can probably guarantee that Hollywood got it wrong.

But there's this big open area where people can take lots of pretty pictures so that's what we did:

As you can see, we had gorgeous weather. Unfortunately, we had basically spent a month and a half without seeing the sun all that much so it was a bit blinding for us:

 Well, at least for me it was.

We decided to find some place to eat first since we hadn't eaten since about 7 that morning before our flight. We also were introduced to Irn Bru which is the Scottish equivalent of Coke for the U.S.:

It wasn't anything like Coke, it was really sweet and although tasty, I'm not sure I could stomach more than one or two in a short amount of time.

After that we explored the very many different buildings of the castle and exhibits in them. They had things like, the Scottish crown jewels, a war memorial, one was an armory, another was a jail, and so on and so forth. We spent a lot of time just walking around too since it was a neat place:

Semi-group photo thanks to Tommy!

This was hands down the largest fireplace I have ever seen in my life. Of course my first thought when I saw it was "Now THIS is a fireplace you could floo in and out of!" for all you Harry Potter nerds who get the reference.

And of course cramming in as many silly pictures as possible since that's what we do:

And of course continuing the tradition of cheesy jumping pictures:

One gift shop totally took advantage of the whole William Wallace thing too which I found pretty hilarious:

Another popular gift shop item is anything having to do with highland cattle which are adorably hairy cows:

they have everything from children's books:

to hats!

Eventually, the castle was closing so we had to jet out of there lest we be trapped inside. The sun was setting at this point which made for some awesome pictures:

 We waited for about half an hour in the area to meet up with a tour guide who was giving us a historical tour of the Royal Mile. One of the first things she pointed out was this building:

which is thought to be the building that inspired Hogwarts in Harry Potter. I also realized what a bad HP fan I was at that point for not realizing that J.K. Rowling lived in Edinburgh for a while writing some of the series in a number of pubs in the city. 

Anyways, the tour was cool, but got a bit dull at the end. It also could be attributed to the fact that we were pooped from getting up so early that day and being super hungry since API apparently forgot to schedule in eating time. The one cool thing about it was all of the side streets that are in Edinburgh. They're technically called a "close" but they can range from a big 2-way street to a creepy alley that's barely big enough for my shoulders to fit. I kept saying how our tour guide could have lead us anywhere and we'd mindlessly follow because some of the alleyways she took us down I probably would've avoided at all cost on my own, but in the big group you just follow the person in front of you.

Our tour ended quite abruptly and our tour guide did not plan the tour to be a loop so all of a sudden she was like "Well that's the end! Bye!" and walked off home leaving us spinning in circles trying to find out where we were and where to go next. Thankfully, it was basically a straight line back to the castle so we didn't end up lost, but we were super hungry so we eventually hunted down a reasonable pub near our hotel for dinner. We technically had a free night and could go out if we wanted, but most of us just went back to the hotel and collapsed in bed for the next day.