Awoke at 7:00am thanks to the lovely marimba sound on my iPhone alarm and jumped into the shower ready to begin the first full day in Scotland! Around 8:00am, my roommate Paige and I headed to breakfast in the cafeteria of the John McIntyre Conference Centre, which provided a lovely eating selection each morning. Of course, due to my picky-ness, I just got a bowl of what looked to be Frosted Flakes, but accidentally put soy milk on it and also grabbed a banana.
We then met the rest of the touring group in the Reception Hall at 9:00am and headed out for the day. We were able to utilize our bus passes for the first time, and grabbed a bus to the Royal Mile. Our touring of the Mile began at Edinburgh Castle which is at the top of the street.
Edinburgh Castle is a fortress that dominates the city skyline and is perched atop a volcano known as Castle Rock. The Castle is sill in use today, and is the home of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which we will be attending on Saturday night. We explored the different areas of the Castle such as the Scottish National War Memorial and the chapel and also took in the views of Edinburgh.
After we were finished with the Castle, Paige and I began to make our way down the Royal Mile hitting up a few of the different gift shops along the way and browsing for different gifts to get later in the week. We also took the time to listen to a bagpiper that was performing on the streets! Very fun! We soon stopped at the World's End to grab some lunch. The pub has the name it does, because that is where the city used to end before the development of the new town. We both grabbed burgers and chips for lunch, which were very good!
We once again began to make our way down the Royal Mile and ran into Jake, another Edinboro member. We were early to meet up with the rest of the group so we just rested outside the Parliament Building and took in the different sights and sounds of the city such as the buses and cars and the multitude of different tourists visiting from other countries and speaking different language.
The rest of the group then gathered at Holyrood Palace at 3:00pm to take a tour. The Palace is the official residence of the Queen of England, and is located at the bottom of the Royal Mile. The tour was quite interesting, and it was delivered over a headset that we all got to rent that taught us a lot of different facts and figures about the Palace. When we were done with the tour we took some time and strolled the beautiful gardens. When leaving the Palace, we met up with Kate and Beckie and decided to take the scenic route back to Pollock which was a walk around Arthur's Seat. The walk was long but definitely beautiful!
We then freshened up quickly and the five of us decided to go find a place for dinner. We discovered The Abby, which was not a far walk from Pollock Halls. I had nachos and a delicious chocolate-fudge dessert. We spent the rest of the time getting to know each other better and watching the Olympics before we decided to call it a night and head back to Pollock Halls.
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