"Come back tomorrow and I'll get you good and drunk."

Alrighty (hear this in a Scottish accent please) m'wee lassies an' laddies. We beh gettin' to the heart of the matter now.
Tuesday night we arrived in Edinburgh and checked into the SmartCity hostel, a mighty nice little place just off the Royal Mile on Blackfriar (Rd? Ln? St?). Erin, Annie, Mallory and I immediately headed down to grease up our arteries at a chippy (fish and chips joint) that was ridiculously out of the way, but highly recommended by Dr. Holland. It was quite good and quite greasy - we felt the need to walk rather quickly to work it off.

I saw this street on the way down to the chippy and figured we needed a picture.

We decided to try to find another place on Dr. Holland's list o' things to do, an unknown but amazing-sounding establishment called Chocolate Soup. On our way there we ran into another bunch from our group who had gone to the address and discovered nothing but a pub (with a bartender who gave the promise that is this blog's title). They got directions to another one, which ended upbeing very close to our hostel, but closed. We joined our groups together and wandered Princes Street. Our experience is documented in pictures.

This is the absurdly huge Walter Scott monument on Princes Street. I have no idea why this man needs this much monument, but there you have it.

We were planning to find this place, but we accidentally stumbled upon it. This is the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter on a napkin or whatever. Some of our group went and ate in there - I had some fantastic gelato next door.

Not exactly sure what this building was, but it was cool.

After some good wandering through a very cool city, we headed back to the hostel to wash off the grime and frolic in the shower. (You think I'm kidding about that last bit, but the light in there was motion activated, so you had to keep moving or you were in the dark.) This was of course followed by another dramatic reading of the Georgia Nicholsen book, again by Erin, before we were lulled to sleep by a guy singing "Wonderwall" and other such classics in a pub around the corner. (I'm told that he got pretty annoying after about 2 am, but we were long gone by then.

Here's our room, already in a shambles. Pretty sure it got worse after we all bought souveigners.

We rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning (really, even me) to hike to the top of Arthur's Seat, the highest point in the city. It was beautiful up there, and the earliness and the ensuing tiredness were worth it, especially when Dr. Holland brought up the second group and we sat down to have a morning devotional about the history of the Church in England. We talked about how the influx of members from the UK helped to save the Church during the early days, and Orson Hyde prayed from the top of Arthur's Seat while he was serving as a missionary in Edinburgh. It was all very cool.

I wish I could take credit for this picture, but it was all Mallory.

This is Arthur's Seat. It doesn't look like much, but it was a nice little hike.

The crew victorious at the top.

A truly fantastic view.

Yeah, what.

After the devotional, we had just enough time to hike down and take a quick rinse off before we headed up to Edinburgh Castle for an early tour.

Castles are fun and cobblestoney.

Cool/picturesque clock tower. I think the crown jewels and the stone of destiny were in there somewhere.

The view from the castle was lovely - more so with Adreanne and me in front of it.

Same story goes for the interior of the castle.

After the castle, we started making our way down the Royal Mile, alternately checking out cool things and shopping. At some point I acquired a plaid hat, which you will see in the following pictures. Yeah, I'm cool. :)

Ah. There it is.

This is a fun picture of the little square where we ate lunch, but I was taking a picture of a store across the way (where I actually got something for my mom) called Thistle Do Nicely. Hahaha. This joke works better in Scotland where Thistles are everywhere and symbolic.

A bagpiper on the street.

The cool building 'neath whose spires we ate lunch and wrote postcards.

St. Giles Cathedral

Holyrood House, the official residence of the Queen in Scotland.

The Abbey attached to Holyrood House - definitely the best part of the tour.

Not documented in these pictures was our little side trip to a row of very cool used book stores where I bought a couple of cool things for really cheap, including my summer Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree. Hurrah.
After Holyrood House we met up with some of the other members of our group and ate Yorkshire Pudding at a pub, where they had a "World Traveller Menu," meaning that if we were staying in a hostel we got things for half price. Pretty much the best news ever.

A good close up of my hat/European look (haha) and my Yorkshire pudding.

Aw. Mallory and I drinking Chocolate Soup - amazing hot chocolate.

All of us being very tired outside of Chocolate Soup.

After our day of playing, my roomies went to bed early. I took a short nap and then went to a pub with Sarah, Caitlin, Hillary and Sara. We only stayed for a few minutes (because they wanted us to buy drinks and I didn't particularly want a ginger ale), but we caught some fun traditional music and then I went back to the hostel and enjoyed the company of my peers for a bit before going to bed.

The next morning we were leaving early, but I got up in plenty of time to try haggis!

Mmm . . . sheep entrails . . .

It's actually not that bad. It's kind of like hot dogs, in that if you don't think about what's in it, it's totally edible. We made a pact to try it, so here are some of the shots of the fulfillment.

The moment of truth.

Mallory also gives it a try . . .

And we capture the reaction. C'mon Mallory! It's not that bad!

Annie is very excited about this.

From here we went to what may be my favorite place on earth, the glorious lake district. First we hit Wordsworth's house, Dove Cottage.

I have a picture in pretty much this exact spot from last time, except I'm holding a copy of Seamus Heaney's District and Circle.
Mmm. Grasmere gingerbread.
This was the best thing ever. Danny Holland would pull up his pants and then say in a low gravelly voice, "BIG FAT GRANDMA." No idea, but hilarious.

After wandering Grasmere for a couple of hours, we went on to Ambleside, or as I like to call it, Heaven on Earth. We went swimming and kayaking, and then wandering through the town, and eventually we ended up in the hostel playing Psychiatrist and Mao. It was loverly. I don't have too many pictures of all of this - 3x5 doesn't capture the Lake District experience, and I need to track down the ones of me in Lake Windemere and by the kayaks, because I was running out of memory on my camera at this point, but here are a few.

Getting ready to go kayaking with Paige and Sara on Lake Windermere

The dock that was about 50 feet from the door of our hostel. I jumped off of it and then couldn't breathe for a few minutes. Good times.

Awesome building we found on our walk into town

David's last name is Lake, so we took a lot of funny Lake pictures, but this one was definitely the funniest.

Pretty much the most beautiful place on earth.

Friday morning we were going to rent bikes, but it didn't really work, so we just enjoyed the lake, ate some ice cream, and fed the ducks until we made our way back to London by coach - slowly, because there was a lot of traffic. I know the sign of a truly great trip - I wasn't at all anxious to get back to London and check my email (as many people were). So wonderful.

Ducks swarming around my feet while we fed them

Mallory is a woman of the people. Or ducks.

Frances came to visit me at the back of the bus. She's my buddy.

I do still hold though, that it is a wonderful thing to come home to London. Even when it's hot and humid.
Next up: my adventures visiting the grave of Karl Marx.