Edinburgh Castle

Posted by Ashley | | Posted On Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:07 AM

Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-en-burr (like you are cold)-ah) is the capital of Scotland and has quickly become one of my favorite cities of all time. I <3 to be exact.

The city itself just felt cleaner than London.

Well...kind of.

You see, the air is much cleaner in Edinburgh because there are fewer smokers there (there have been some smoking laws passed lately that are helping with that). So the air feels much more crisp and fresh. There is, however, more rubbish found on the streets because they do not have nearly the man-power behind street-sweeps like London does (I see a street sweeper sweeping our street at least once a day but never saw a single one anywhere in Edinburgh...). So it is cleaner but...not cleaner. Yep. There is my scholarly opinion for you. Take it for what it is.

Our first site to see as a group (and the only scheduled group activity of the day) was Edinburgh Castle. The castle is not nearly as large or decorative as Windsor Castle but it is certainly impressive. It is situated right on top of the highest hill actually in the city. It has a great view from the top!

My favorite part was easily the guards. I must admit...when a kilt is wore with the full traditional uniform, it actually looks really cool. I used to just think kilts were the stupidest thing in the world (ignorant? yeah...pretty much). However, I have really learned to appreciate them. These guards pulled them off very nicely haha! Also, these Scottish guards were a lot more friendly and more approachable then the English guards. They are just as highly trained as the English guards, have a strong sense of tradition and consider it a great honor to be a guard but they are more easy-going and actually a lot of fun to talk to. I enjoyed listening to their stories.
The castle is cool but does not really take a lot of time to go through. We finished it in a couple of hours. Afterwards Tiff, Ross, Emma and I went souvenir hunting and had a good time just killing time.

That night I just chilled in the hostel (which was a really nice hostel actually) and watched part of the friendly football match between England and Mexico and then went to bed and dreamed in a Scottish accent.

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