Edinburgh - the small, the rowdy, and the bachelor parties

Before I provide you all with a riveting recap of my mom's and my trip to Edinburgh, I must provide you with this image:



That's my mom after winning the Queensway Cup at 2 Pound Tuesdays Bowling. There is, in fact, SoCo in that cup. She's my hero.

Anyway, my mom came in on Thursday night and on Friday morning we took off for the wilds of Scotland, which involved a 4 hour ride through the wilds of... Scotland. And some England. And they hate each other. Here's one of the amazing views from the train:



We sat next to this very friendly couple from a suburb north of London. They were very nice and, if they stood on top of each other, I think they were my height. Thus began my experiences being the tallest person in sight. If anyone over 6' went to Scotland, he or she would be their ruler.

We arrived around 3 and took a taxi (my first since getting over here!) to our bed and breakfast, which can be described as "quaint" (so was the owner, who could not have been taller than 4'10"). We took the bus into the central part of the city and checked out its one major street, which is called the Royal Mile, and I'm thinking it's because it's got a palace and castle on it and it's, well, a mile long. (The Scots also named a hill Castle Hill. Guess why).

We took a very nice arm shot:



And pictures of pubs with funny names:



We went to a great pub and got Guiness (our first drink out together!) and clam chowder and steak. mmmmm. After that, we were pretty tired, so we went back to the hotel and fell asleep early.

The next day we had a great English breakfast and set out for the aptly named "Castle". We took tons of pictures because it cost 11 pounds ($22) to enter, and, gosh darnit, we were getting our money's worth. We saw every inch of that castle, from the moat to Scotland's crown jewels and "stone of destiny" to the Mons Meg. It was great fun, until Mom got stuck:



I somehow freed her and we set off for some 21st century fun in the form of a huge department store, which I took a picture of just to make my sister jealous:



That night we went to the Witchery, which is an amazing (and vaguely fancy) restaurant. The food was so good, the wine was better, and we got amazing service because one of the waiters thought I was cute. Afterwards we went on a Murder and Mystery Ghost Tour, which, contrary to its name, was not very scary (although it was windy, a joke my loyal readers should get and grimace at). It was actually very funny and we got to see a lot of Edinburgh and hear great stories about how, per capita, Scotland burned the most witches of all of Europe. When that was over I was frozen solid and craving nachos (obviously), so we went to an American themed pub and watched all of the bachelor and bachelorette parties. There were a ton of them in Scotland, complete with hot pink limos (for the girls (I hope)).

The next day we set out for the palace and Parliament, where they have awesome bike racks:



And my mother posing in front of the Palace gates:



We did some shopping and ate at the Golf Tavern and then headed back to London.

As this entry comes to a close, I leave you with this image, and, beneath it, my thoughts about it:



This is how the song "Il Poisson" in the movie "Little Mermaid" really ends.