"Castle Hill loomed large, with Edinburgh Castle at its summit"

Friday: Lunch and The Edinburgh Castle

We all woke up around ten on Friday but didn't actually manage to leave the hostel until around noon. Was this due to inherent laziness on our part? Or maybe we got lost in the stairwell?

No.

It was purely because it took us at least a half hour each to figure out how to use the showers. They were quite possibly the worst showers of my life. There was hardly any water pressure (Rick said in his shower he only had a thin stream of water coming out so he only managed to wash the crown of his head) and the water temperature fluctuated between ice cold and boiling hot... no middle ground at all. It was absolutely miserable.

But, we decided not to dwell on it and wandered out into the city in search of lunch.

When we left the Hostel, we were greeted by this bagpipe player at the corner of Princes Street (one of the main streets in Edinburgh). He was pretty good and I liked the scene he made standing below this statue (of what, I have no idea).
The weather was glorious (for a little while at least... this IS Scotland afterall) so I took a picture of this castle like area from the bridge linking Princes Street with High Street (where a lot of pubs and shops are. Its also called "the Royal Mile" because it leads from the Queen's official residence in Scotland to the Edinburgh Castle). I believe the Washington monument looking thing is dedicated to Nelson but we couldn't figure out what the rest of it was. I think it was probably a fortress designed to protect the city since it faces the ocean.

For lunch we found a pub on High Street. Outside we met a group of Irishmen (probably in their mid-thirties) who were in Edinburgh for a "Stag" party (Bachelor party). It was barely after noon and already they were DEEP in their beers. So Rick decided to get a beer too in keeping with the spirit of things... and then felt like an alcoholic when we all ordered water or sodas.

(In picture: Rick, Sam, Adam and Scott)
Katie and Garret at our table. Some of the Irishmen are outside the window. They were so rowdy and loud!!!
This is such a cute street!! It connects to High Street and was just so typical of an Edinburgh street that I had to take a picture.
Scott made a friend it would seem...

Another bagpipe musician! He was situated on High Street right before the castle... It was pretty nice to be able to walk up to the castle with an accompanying soundtrack!
Katie, Me and Sam outside the gates to the castle.


Scottish guards making their march up to the upper parts of the Castle, which house the 1914-1918 War Monument (more on that later)

View from the top!
More view from the top
And the last view from the top (i wish i could have set these up panorama style but blogger is being difficult)
Me at the top!
The girls in front of the city!
Part of the castle...
Inside St. Margret's chapel at the Castle. (Erin... you should be able to tell us more about this since she IS your confirmation saint... hmmmmmmmmmm?)
This is above the entrance to the War Monument. Its pretty amazing and really religious inspired. It was interesting to see since any monument in the US would never be allowed to have such blatant religious sayings and such. (Inside the sayings were much more directly religious). It was a fantastic memorial though. Inside there are several wings and they have books which have the names of those who died during the war, including how and where they died. I thought if was very moving and extremely well done.
View of Edinburgh and the ocean from a cannon window (I have no idea what the technical term is... I'm not a knight)
Here's a scale replica of the Castle. We also saw the Scottish crown jewels while here. During World War II, they were so worried about Hitler's bombers that they moved the jewels to "David's Tower" which is essentially a whole in the rock on the hill so that they would be safer. (Coincidentally, did you know that Oxford was never bombed during World War II? Apparently Hitler wanted to use it as his capital when he took over and therefore wanted it to stay in perfect condition)

After the castle, we went to the Museum of Scotland, St. Giles Church and on a ghost tour... all of which I'll detail in the next post!