Today was mostly spent wandering the Royal Mile, buying souvenirs, eating at the Elephant House (twice) and, finally, seeing Edinburgh Castle.

Before I went to the castle, I stopped by the Elephant House Cafe so that I could write a little message on the bathroom wall like the other Harry Potter fans 😛

Yeah….so if you look at my initials….I inadvertently wrote MLT1 as opposed to MLT, I’m sure everyone at Cook will get a kick out of that. It’s embarrassing…oh well…

I ran into Rachel on my way to the castle and we decided to go together 🙂

This is a memorial for the Scots who have died in the various wars of the 20th century.

This is a grand ball room, filled with weapons. This would be my brother’s favorite room 😛

This building housed the royal bed chambers (where King James I was born to Mary Queen of Scots). Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photographs so you’ll have to make due with the extraordinary building.

The view of Edinburgh

Rachel and I being silly 😛

*sigh* It was amazing 🙂 After the castle, Rachel and I were freezing, so we went back to the Elephant Cafe for dinner. They had a steak and ale pie….which was all right except it was almost exactly like my mom’s seco (Peruvian dish). Plus mama’s was better 😀 Rachel and I split that along with a portabello burger and chicken pate (nom nom nom!)

Rachel was going to stay in Edinburgh an extra night (Lucy, her family and myself were leaving the 30th while Rachel left the 31st to head straight back to B-town). She was going to couch surf for that night. She had received an e-mail from someone in Edinburgh that was going to let her couch surf forr the night. It was about seven blocks south of the house we were staying at so we decided to make the trek. We found it quickly enough and we met with a sweet Korean law student and her sweet little girl. I was initially worried that Rachel was going to stay with an ax murderer or something. Of course I was thinking this as I followed Rachel through Edinburgh to find this place. I will admit, I felt like a lemming following another lemming off of a cliff. It could have been disastrous; however, it just turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The fact that I thought that must mean that I have been friends with April and her mom Debbie for far too long. Laugh it up, April, you know it’s true!

I came back to the house and ended up hanging out with one of the other housemates CJ. We watched Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets and then Family Guy immediately followed by a nerd-off. It wasn’t so much a competition but a quick rapid succession of expressing how many similar interests we have (going from Seth MacFarlane to Seth Green to Joss Whedon to Gene Roddenbery (Jean-Luc Piccard is far superior to Kirk!) to Star Wars to Scientology) This went on for a time while I was waiting for Alex to get off work and come pick me up. We had our final date for my stay in Edinburgh. So now we have to see who makes the first move: I come back to Edinburgh or he comes to the states….we’ll see 😉

My last day in Edinburgh was quite uneventful: packing, cleaning the house, getting breakfast with Rachel, not saying goodbye to Alex (it was more of a “see you later”)…

I will now pause to allow my readers to collectively groan at such a saccharine comment.

Anyway, I was fortunate that Lucy and the family were heading to the train station at the same time as I (their train left at 1400 while mine was at 1430). So we all grabbed two taxis together and made it to Waverley and eventually to our respective trains where I end this post while on the train to King’s Cross where I will be greeted by my dear friend, Anna Sofia.

That’s all I have for now. Scotland has been memorable on an adventurous as well as a personal level. Probably because of the combination of being among friends and making loads of new ones (compared to Dublin where I was alone 95% of the time when I wasn’t at Temple Bar chatting it up with my favorite bartenders)

Next stop: England!

besos,

MLT

Location:East Coast Train bound for London, England