Cheers to Scottich Whiskey!

Yesterday brought us to another day in Edinburgh, and one more day to explore the city. April and I started out by going to Holyrood Palace, which is the official residence of the Queen while she's in Scotland. Ooh-la-la. April didn't want to go in, whereas I did, so we decided to split up for the day and meet back at the hostel that night. I went first into the Queen's gallery, where they display art from the royal collection in a somewhat rotating format. It's currently "Conversation Pieces", which are paintings designed to be discussed when you hang them. Some of the details in some of them were just amazing. After that I went on a tour of the palace, which was exactly as described, a palace. Complete with ridiculously elaborate bed. Actually, they still have the bed and all the hangings from the bed Mary Queen of Scots slept on. It's preserved and sits in a hermetically sealed room. It's a bit creepy if you ask me. There are gardens that are open in the summer, too. Which are, as expected, totally perfect. Apparently the queen spends at least one week a year there. No one's quite sure why.

From there I went to the Our Dynamic Earth science show which is basically right next door. It's similar to the Space and Science Center with more focus on biology, ecology and geology. It was awesome, but I have a strange obsession for science, so I might be a bit biased. Then I wandered up the Royal Mile, which is the mile that leads up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. It's the oldest part of the city, and at the moment the bottom floors are mostly kitsch and kilt shops. But a good place to find a cheap kilt (which I jut happened to do).
There are all kinds of little alleyways coming off the Ryal Mile called closes that you could wander into for hours. Some of them lead nowhere, some of them have little gardens or courtyards. It's fun to just wander. I happened to be wandering by just as a haunted/ghost tour was starting, and it was free, so I tagged along. It was fun, and he told all kinds of stories of famous murders and the like. Well worth the price tag of nothing. Then I went into St. Gile's cathedral, which isn't really a cathedral because the Church of Scotland doesn't have cathedrals, but apparently it's called that because the town council decided they wanted to call it that. Weird.
Then I wandered around the base of the castle lazily trying to find my way back to the hostel and just enjoying the scenery, and stumbled upon a huge funly gold fountain. Not sure why it was there, but I took some pictures anyways. I also stumbled upon the National Gallery of Scotland, which has free admission, so I went in. Lots of cool paintings, some even by artist I'd actually heard of. There was this one really cool one I liked of a wave on the ocean, but I can't remember who painted it now. I think his last name started with a "C". After that I went back to the hostel and we spent the rest of the night chilling.

Early this morning we were up and met our group for the start of the Haggis Tour of Scotland. We have a lovely bus with "Haggis Tours Wild and Sexy" in bright red along the side. Classy. We drove directly into the highlands and stopped at a couple pretty little lakes and a statue to commemorate the commandos that trained here in the highlands. Along the way we stopped for lunch, where I managed to actually find a beer called "Sheepshagger". No, really, I'm not making that up. We made a couple more stops along the way, two of which we ended up with tastes of real Scottish whiskey. It's wicked stuff. The second time a couple people didn't want theirs, so a few of us had to take one for the team and have two. April and I did our part for team Canada and each had two. Which lead to me being a little tipsy at 4 in the afternoon. Oooh, Scotch whiskey. Evil stuff.
Before dinner we went to a short show on what life was like in the highlands before the modernization. I've gotta say, it sucked. "Sexy Ken" also showed us the different weapons they used and how they used them. Not pretty, they were. Apparently the Scots were the most fearsome and strongest hand-to-hand fighters in the world. Owing in no small part to the fact that they had very little regard to their own lives. It was an excellent show.
Tonight we are spending the evening along the southern shores of Loch Ness, which is pretty cool. Hopefully none of us end up being dragged away by any prehistoric creatures that reside in the lake. I've no idea what's in store for tomorrow, so you'll just have to tune in later and find out with me!