Edinburgh - The City of Harry Potter's Creation!!!

So, why would people want to go to Edinburgh?  I think two reasons.  The first is obvious, it is gorgeous.  It doesn't have a big city feeling and the surrounding area (the highlands) are breathtaking.  The second is a little more personalized.  The cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote her ideas on napkins in the early days of Harry Potter is right in downtown!!!!  Well, Justin, did you eat there?  To that I say, YES!!  TWICE!!!!!  More on that, later.

We got into Edinburgh and I had to go to an ATM to get out some cash (I needed pounds).  For some reason, it didn't like my card, so I had to change what Euro I had left.  It was a sad day.  Watching the Euro disappear into small pounds hurt my heart.  I had enough to get by for the day, though, and could try a different ATM later.  We got onto a bus and into the front window seat and we drove into downtown Edinburgh.  It was so cool and the castle dominates the skyline.  We soon realized that we would be walking up hills pretty much the entire time we were there.  I, for one, was not happy about this, but knew it was inevitable.

It felt like about 6pm when we got there, but it was noon.....ugh.  We were tired.  We had gone through a time change not in our favor to get there and were ready for bed, but we knew we need to get some exploration down.  We asked the hostel people where a good place to eat lunch was and they pointed us to something called "Mom's Comfort Food".  It lived up to its name.  Our waiter was really nice and the food was fantastic and not too expensive.  I had a gingerbread shake.  Ummm....delicious!!!!!

I had Chicken Rosemary Pie (with homemade chips)!!

After that, we went across the street to the Scottish History museum where we had a blast and saw some really cool things all for free :)

This is Dolly, the sheep.  She was made in Edinburgh! (things I didn't know)

They had really cool exhibitions on the creation of Scotland with the tectonic plates explaining the hills and all that.   Also, the history of animals on the island and how they all came over from the mainland when it was still attached to Europe and have since died off from over-hunting years ago.  I also liked that Scotland created the steam engine.  There were exhibitions on the Scottish royal family and the early Scots as well.  Overall, for free, it was a very fun museum!

I'm going to take a break from writing this to eat some rice, now.