Edinburgh: Day 3

First of all, we are in Madrid now and have internet! Yay! So you can all expect the blogging to be back to normal now (aka every couple of days). At least until we leave for Rome, where I'm not sure what the status will be. Oh well. Now, for the update on what we've been doing for the past week:

Our last day in Edinburgh was amazing! (I'm sure I'm using that word way too much, but it's true!) We had so much fun we just wanted to stay there forever and bag the rest of the Europe trip (almost). We spent the day with Greg's beautiful friend from his Juilliard days, Katherine, and her talented boyfriend Kennedy. They are wonderful and were sweet enough to show us around Scotland. Katherine picked us up in Edinburgh and we took a lovely little drive through the countryside to Balfron where they live. It's a pretty small town and everything there was so...perfect. We went on a walk by their house (Greg forgot to bring the camera) and passed by sheep grazing, a little stream with baby ducklings, and all around beautiful scenery. 

Then, we took a short drive to Balmaha to see Loch Lomond. Apparently, it was very surprising that I knew the words to the song about it (Oh, you take the high road and I'll take the low road...etc.) I thought that was a common knowledge thing...oh well. Again, the view was absolutely stunning and this time we have pictures to prove it. 

After taking a little walk there, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up some snacks and decided to try out a few candy bars that don't exist in the states. We picked out three...and I can only remember the name of one of them, which was Whispa. It was my favorite. Greg liked one with chocolate and honeycomb. They were all great. 

Then, we went back to Katherine and Kennedy's house and had an incredible dinner that the master chef Kennedy had made for us. It was seriously the best thing we've had on this whole trip. He's a gourmet chef and if he ever opens up a restaurant, you can bet we'll be moving in nearby so we can go all the time. 

After dinner, we went and had hot chocolate at a cute little restaurant right on the edge of the Lake of Menteith (the one actual lake in Scotland...the rest are lochs). 

It was basically the perfect day. Thank you SO much Katherine and Kennedy for making the day incredible! Please come visit Utah soon so we can return the favor. :) 

Edinburgh: Days 1 & 2

Edinburgh has been absolutely amazing so far. We like it even better than London. It just feels a lot more homey here for some reason. The first day here we didn't do too much because we were traveling for most of the day. The train from London took about 5 hours, but it was all through beautiful countryside so it wasn't actually so bad.

After we actually arrived, we checked into our hotel and were thrilled to discover that we have a toilet in our room (even if the shower is almost on top of it). Our hotel room is pretty close to the old university, so it's a really nice area as well. After checking into our hotel and having lunch at a cute little coffee shop, we met up with one of my good friends who happens to be interning for the Scottish Parliament. We climbed to the top of Calton Hill and got a good look at the amazing city.

It was absolutely beautiful. On one side, you see this old city, and then if you look a little ways either direction, there are these incredible green hills. I love it. This picture is Greg standing on the unfinished national monument on top of the hill. Apparently, they were going to build a replica of the Parthenon, but they ran out of money.

Later that night, since it was our one year anniversary, Greg surprised me with reservations at a very fancy restaurant on the top floor of the Scottish National Museum. The food was delicious (though we weren't really sure what exactly we were ordering) and our table had a great view of the castle.

The next day (today), we had breakfast at that same cute little cafe. It was our favorite breakfast yet in Europe. Scones and hot chocolate. Yum.

Needless to say, we will be going back tomorrow for more. After breakfast, we walked over to the castle and took a tour. It was great to learn about the history of such an old building.

After our tour, we had lunch at The Elephant House, which is where J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter. I guess there's a cemetery right outside the window with the grave of Tom Riddle (although I think it's actually spelled Riddel). Pretty cool though.

After lunch, we walked what's known as The Royal Mile, which is the street that goes from the castle to the palace where the queen lives when she comes to visit Scotland (which is really only about once a year). There were a lot of fun tourist shops along the way, but the palace was the best part. Again, there were a lot of great stories, especially about Mary Queen of Scots, who we think is actually an ancestor of Greg's.

It definitely makes me want to read more about her (Desi, I might have to get the name of that book you were talking about..)

It's been an incredible two days and we're so excited to spend tomorrow with one of Greg's good friends driving around the countryside. Scotland is amazing!