Scotland!!!

We headed out on Sunday morning for Edinburgh, Scotland for the International Conference on Neutron Scattering.  Before that, we had to get Charlie to the boarder.  He had a couple of firsts, a train ride and the escalator.  The escalator was very amusing.  On the down he tried to keep backing up as the stairs disappeared, and on the up, he would put his first two feet on and then get stretched out till he had to put his back legs on.

Charlie on the platform

Figuring out the escalator

The flight was short and easy.  I think it was maybe an hour and a half or so.  When we landed it was sunny and hot.  We were so excited about this weather, that as soon as we got to the hotel, we changed clothes and headed out for a patio.

It was a good time to be walking around because Murray was playing in the Wimbledon finals.  As we walked past various pubs we would hear shouts of happiness, we assumed that was a good sign for Murray.  The lady working at the hotel suggested we go to Rose St. for some food.

This is happy Chris.  He knows his food is on the way!

I had a veggie-haggis burger with goat cheese.  It was delish!  I told Chris that I could say I had eaten haggis in Scotland.  He didn't think veggie-haggis really counted.

Chris had fish and chips.

We shared a salad.

Edinburgh has mostly stone buildings, and there are a lot of hills, which allows for cute little patios and nooks and crannies.

 As we were walking, we started to see glimpses of the castle.

Further walking, and we came up on the Sir Walter Scott monument.

It was surrounded by a beautiful, multilayered park.  We could see that there were people up on the monument, and decided to go.  You could climb all the way to the very top.  Maybe you can tell these park pictures were taken from different levels.

The stairs were a tight spiral and very narrow.  It was a little bit dizzying!

It was a really beautiful piece of architecture and views were amazing.

After all the hard work walking up and back down, we treated ourselves to ice cream and kept exploring! 

We had an awesome first evening, and so far we LOVE Edinburgh! Oh yeah, and we can read menus and understand the locals (well sort of).