13 July, 2007

Friday the 13th! Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released yesterday, but being in a new city and very tired, we didn't make it. In fact, I didn't make it until we got home - oh well - I got to see the real thing! We decided to do a bus tour today to see part of the Georgian New Town and the Royal ship Britanica.

Amy and a bagpiper near Princes Street Gardens

After the tour, we walked through parts of Princes Street Gardens back towards the Old Town, up more steps to the Royal Mile and over to the Candlemaker Row area. The Elephant House Cafe is where JK Rowling wrote parts of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Greyfriar's Bobby was a little dog that belonged to a bobby. After the bobby died, the dog would spend each day sitting on his master's grave until he died and was buried with his master.

Some shops in the Candlemaker Row area

Is it a real statue?

This sure spooked A.! She thought it was real until she saw it move, so we had to do the whole thing - first he kissed your hand, then he 'knighted' you with his sword, then he put his hand on your head, then he gave the thumbs up.

We walked back to the Royal Mile and back to the hostel for a short rest before dinner and our evening activity - a Haunted Walk!

Here is one of many closes along the Royal Mile - small alleys off of the main road and really pretty and mysterious

A. remembered a sweatshirt she had seen the first day we got here - it said Live for Rugby on it and we'd been looking for it all day. (With A., there is always lots of shopping while traveling to find the perfect stuff - nevermind that we can't see any of the things we buy souveniers of because we're shopping!) Anyway, we looked and looked. We walked down the Royal Mile and decided to eat real food - not just sandwiches. We chose Italian - Bella Italiano. I had a grilled chicken ceasar sald and A. had pasta. After eating and before our haunted walk, we continued our search. A. was sure that we hadn't gone this far down the Royal Mile, but I kept pusing forward and sure enough, we found the shop jsut before they were closing and got her sweatshirt and her dad a rugby shirt that "he has to wear to every one of my rugby games". Whew! Meltdown averted!

We made it the Mercat, which is olde English for market, where we met our tour.

We left from the above monument with our guide and unfortunately a group of smart-ass, unruly kids. The tour itself was fun, not scary, and we got to see some parts of the Old Town we wouldn't have seen on our own, including some underground caverns. Unfortunately, the rotten pre-teens ruined it and the tourguide, along with many of the rest of us, were quite upset at all the interuptions and disruptions.

So, after the tour, we headed back home to this lovely view of the Castle. The bleachers were set up because that night Blondie was performing at the Castle. Pink was performing on Saturday night! We got a free concert that thankfully didn't keep us up too late cuz we were tired after a restless night with a coughing roomate and all that walking! We wrote in our travel journals and did a few scrapbook pages, but called it an early-ish night again.