A Lovely Day in Edinburgh

Today, I had to go to Edinburgh to meet my adviser and discuss my dissertation--the weather was beautiful!  I brought a rain jacket and a sweatshirt (yes, even in the middle of July) but today all I needed was my Shades.  I took the opportunity to eat at McDonalds-thank goodness for globalization! I visited John Lewis, my favorite store over here--think Dillards.   Then I went and laid out in the Princess Gardens right under the famous castle-that is what EVERYONE is Britain does when there is a bit of sunshine in the sky--abandon whatever you are doing and go lay outside!  After that I decided to walk the opposite directions from where all the tourists flock and I ended up at Calton Hill.  Now when people visit Edinburgh this is on the list of places to go, but I had actually hadn't heard of it so in case you haven't either here is a blurb from wikipedia!

The hill was used from ancient times as a place of execution. Most famously Major Weir the self-confessed Edinburgh warlock, was executed here. The hill was originally part of the Barony of Calton which was abolished in 1856. King James II of Scotland allowed the residents of Edinburgh to use the North West slope of the hill for "tilts and tournaments"in 1456.

It also (this is me now, not wikipedia) overlooks Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the Queen in Scotland.

Enjoy the pictures!

The Royal Highland Show!

 Collin, the President of one of the St Andrews clubs took me and two other scholars to the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh and it was so much fun!It was a cattle, horse, and sheep show with delicious food, fun shopping (everything was of course outrageously priced--but fun to look!) and lots of crafts.

 The above picture was a demonstration in training sheep and cattle dogs--the dog demonstrating was 100% blind-but did perfectly!

 The very smart working dog (that was blind)

 

Life in Scotland is good!

Though a little ironic, I had such a nice time celebrating the 4th here in the motherland.  After a rather productive day at the library working on my dissertation, some Americans, Canadians (Almost Americans!) , and French (seemed appropriate to include them) and naturally no Brits celebrated Independence Day with a BBQ.    The weather was gorgeous and definitely the coolest 4th Celebration I've ever had.  We played Ultimate Frisbee, Volley Ball (without a net!) and then ended the evening right before midnight by taking a walk down to the Pier where the wind was whipping all around us giving us a chance to hear the Pier sing.  So even without all the spectacular fireworks, it was a very memorable 4th with all my foreign friends congratulating us Americans on our day of Independence!