Edinburgh

On our last Monday in Scotland, we once again had Bill for our tour guide. He took us to Stirling Castle and the William Wallace monument. He told us the "true" story of William Wallace. We drove down south and went to Hailes Castle. I loved it because it was in the middle of nowhere, it was free (I always like free!), and nobody else was there! It was great!

(just hangin' out)

Then we went to a city on the coast called North Berwick (said "North Berrick") and got to walk out to the edge of some rocks. It was SO BEAUTIFUL!

And then for the second half of the day, we got the chance to roam the great Edinburgh!

This is St. Giles' Cathedral

And of course, the Edinburgh Castle. It was fun, but I think we had just seen a few too many castles already, so it wasn't anything spectacular.

Although the Scottish guards in their cool uniforms were pretty awesome! :) And we got to hold an old sword...man, those things were HUGE! It came up to my nose, with the tip on the ground, and I couldn't imagine trying to swing that thing around and actually be agile with it.

We were sure to stop my the Elephant House, a cafe/pub where J.K. Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter series.

We hurried back to Blackford to pack up our stuff, then caught the train to London at 11:45pm. But this was no average train....this was a sleeper train! I have to admit, I have always wanted to ride on a sleeper train, like in the old movies (specifically White Christmas). It was so much fun! You can ask the other girls; I was going nuts, I was so excited! Even when we woke up, I looked around for about 2 seconds, remembered I was on a sleeper train, and went nuts again! ha ha They came around and brought us orange juice about an hour before getting into London. Each berth had 2 beds that folded down from the wall. Candice and my room was next to Michelle and Heidi's, so we opened a little door in between our rooms. The berths were SO TEENY! We had the little beds, and a "hallway" next to the beds that was only about a foot wide, and that was it. Oh, and a little window to the outside. We had a little dance party before we went to sleep, complete with my headlight strobe feature, Candice's lovely beat-boxing and singing, and Heidi's sweet dance moves! :) Even going to the restroom on the train was quite the experience. I can finally check "ride on a sleeper train" off my list - yay! :)