I can see my house from up here!

This past weekend was quite a good one, though very relaxing.  Friday night, Katie and I decided to order Chinese, buy a bottle of cheap white wine, and watch movies/TV shows online all night. I ended up going home around 2, which I didn't expect to do. It was supposed to be an early night in, but we had a really fun time.  Saturday, I woke up early and worked on  my 3000 word essay, which is now finished (yay!). Katie, Becca, and I decided to go to the Edinburgh Farmer's Market around noon on Saturday, which was a really great experience.  I haven't been to a Farmer's Market in a while, and this one is right next to the castle, which gave really great photo opportunities.

Castle from the street before we got to the market

Becca and Katie. Super excited about food!

View of part of the castle from the market

The market yummmm

 So the market had everything from doughnuts to veg, like 6 meat vendors, and there was fudge and chocolate too. It was pretty awesome. We decided to get some angus burgers for lunch. They had cheddar and grilled onions on them. Basically the best thing I've had in a while. We also got amazing hot chocolate with like 1/4 cup of marshmallows in it AND whipped cream. And it was only £1.90. It was a really good deal, let me tell you. As we left, Becca got some caramel shortbread and I got probably the best chocolate croissant I've ever had. Super buttery.  Oh, I also would like to mention how many dogs I saw on Saturday. They were everywhere. The one below was probably my favorite.

There was a really weird guy in a cape. Hmmm

After the Farmer's Market, I had to meet up with a girl in the library for a project, but we decided to reconvene afterward and climb Arthur's Seat, seeing as the weather was absolutely gorgeous on Saturday.
Arthur's Seat. Extinct volcano that reaches 823 feet high (according to Wikipedia). I'm not sure how long it took us to go up, but it felt like a really long time. The way up from the west is made up of tiny, rock stairs which are windy and quite steep. I'm going to be honest, we took a lot of stops.

City of Edinburgh from the bottom of Arthur's Seat

Our Mission: To conquer that massive thing

Part-way up. That's basically Leith and the Firth of Forth

Katie with Edinburgh behind her

Becca with the Forth behind her

These are the Crags, another rock formation

It's a long way down!

Are we there yet?

On our way up, we walked past many different people. I realised that there are all sorts of people who come out when the weather's nice. There were people who were running up Arthur's Seat. Like cross-country runners. I don't get it. But there were also tourists- I heard Germans! And some guys were sitting at the top, smoking something

We also saw one guy who was just walking up by himself. There were so many people climbing, which was really cool. Now for some photos of the top!

Those big buildings in the foreground are the dorms or "Halls"

The Firth of Forth? The sea? I'm not sure

Edinburgh Castle in the middle

Did I mention that Becca's afraid of heights?

This doggy came all the way to the top! On our way down we saw more dogs going up

Dial at the top which points out landmarks and their distance from Arthur's Seat

One of the lochs in Holyrood Park

Small ginger child who didn't seem to have parents

We opted for the easier way down, seeing as those stairs terrified us enough going up. The way down also took us past some ancient ruins of and abbey circa 13th century. No big deal.

All that's left of the abbey

Becca looking super awkward

Me, trying to do my best model pose. Maybe with better clothes, it would look good

On our way home, we walked past Holyrood Palace, which is where the Queen comes to stay when she does, which is rarely.  But yeah, that's different from the castle, which was basically just a fortress with lots of cannons and dungeons and all that good stuff. It was also built a long time before the palace.  I forgot to take pictures of the palace, of course, but it's right across the street from Scottish Parliament, which I did take pictures of. It's really controversial because it's super modern with a lot of bamboo. I'm not sure what they were thinking, but it's one of those, you either like it or you hate it things.

To end, the above picture is part of the Royal Mile. The downhill portion, I suppose. The buildings are all really nice, and as you can see, the sun was going down soon, and it was after 4:30! I get really excited now when it's still light out at 5 or 5:30, seeing as when we got here, it got dark at 3:30. Can't wait for Day Light Savings time! Alright well John's coming on Friday, so there will be updates next week of all our adventures. Bis dann!!