Edinburgh

*Ding* went the door as I stepped in.  "Hiya Kara, how was the car for you?"
"Hi Scott, it was great. Sorry about all the dirt on the carpets..."
"That's alright, gives our cleaners a challenge."
This is the conversation I have every time I set foot into my local Enterprise Car Hire.  We are all on a first name basis by now, which might be a sign that I travel too much.  They always want to know where I am going or where I have been and I realized that all of you might want to know as well (or at least I am going to pretend that all of my devoted readers do).  Mom and Dad left yesterday morning giving me a chance to rest from the adventures and share some with you.  Shall we start with Edinburgh?

After St. Andrews we headed down to our hotel in Edinburgh.  A quaint little hotel that had seen better days back in the 1800s.  But it worked as a home base, and the restaurant was lovely.  We utilized the bus system since Edinburgh (pronounced Eh-den-bur-ah) was currently experiencing construction on every single street they had ever created.  First stop was the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art overlooking the Queen's Garden.  The paintings were beautiful, some unusual, but our personal favorite was by Peter Graham in 1878 entitled "Wandering Shadows."

Click on the link to see what it looks like:
"Wandering Shadows"

Edinburgh Castle 

The Edinburgh Castle has a huge long history that I will attempt to summarize into a couple of sentences.  In 638 AD the Angles people (originally from Germany and also the people who settled in Britain, hence the term Anglo-Saxon) captured Din Eidyn and renamed it Edinburgh.  In 1130 David I built Edinburgh castle on the giant rock that stands overlooking all of Edinburgh town.  Throughout history is was alternately captured and recaptured by the English and the Scotts trading off in horrible sieges that usually resulted in having to rebuild most of the castle.  St. Maragaret's Cathedral is the only original part of the castle still standing from 1130, the rest is rebuilt throughout time with the last edition being in 1578.  The castle was amazing and giant!  Unfortunately, when you are with Allen, no stone may be unturned and you must experience every nook and crannie before leaving.   It was only made worse by the fact that he had an audio guide.

Scotch Whisky Tour

The next day was filled with a Scotch Whiskey (spelled Whisky in Scotland)Tour.  Originally called "usquebaugh" (meaning water of life in Gaelic) it was shortened to "usky"/whiskey in English.  The only people who are allowed to call it Scotch are, of course, the Scottish.  Whiskeys made elsewhere in the world are typically referred to as bourbon or just plain whiskey, but never Scotch.  There are only three ingredients in Scotch, but Scotland argues that the fourth is Scotland itself.  The four different types of whiskey areas create all different tasting whiskeys: bad, worse, tastes like a campfire, and Nyquil in a glass.  As you can tell I was not very partial to the flavours.  When they offer you water to add to the drink in order to soften it, you know it must be strong.  I love it when people say the phrase, "it's an acquired taste." As if after putting yourself through torture a hundred times you'll wake up and realize that your taste buds have been killed off and you can now stand the taste.  Whatever your taste, if you like Scotch this really is the best place to try it.  There are countless numbers of distilleries in a small amount of space with infinite numbers of flavors.

Anyway, it was a lovely trip and we got to experience Edinburgh in all its beauty.
More later!