Scotland here we come!

This past three day weekend we flew to Edinburgh, Scotland for a long vacation. It was a rough start, the plane was late so we got in to the city really late and arrived just in time to catch the second to last bus to the city. Once in the city we took a taxi to Mel's house where we are staying this weekend. (Mel is the old next floor Neighbor) When we woke up the next morning we headed into Edinburgh city center to explore but, as we were in the United Kingdom where they actually have Starbucks, we had to make a first stop there and then to the Edinburgh castle. The castle was so cool and big that it took most of the day but it was worth it. When you first go in you are in what used to be nothing but is now the first gate you go through. It was built after the English took over Scotland to help fortify the castle. Right when you have entered the second part there are canons and fun things like that, they also have the one o'clock gun that obviously fires every day at one...except on Christmas and New Years Day. We then learned at the history museum that I might be related to Mary Stewart Queen of Scotland. After visiting the museum, we looked around at the shops for a little while...I want a kilt just because it would be cool to have but my Aunt said NO because she thinks they are dumb. I like them.

We had Indian food for dinner and then around 9pm we went on the night time haunted graveyard tour...that was fun. The tour started off by talking about how Edinburgh used to be. There were 80,000 people stuffed into a very small section of land (less than a mile) and there was no sewage system so it was really dirty and filled with disease. The guide also told us about the witch hunts that took place back then. So, there were a lot of people that were dying from disease and bad living conditions and also being killed from the witch hunts. Next, the tour took us to a graveyard that is so filled with bodies that what was the the low end of the graveyard is now the high end. The grave yard is where one of the mass graves for the plague is. There the guide told us about the covenantors prison where people who did not go along with the kings religious beliefs were kept and tortured. This guy Mackenzie was the main guy who came up with the idea to put the people in prison and torture them, and when he died, he was buried close to the people that he put in prison and tortured. So, the guide said that people think that Mackenzie is haunting the graveyard because his soul cannot rest. At this point, they take you into this locked part of the yard and and then in to this locked grave chamber were a "poltergeist" is. The people on the tour all go crazy at that point. One lady who was standing next to my Aunt was really freaking out and screaming and laughing hysterically. She kept grabbing onto my Aunt's shoulder and it was pretty funny because my Aunt was getting so irritated about it.

After the tour we headed back to Mel's because we had to be up early the next day for a bus trip to the highlands. However, on the way back to Mel's there was a fight on the bus we were on and the police had to be called. This is the second time that something like this has happened (it happened on a bus we were on in London as well). The guys who were fighting on the bus were really drunk, so I'm thinking that either we have really bad bus luck or people in the UK drink WAY too much!