Enjoying Edinburgh

Spedding's home is the door on the left.
My room is the window above the door.

I absolutely love Edinburgh!!  What a gorgeous city and what a wonderful day it has been!  First off, let me explain how I am related to my host, Spedding.  Spedding's late wife was the second cousin of my grandmother.  James from yesterday (Spedding's son) is my third cousin once removed. Aha!  You learn something new everyday!

A pretty sight I saw from my walk.  
I love the red doors and the green lawn.

Anyways, continuing on... I woke up this morning to a glorious shower and a nice breakfast.  Then I laced up my Doc Martens, packed my bag and began my walk into Old Town.  The walk was only a few minutes.  The streets are filled with friendly people and lovely cafes.  At noon I arrived at Cafe Kilamanjaro.  Here I met a new friend I met on CouchSurfing.com-- if you love to travel and meet people, then this is a great website for you!  The site has people from all over the world who are well-traveled and enjoy meeting other travelers.  Everyone on the site is "vouched for" publicly by others they have met in person from the site.  Anyways, where was I... at noon I met with Jessica who I met on CouchSurfing.com.  She greeted me with a huge smile when I walked into the cafe.  She is from Washington DC, did her undergraduate in Virginia and is now in graduate school for social anthropology at Uni of Edinburgh.  And she is only 22!  She has traveled all over the world and we had so much to talk about!  She took me into her favourite shops.  Tomorrow we are meeting up again and hiking a mountain to Arthur's seat-- a peak with views of all of Edinburgh.

After my lunch date I walked around Old Town.  I followed the Royal Mile to the castle.  Unfortunately there is a large parking lot in front that is currently a construction site, so the castle didn't look as majestic as I'm sure it usually does.  Even so, it was a beautiful sight to see.  <The view looking down from the castle's parking lot. Edinburgh at dusk.

                         

Edinburgh Castle

Along the Royal Mile I was lucky enough to walk by just in time for a bagpipe concert!!!

Here is a video I took of the bagpipers:

Organic cider

For dinner I had a cup of carrot soup at a cafe and then walked over the Edinburgh College of Art to meet up with Bee (who I had met the night before at James' flat).  Bee introduced me to her friends from the college who were all also costume design students.  They were all very friendly and chatty!  Bee was teaching them how to crochet.  Bee handed me crocheting needles but I passed and instead bought and drank a bottle of cider from the lounge's bar we were sitting in.  Yummy fermented apples!!!  Bee had made yummy bread for us to eat which she called "Poo Cake" because it was brown.  At around nine I called Spedding and he arrived in his car promptly to retrieve me!  What a wonderful arrangement I have here!!!

Bee is second from left.  The art school students crocheting on a Wednesday night! (A candid photo)