Scotland: Day 4: Edinburgh

Scotland is so much fun! Here's what I did on Day 4 of my vacation.

We started the day by visiting Edinburgh Castle. Oh my goodness! It was seriously gorgeous. You can see this castle from so many different locations around town. But even more beautiful are the rooms inside this wonderful castle. There is so much history here. We spent quite a bit of time (about 3 hours, I believe) here and we still didn't see everything. We also didn't spend nearly as much time outside as we would have liked since it was raining (shocked, I'm sure). I think my favorite room was the room with the royal jewels. I have seriously never seen anything so beautiful! I saw a real life crown...in person! It was surreal. However, you are not aloud to take pictures in this room. Sad, I know. The best thing you CAN take pictures of are the AMAZING views of the city! I could have stood there and looked at those views forever.

After our great adventure through the castle, we walked to a place called "The Castle Arms" for lunch. It was very cool. The ceiling was fun to look at to see all the fun sayings that were artistically put there. I, again, had sausages for lunch. This time, they were put in a bread bowl. It was delicious! I would highly recommend this place to eat.

After lunch, we walked over to the Scotch Whisky Experience. It's definitely cheesy. But it's definitely fun! Do it! If you're on the fence about it, do it! First, you ride in a seat (that fits three) that looks like a super large whisky barrel. You go through this long winding "hallway" that explains how whisky is made. It is actually very informative regardless how cheesy it seems. Then, when the ride is finished, you are led to a room that has 3 rows of bench seating. You are given a card that has rub and sniff spots on it to follow along with a video that you watch to talk about the different kinds of whisky and the different regions it's made. Then, you are led into another room where you select the type of whisky that you want to taste. But you don't taste it yet. You are led into yet another room that has the world's largest collection of whisky where you are taught the proper way to taste. And you get to keep the glass! It was an amazing experience that I'm super glad we experienced.

We then walked around and did some shopping then headed back to our hotel. We freshened up and then headed back out for dinner. We went to the Gourmet Mash Bar. Oh my! It was amazing. Those were simply the BEST mashed potatoes I had ever had in my entire life and I will always compare every potato to those potatoes and I have a feeling nothing will ever live up to them! haha I'm kind of joking. But really, they were very good. And atop my potatoes was a very tender hunk of ox cheek. Oh boy, was it tender. Eat here!

After our amazing day, we had even more fun! We went to a couple bars and stayed out til the wee hours of the morning. I absolutely love the people that I hung out with, but for the safety of your feet, plan your adventures ahead of time instead of blindly following someone else's suggestions. We walked SOOO much more than we had to. It was horrible. That being said, here's where we went.
1. The Doric
This bar was fine. It wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a nice little quiet bar.

2. Halfway House
This is a very small bar, but it was fine. I wouldn't say it was overly cool, but we had fun.

3. Frankenstein Bar
This bar was so much fun. All of their drinks were themed around Frankenstein and they make them strong and delicious. However, they are kind of expensive. We had lots of fun here.

4. Finnegan's Wake
This was the last, and most fun, bar we visited. It's a decently-sized Irish pub on Victoria Street. They had a live band the night we were there (but I'm pretty sure they have a live band every night). They were so packed! It was just so much fun. They sang songs that everyone knew. The whole bar was singing along. Oh my gosh. I wish there was a bar like this where I live. We stayed for hours before finally walking back to our hotel.

Scotland: Day 3: Edinburgh

Last month, I had this amazing opportunity to travel to Scotland with my church choir. It was amazing and I highly suggest adding this country to your travel bucket list!

On our third day of the trip, we started with a concert at St. Giles in Edinburgh. It was SO beautiful!
Tip: Spend the pound or two to get a photographers pass. You give a "donation" to the church and they give you a sticker that allows you to take pictures inside.

After the concert, we walked around for a little bit and eventually decided to get lunch from the Jolly Judge. We ordered from the bar and then chose to sit outside. There isn't a lot of seating inside and as long as it's not raining, sitting outside is always a great option.
Tip: In Scotland, it is frequently chilly, even in the hottest of months so bring a jacket with you everywhere you go. There were quite a few people that were "chilly" while we were sitting outside.

We then walked around for a while longer including seeing the Harry Potter sights in Edinburgh including:
1. The Elephant House (the "birthplace" of Harry Potter, meaning that J.K. Rowling wrote parts of the first book in this cafe)

2. We visited the graveyard that you can see from inside the Elephant House that is said to have some familiar names laid to rest inside. We were able to find quite a few including Thomas Riddell, McGonagall, and Moodie. Now, clearly they're spelled different, but it's still fun to look for them.

3. We visited J.K. Rowling's handprints! Apparently, she won the Edinburgh Award in 2008.

4. And on the way back to our hotel, we walked down Victoria Street because it was said to have been inspiration for Diagon Alley. I'm not sure how true that is, but again, it's just fun to do (including a trip to a Harry Potter themed shop).

After all the Harry Potter stuff, we went back to the hotel, and took a nap. Then we headed back out, did a little shopping, and ate at the Last Drop (which got it's name because it lies at the spot where there used to be hangings). Their food was delicious! I had pork and haggis sausages on mashed potatoes with gravy.

Then I went back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

Photography: Shapes

I think it's so fun to introduce photography to young children so of course I would come up with little projects to do with my 7-year-old son this summer. For this one, I came up with a simple concept of adding photography and geometry and taking pictures of shapes. First, I told him that we needed to make a list of 6 2D shapes. He came up with octagon, hexagon, circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. I thought this was a great starting point. Then, I gave him my phone and sent him off to look for these shapes around the house. He was easily able to find a circle, square, and rectangle. It was slightly more difficult to find a triangle, but he still found it on his own. The harder ones I had to help him with. But that's okay! So in the end, we made this cute little collage of our shapes!

Scotland: Day 2: Edinburgh

Last month, I had this amazing opportunity to go to Scotland with my church choir. It was simply amazing and I had a great time.

After we arrived by plane, we immediately got onto our tour bus and took a bus tour of Edinburgh.

Tip #1: Please pronounce Edinburgh correctly! (ED-in-buh-ruh) I didn't think it would bother me too much, but I cringed and felt embarrassed any time someone in our group said it wrong.

Our city tour was okay, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. 1. It was raining so it was a little hard to see outside anyway. but 2. We were all just SO tired from our long trip.

We did get out of the bus to look around a little. It was fun. We saw a fudge shop and some pretty gardens.

We had a rehearsal, and then walked to our welcome dinner that night. It was okay. I was mostly focused on the fact that when we left, we got to go back to the hotel and sleep! But of course, by the time we got back to the hotel from dinner, I just couldn't sleep. It didn't feel like it was time yet. So my roommate and I walked to a store (in the rain), took some pictures with a castle (in the rain), and then finally walked back to the hotel (in the rain) and went to bed.

Scotland: Day 1: Travel

Last month, I took a trip to Scotland with my church choir. It was so much fun! Here's a little bit about it.

Before we could get to Scotland, we had to travel there! And boy was that a long trip. It took hours and hours and hours to get there. We left around noon on Monday where we all met at the church and loaded our suitcases into the bus. Then, we rode 2-3 hours to the airport we would be leaving from. We of course got there super early (because why would you not when you're with a large group of people). When we finally boarded, we had about a 7 hour flight. Plus the 6 hour time difference. I ended up not sleeping at all on our flight so when we got there at 7am local time, I was exhausted. However, I wasn't jet lagged at all during our trip!

My tips for a long flight:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Bring snacks if you're a picky eater. I felt like they gave up plenty of food on our flight and snacks would have been completely unnecessary had I actually liked the food they were serving.
3. Bring headphones. Even if you don't bring anything to watch movies on, most flights (especially international ones) have movies you can watch. And while they will hand out headphones, they're not that great. Bring your own for sure!
4. Don't overpack your carry-on. Honestly, you don't need that much stuff! They provide a pillow, blanket, food, drinks, headphones. You could totally get away with bringing a small purse if you really wanted to.
5. Be polite. Always try to consider everyone around you before doing things. Don't pack smelly snacks. Don't kick the people in front of you. Don't lean your seat back. Don't be too loud.

If you're taking a long flight, just try to go with the flow and have fun! Just think of all the great things at your destination!