Bagpipes? Scotland: Day 1

May 1: So a very old friend of mine just finished his tour in Iraq and was supposed to be stationed in Germany again. He was, but then got orders to leave for Washington very shortly, so we planned a quick trip to catch up before he left. He drove to Belgium the night before, and then we left this morning at about 5am. We drove to Dusseldorf, Weeze actually, to the airport. This part was actually kind of fun for me because everyone assumed I was German... you know... even when they decided to search me and I had no idea what they were saying. Apparently I had a paper clip in my passport. Jolly good. Oh, and they took my shampoo. Sometimes I hate security checkpoints.

Well from there, we took a quick flight to Glasgow, Scotland, and quickly hopped a train over to Edinburgh. Of course the first thing we see when walking towards the hostel was a guy playing bagpipes. This is really the one country that I've been to where most of the stereotypes we have were proven to be almost true. It was AMAZING.

So we checked in to the hostel and headed off to Edinburgh Castle(top left and right), which had some just breathtaking views. It's built on top of Castle Rock, which is an extinct volcano. Ignoring the fact that it was something like 11 pounds (22 dollars) to get in, it was really interesting. There were something like 30 exhibits throughout the castle going through everything from the Royal Scots museum, to a War Museum. That was pretty interesting as they had recreated some scenes of PoW holdings, and had a lot of artifacts from different wars including weapons, uniforms, etc. The picture on the left is a re-creation of the sleeping quarters for PoWs. You could also go into the oldest part of the castel, a chapel, that dates back to the 12th century.

From the castle, we headed down the "Royal Mile" of Princess Street that pretty much hosts most of the important things in Edinburgh. As we were wandering, we made it to the Scottish Parliament. After seeing someo of the other Parliament buildings throughout Europe this one was less than impressive. It looks like it's either trying to create a plaid motif on the front, or that its decorations are left over from the 70s. From there, we checked out the Queen's Palace. Unfortunately, we could only look from the outside since it wasn't open to visitors any more that day.

Then, it was off to try some Scottish food. We went to a place where they served things like the "William Wallace Burger", but opted for something a little more traditional: Sausage and Mash. :)

Finally, to end the first night in Scotland, we walked down the other side of the city, to get a different view. You could still see the castle, but just from a different perspective, and there were some beautiful gardens along the way. Again, there were quite a few bagpipers along the way, so I insisted on taking another photo with one before heading back to the hostel to catch some sleep before an early morning.