Well, at least they did three weeks ago. My brother and his flatmate Josh, who happens to be an old family friend, caught a plane up from London and spent the 2nd weekend in October with me. I knew it was going to be fun, but I had no idea it was going to be this fun! I couldn’t have halfway planned and participated in a more fun weekend. They arrived on a Friday night and left the following Monday night.

Saturday was the fun touristy Edinburgh day. I started by cooking them some blueberry pancakes. And we were able to witness Matt not only make, but also flip the largest pancake in the world! Want proof? Well the video is too big to upload. So I can’t give you any. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

After stuffing ourselves with pancakes I took Matt and Josh on a small hike up to Calton Hill. You get great views of the city, but its not as challenging and time consuming as Arthur’s Seat. So any of you who want to come visit, most likely this will be one of first activities I take you on.

Don’t these pictures make you want to come visit?? There are a few more pics I want to post, although I’ll try not to get too picture happy on this post, but I can’t promise anything.

So let me give you a little back story on these columns. My first back story to Matt and Josh was incorrect, so I checked Wikipedia to get the real scoop. The columns are actually called the National Monument, and their construction was started in 1826, but they ran out of money so they didn’t finish it. The end. Its kind of funny cause it looks and feels like that it should be some ancient Roman ruins or something like that. Nope…just some columns built to look like the Parthenon. It literally drops off after the edge. But it made for some great photo ops, which I’m about to show you one of my fav. new pics of Matt and myself, being the best brother and sister duo in the world.

So next we went to do the whole tourist thing and went down the royal mile towards the castle. Before that we stopped at a great Thai restaurant called Mai Thai, and it was pretty good. All of us were too busy eating the yummy food to take any pictures.

Before we got to the castle we ran into the most awesome person I have yet to meet in Scotland. Yes it was William Wallace(well, reincarnated)! He was awesome, posing for pictures and saying the most inspiring lead-you-to-battle things that would have Gandhi fighting along side the Scots! And he also had these bad-ass HUGE swords for us to pose with, so pose we did.

So after the rousing inspiration of why Scotland and England are two different places, even though the Scots lost , we headed onto the Castle.

I just realized I didn’t get a proper shot of the castle in its entirety, but I’m sure I’ll post another picture of it in some story later on. So right now we’ll just have to deal with close up shots. One thing that is really cool about Edinburgh Castle is that it perfectly blends into the natural volcanic rock that is already there.

As you can see we had a lot of fun playing with the cannons. The rest of the castle was rather castle-y, crown jewels that were a bit on the disappointing side, a really pretty soldiers memorial museum where you couldn’t take pictures, and lots of stone. There was also a chapel at the top, where people still get married, but you have to limit your guest list to 25 people. And yes, its that small.

The rest of the day and into the night was more just of wandering around and relaxing. It was a day filled with sightseeing and lots of walking so we were all pretty pooped.

Sunday was an equally awesome day, during the day we mostly relaxed, but that night we were doing a witchery tour and then later eating at The Witchery! Pictures!

Now I should take this opportunity to tell you that most of the pictures in this post, if not all, were taken by Josh, not myself. Josh had a super fancy camera that took pretty pictures. Plus he’s talented and has a good eye. Almost as good as you, Quan. So, thank Josh for taking all these breath-taking pictures of Edinburgh.

As I said earlier we started out evening with a very entertaining Witchery tour. Our guide was very funny, and this is a cool way to learn all the cool history and stories of Edinburgh that you don’t get from general sources. Here is me and Lindsey with our guide (he’s the dead guy who’s white)

Linds and I and two dead guys

After the rousing tour of learning all the awful things they did to witches and all the awful things some citizens did back in the day (body snatchers!) we headed to our uncharacteristically late for Edinburgh dinner at the Witchery with 11PM reservations.

Whoever comes to visit me, I probably will take you here. The food is pretty decent, a little pricey, but the ambiance is what makes this place so cool. And to give you a bit of a background; when people like Jack Nicholson come to Edinburgh – they eat here.

Bewitching Menu

So after we finished our meal, it was quite late so we all headed home. It was the perfect end to our Sunday.

YUM

Monday was even more lax, we went to a really cute Scottish bistro for lunch, A Room in the Town – which is also quite good, then we made our way to the Botanic Gardens. I hadn’t been before, but its really nice to know that there is a place like this where I live. The gardens are HUGE, its kind of like Central Park, only its not so central to Edinburgh. But Matt, Josh and I had a nice little walk through.

Ahh

Closed Greenhouse thats only open like two days out of the year.

The park was really pretty. It was broken off to different sections and had quite a diverse plant selection. It also made you feel like you were in different parts of the world, like China, for instance.

Where are we: China ?

Two Amerians living in London visiting in Scotland standing next to tropical plants.

So thats basically it folks. After the garden we headed back to relax and also to send Matt and Josh on their way to jolly ‘ol England to resume their British lives. It was such a fun weekend, and I’m glad to be able to share my life with two of my favorite people!

Browse Timeline

• « Leicester pt duex
• » It’s Been Awhile…