Cirque Scotland

           Scotland is blowing my mind right now.  Edinburgh is such a carnival of craziness that I walk out into the streets and feel like I have walked into a Tim Burton movie.  For those of you that know me well, you will know that this is not a bad thing.  The Edinburgh festival has begun and the streets are covered with street performers, costumes, booths, games, and anything else you could think of.  I saw the Pope, ghosts, zombies, clowns, pimps, among various other faces.  I had to resist from singing Masquerade at some points.  It was all quite fantastic, if not a little disturbing.  For the first time I felt the need to move my wallet to my front pocket, but I was smiling as I did it.  I’ve never felt like I needed to walk so slowly because I needed to try and take everything in.  And that’s only part of the afternoon; there were also many other adventures to be had.

             We had quite an early morning as we all woke up to go out on a hike.  The definition of hike is very loose here; sometimes it means a light stroll through the countryside, and other times it means a long walk that is up hill the entire way and makes your heart want to roll over and die.  Today’s was the roll over and die sort of hike.  We made our way up to Arthur’s Seat, which had a fantastic view, it just was quite the experience to try and get up there.  I would say that it was worth it.  The weather has been holding up surprisingly well, though fortunately we had a nice breeze to cool us off a bit as we climbed.  It was at this spot that Parley P. Pratt opened up Scotland for receiving the gospel.  It was a great way to start the day, even if it did make most of us want to go back to our beds afterwards. 

            During our time here we have seen a lot of really neat Olympic stuff, but have not been able to attend any of the events….UNTIL TODAY!  Earlier this week our leaders managed to find an event that actually was in Scotland while we are here!  Everything else we have looked at has either been sold out or really expensive, but since this one was technically out of the way of everything else we managed to get ourselves a seat.  We went to the Women’s Football match of France vs. Sweden.  It was a really random match for us to watch, but it was so much fun! I jokingly said to the group, “We are a bunch of USA students, watching a soccer match in Scotland, for the 2012 London Olympics, between France and Sweden.  Wow.  The Olympics sure bring the world together.”  It was about an hour drive outside of Edinburgh but our bus was able to take us all there so that we could enjoy a great game.  It started pouring when we got to the stadium, but fortunately the seats were covered because I did NOT bring my umbrella.  The game was great and we all had an amazing time! We decided to cheer for Sweden who unfortunately did not win.  We didn’t feel too bad though.  ;)

            It was evening by the time we made our way back into the city and we were all starving.  After a quick stop to the Giles Cathedral we broke off to do whatever we wanted.  My group (Celeste, Emilee, Paul, Sarah, Aubrey and I) went back to The Elephant House to have a fantastic dinner.  For those of you that don’t remember the brief cameo of this wonderful place, this is where J.K. Rowling wrote most of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.  It’s become quite the tourist spot, and I was surprised that we managed to get in and find a table.  They served me some delicious hot chocolate and a wonderful dinner of Shepherd’s Pie.  We sat there for a long time and took in all the creative juices that are floating around the place.  I stopped by the bathroom because it is famous for the graffiti inside of it of all the HP fans that wanted to “express appreciation”.  It was quite ridiculous, but needed to be done.  It was such a fun experience and made me feel that much closer to Jo Rowling.  J  Also, I am quite the nerd. 

            By this point we were quite exhausted.  We made our way through the many festivities and saw some interesting sites.  We originally wanted to go to one of the shows, but found that we were all too pooped.  Then we were struck by inspiration….and free Wi-Fi.  After a quick Google search we discovered that the movie, Brave, just came out in the UK today.  We found a theater that was really close that still had tickets and went to see it!  We saw Brave in Scotland!  (That’s cool because that’s where it took place).  There are those that might say, “Jace, why would you go and see a movie that you can see at any time when you get home when there is the Edinburgh festival to be explored?”  My response to this, “I do what I want! Rude!”  It was such a great movie and it really did feel great to watch it here.  They mentioned haggis! I saw haggis this morning! I wasn’t brave enough to eat any, but maybe tomorrow.  (Or maybe never).  The audience was mostly adults and they all loved it as much as we seemed to.  It was relaxing and was a perfect conclusion for a busy day.  We shall visit more of the festival tomorrow methinks.  Also, just had a fun conversation with some locals here in the pub.  Guess they think I am some sort of athlete or something.  "You American's are all HUGE!  Look at you! How old are you?  Do you all work out?"  Needless to say I am flattered, and feel a bit better that they think I could take them....right.  

          Just finished uploading photos to all the previous posts.  Hopefully today's photos will come up tomorrow and I will be all caught up!  Night!

 Edinburgh from above.  

 We thought we had made it, but there was much more to go.  Excuse my hair.

 Oh look, now we made it.  

 Olympic games! How COOL!

 Hooray for Olympics.  Don't know who my children friends are....

 SO. MUCH. GOODNESS.  

Just because we take pictures with everything.