We are the SCOTS!

So at last, i made it up to the homeland...ok, maybe not mine, technically, but i did have flashbacks to football/soccer cheers from Covenant...hence the scottish cow in "jeff kyle" type wear above. (By the way, right now Edinburgh is hosting the cows that are traveling Europe. So basically everywhere you turn there's a cow painted one way or another!)
After a fairly long train ride from Cambridge, I finally arrived in Edinburgh, but the train ride was so beautiful it was absolutely worth it...even if i did have to catch the train (a few miles walk from my flat) at 4:50 AM! But at last i arrived and spent most of the day just walking around the city. It was so nice to be there b/c most of the places i've been have either been a big, modern city OR a quaint little village...and Edinburgh somehow manages to capture a little bit of both. There's history and art everywhere. Tons of reformation type stuff, but interestingly, people don't really care. In fact, one reformer's grave is now just a spraypainted marker in the middle of a parking lot! But i did make it to John Knox's house...

the cathedral where he preached (St. Giles)...

and several museums, one of which has the pulpit that Knox preached from.
The first day there i pretty much wandered the streets and free museums as much as possible, and it was fantastic. Saw the crown jewels, some Monet and Van Gogh exhibits, the original Audobon paintings, JK Rolling's cafe where she writes the Harry Potter books, Greyfriar's Bobby cemetery (long history there for the reformers, as well as a faithful little dog who visited his master's grave for 10 years after he died...until the dog, Bobby, died. Now he has his own grave amidst a bunch of reformers and famous people! Kind of humorous don't you think!).
That night i just hung out at the hostel for a while, got to meet some cool people...a Swede, a Kiwi, and yet another Canadian(they're everywhere you turn!)...we also got some Italian (hmmm, italian food in scotland...oh well) before an early bed time.
The next day we all toured the rest of the city together...from the Scott Monument (the world's largest monument to a writer)...

the Nelson Monument (for Lord Nelson that has a breathtaking view of the city)...
and Edinburgh Castle (which is still fully functional and in use)...
The whole thing was fantastic, and i just wish the pictures could do it justice. There were bagpipers on EVERY streetcorner...i even recognized a bunch of them from good old covenant ceremonies and games. However, once the pipes went down and they started to actually talk, you couldn't undersstand a word b/c their accent in Scotland is so thick...it's really not English at all i'm convinced! Covenant may be geographically a long ways away from Scotland, but we did pick a beautiful place and country to use in our cheers!