Whit's 'at caad in Scots?

I AM SOOO EXCITED!!!

I just back from Scotland, and I loved it. It was beautiful. Edinburgh is a much more manageable town to see than London. Don't get me wrong I love everything about London, but at times it is overwhelming because there is just so much to see. I feel like I got to see everything I wanted to see in Edinburgh in just a few days, and it was good to be able to leave feeling like I have not missed anything.

And partly I'm excited because:

My very first picture is finally uploaded!!! This is Scotland. This hill you see is the top part of what's called Arthur's Seat and we hiked up the entire thing(this pictures is just the very top)...and it was definitely a hike. This is the

very first thing we did after arriving in Edinburgh following the 4 1/2 hour train ride (which was rather miserable seeing as I had a backwards facing seat). So after a good long up hill hike I celebrated making it to the top like this:

and this:

All in all it was a fun day.

The next day we visited Edinburgh Castle. Unfortunately the day before I lost my Explorer pass to get in to this castle. Luckily, the guy was very understanding when I explained my situation he let me in anyways. Once we got inside the gate we asked the man at the audio guide booth if there was a map of the castle. He said yes but they are only in Gaelic. However, I decided to take a map anyways because the nice man made sure to tell us the numbers were in English and would lead us to signs that were in English.

This castle is where Mary Queen of Scots lived and had her first and only child

,James VI, who became King James I of England. We also learned some interesting things about the American Revolution and how prisoners of war were kept in the castle dungeons. To the left is a carving of a boat and an early American flag that a prisoner made in a door.

And if you can't read this delightful sign to the right it says "Because the Americans were officially regarded as pirates they received only 1 pound of bread per day". Everyone else got 1 1/2 lbs of bread per day. By far my favorite part of this castle was this exhibit in one of the small museums about the Scottish army. There was an exhibit that explained how during a battle a woman had fled the city and left her small child with the father. This might not seem like too bad of an idea. However, the father was a soldier and not long after the mother left he had to fight. Having nothing else to do with the child he simply put the baby in his knapsack while he fought in the battle. What you can't see in this picture is that on the ground at the father's feet he

is just about the stab a man with the knife on the end of his musket. But you can see the baby in the bag under his right arm.

That about sums up day one and two in Scotland, and I will update the rest of the trip tomorrow when hopefully, though doubtfully, the internet will be working faster. It has already taken much too long to upload just these few pictures.