Today, I awoke fairly early and tried to take a shower but had too much difficulty with the knob. So, instead, I just got dressed and went up stairs to eat. After eating a fairly small amount of food we began our tour of the old city. To start we walked to one end of the Royal Mile where the royal palace of the queen is. On the way there, though we stopped at a graveyard, which Edinburgh was laden with. This graveyard happened to have David Hume in it, the world renowned philosopher. Also near there was the parliament of Scotland, which was quite new. I don’t really think I liked it, as it was not fitting to the surroundings, plus it simply was not that attractive to me. We walked up and saw the closes around the place (which are like very narrow lanes that lead nowhere essentially). There were some beautiful Scottish houses nearby, in the classic Scottish architecture but sadly, I did not take any pictures of them as I wanted to. Part of the problem though, was my camera which is falling apart, literally, and my frustration with using it lately. As we continued to walk up we saw all sorts of neat things of this fantastic town, and the old part primarily. We stopped at the main church whereby a bloke named John Knox was buried. This fellow was a strange man indeed, as he was a very religious man and a reformer of the church. His contribution to Scottish history is probably enormous, but his efforts were shown appreciation by being space #23 in the parking lot. What he did was made it so that the vast majority (eventually all) of the population of Scotland was literate so as to read the bible. Because of this, the nation of Scotland made tons of inventions and has one of the highest interests and appreciations of education in the world. As our guide, Forbes, was explaining this to us, he also mentioned the man’s misogyny and bigoted nature towards others. When he said this (particularly about misogyny) I let out an involuntary chuckle, not audible, but still visible. Upon seeing this, one of my new friends from the trip looked at me and chastised me saying “don’t laugh, it’s not funny.” When she did say that, I was upset that she would have the audacity to say such a thing to me, as it was my prerogative to laugh at what I wished. Furthermore, it is not like I am condoning misogyny or anything like that by laughing at it.
Well, this was only a minor annoyance, but all the same I was a bit upset by it. After this, we stopped for a coffee break, but not liking coffee, I looked for a tweed hat a place called the woolen mill, and found none, so after I bought a candy bar at the nearby Boots. Following this, we went into the castle at Edinburgh, which brought back many memories from the last time I was there, five years since. It was great to be in, I looked at the crown jewels, including the Stone of Scone and the Honours. I also went into the regimental museum and so forth. I did take many pictures from here as it was a gorgeous view, and eventually I went out to eat. The place I found was Pizza Hut, but not even eating this much in the States (at the restaurant anyway), I forgot that it was not as quick as I had wanted. I ordered a small pizza and Pepsi, which were very overpriced, but it was good to eat them. I found that I was running quite late and ran to our next stop together, which was the Georgian house, and I almost did not get in, but finally I did. After this house we walked down the new town, and I found this to be quite nice as it was built during the Georgian age primarily, or the age of Enlightenment. It was quite geometric and such, and it was rather pretty and deserted. After finishing up this little tour, we then walked into the National Scottish Portrait Gallery, which had all the famous Scots in it, and was exciting to see. We then stopped back at the hotel for a bit, waiting for the Underground city of Edinburgh tour.
I took a nap when we returned and did not wake up, until it was about time to go, and then we left and made it to the destination where we were supposed to meet for the Underground city tour. It was great, because our guide was a nice jolly Scotsman, and quite friendly too. He told us all sorts of things, and took us through the city, and eventually we ended up in the small caverns to these tunnels, but the thing I liked most about them, were their warmth. That was about all I liked, it seemed rather scary but quite fun all the same. When we first got to them, I stood near a part that was alight by candle as most of the place was, and in this particular room I was standing near was a skeleton clad in a white sheet. I was a bit unnerved by this, but I figured that it was probably part of the effect. We walked on and on and found some very disturbing rooms indeed, in addition to being told about the horrendous living conditions people were subject to living in these caves, as few as 200 years ago. After this little excursion we ended at a gate on the far side of the new town, I met up with a couple of kids named Adam (who was also one of my roommates) and Cassie (the girl who chastised me at the church) and we decided to go and get a pint. We found this kind of offshoot bar and had a few drinks, which were all Scottish (for me) and quite good too. We talked for a long while and frittered the hours away by talking, but it was good to get to know some people in the intimate conversation I so miss in this country. After this, we drunkenly (actually I was sober) walked back to the hotel, buying McDonald’s along the way. We went back to the hotel, ate our food and went to sleep ready to begin the next day refreshed.