Edinburgh, the Southern Gentleman of Europe

Edinburgh is AMAZING! I never would have thought to come here on my own but I'm so happy it was a stop on our trip. The buildings are all gothic and very different than other cities we have been to and the green hills and and trees everywhere make it so pretty. All the people are so nice too, especially after coming from London and Paris. Multiple times I have seen people stop to help strangers and just smile at people passing by. It's awesome.

To start our day we woke up and did a free walking tour of the city. Our tour guide was David but we called him, "Australian Dave" for short.  He was hilarious and made learning about the city so fun! This is what I learned: 

JK put her hands here. I put my hands here. I basically helped write Harry Potter.

 One day the Scott's wanted to be Egyptian. They started creating Sphinx statues like these and putting them on their building. Later they decided they wanted to be Greek so they made their statues wear togas. LOL Scotland LOL

The tax office put a heart on the door to make it more appealing and approachable to the people. When the building was torn down they moved the heart to this spot in the street. Today, Scottish people spit on it as they walk by, in loving memory of the tax building! One time when a tour guide was telling this story, a couple burst out laughing. When the guide asked him about it later the man said, "I proposed to my wife on that heart. I thought it was romantic". He proposed on a heart of spit! 

***** imagine a golden chicken******

Whenever a new person would come into power, it wasn't uncommon for them to change the nation's religion. Every time it changed they would have to change all the steeples on the churches. The Scott's got tired of changing it all the time so they just put golden chickens on top instead of steeples; the chicken represents laziness. 

This was the street that JK modeled Diagon Alley after in Harry Potter. 

Edinburgh castle 

The graveyard JK walked through to help her think of names for her characters. 

Tom Riddles' tomb stone! It's spelled differently in the books but this is the original name. (Tom Riddle is Voldemort's real name) 

After the tour we just walked around and tried to spend the rest of our pounds which will soon be useless in Ireland. I can't believe I'll be home in only 4 days!! 

A park we walked by right in the city. 

Tonight a large group of the students are going on a "pub crawl" to see all the different kind of pubs in Edinburgh. I'm broke so I will do more observing than participating but I'm excited to hangout with everyone as a group and see what the city is like at night!! 

Ttyl, hope all the Colorado people have a safe plane ride!

~emily