Fiona Visits Edinburgh

My friend Fiona visited last weekend, October 14th-16th. It ended up taking her eight hours to get from London to Edinburgh by plane because of plane and bus delays. She finally arrived at Waverly, where I met her. We spent some time walking around Princes Street, through the fields. One of the amazing things about Edinburgh is that, even though you are in a city, you can sit by a field and smell the grass. Even though it's October, sometimes the breeze smells just like spring. 


As I tried to explain the architecture in Edinburgh, I slipped up a little.


Me: Because of the all the Grecian influenced architecture, Edinburgh is known as the Athens of Europe.
Fiona: Isn't Athens the Athens of Europe...?
Me:...Yeah. Edinburgh is the Athens of the United Kingdom.


The next day, Fiona and I went to the Grind House for coffee and croissants. We wandered around campus until meeting up with my mom, Kathleen and Charlotte. I showed everyone around Teviot, the main student union. We had lunch at the Mosque Kitchen and then headed to the castle. It was really fun walking up to the castle because a wedding party was just leaving. They were riding in a Rolls Royce and had people wandering around in kilts. 

After the castle, we walked around the Royal Mile, stopping for coffee. We had dinner at Angels with Bagpipes, which is definitely the best food I've had since coming to Scotland. We followed dinner with a Ghosts and Ghouls Tour. Edinburgh's underground vaults are famous and I had been saving the trip for when I had visitors.

I found the tour fairly underwhelming--there was a lack of scary stories. But the vaults were fairly creepy, especially with water dripping from the ceiling.

Fiona and I finished up the weekend by making the obligatory visit to the Elephant House!