Royal Mile

The first activity of the day was suppose to be visiting the Castle in Edinburgh but it was postponed while we waited for Cartrite. He was running late because the kids are both a little sick. At the castle we saw the Stone of Scone or the Stone of Destiny and the Royal Jewels. That was probably the highlight of the castle. The way they set up the museum where the jewels are housed was really cool. Unfortunately you couldn't take pictures of the exhibits, which always makes me a little sad. Mara and I also saw the prisons of war. After the castle we had to hurry back to the hostel to get changed for our trip to Parliament and then head back to the Royal Mile to view the museum. I wore the new dress I bought at H&M. It's a pretty dress but ya get a bit cold if you have no jacket to wear with it. The museum was really cool. They had little discovery zones through out where they have period dress that you could try out that matched the time period of the surrounding exhibit. There was also a room full of interactive exhibit like the driving game. I am not good at driving games at all, just to say. I realize that the entries may be including less details of what we're doing but I don't really care so much anymore. At 2 most of the class meet at the balcony to have lecture. I didn't put any sunblock on so I sat in the shade where I had goose bumps for most of the time. Sometimes you have to make choices and I chose to be cold for a little while over being sun burnt for weeks.

Once lecture was over and we were inside again I did cling to some people to use them for their body heat. We didn't talk much during lecture as usual. We soon left for Parliament to meet with John Swinney and to watch a session of Parliament. We had to go through security but that didn't take very long, not as long as we had thought anyway. At 4 we entered the gallery to watch a debate in Parliament. I was really geeked when we entered I'm not even going to lie. I just thought it was so cool. The room isn't what you would expect it to look like. It was a bit to modern for me, I feel like the room should have been done in a dark mahogany or something. We spent an hour listening to the debate. I didn't understand the point of some of the speeches but there was one member who I liked. She was the voice of reason it seemed, and she was very clear with what she was saying. She didn't have any flowery language which I appreciated. After an hour we met with John Swinney, the finance minister. We had a q&a with him for about a half hour and then he showed us around the building. It's a beautiful building but still a little to modern for what I think a Parliament building should be. Dinner soon followed. Not taking my fleece was not a good idea last night, even if it doesn't go with the dress at all. I had to sit on this bench at a raised table. It was not that comfortable when I had to lean forward to eat my meal and the fact I had to slide across the bench in a dress. I got a chicken and mushroom pasta dish that was good. I also sat across from Jake and Ken's wife. It was nice to get to talk to her. She seemed like a very nice woman.

The rest of the night was spent in bars. One was the bar on the ground floor of our hostel and the other was a karaoke bar that we found. There were two grease songs sung, which Kyle did not like at all. The girls sang You're so Vain, dedicated to Danny. I don't know what it was but people liked touching my hair last night at it was kinda weird to say the least. I'm debating if I want to braid my hair again on this trip for fear of being told again my hair feels fun. At midnight we returned to the hostle to watch the wings game. After the first period Mara and I went to bed.