Well, I spent the last two days in a hostel in the middle of Edinburgh (pronounced eh-din-burr-uh). Apparently they have this yearly festival called the Fringe where a bunch of artsy people get together and put on various plays and comedy routines and stuff. It's almost impossible to walk down High Street this time of year because you're bombarded by people trying to get you to come to their shows and handing out flyers. Not my favorite thing in the world, but we managed somehow. We got into Edinburgh Friday around four and were given two hours to wander around before going out to a big group dinner at some fancy restaurant that the trip payed for. I was sitting across from our coach driver and spent the majority of the time asking him questions about where he's been (he travels all of Europe with his coach, taking people around). He doesn't get holidays off ever, so he has to spend time with his family late in September and early in March. I also managed to ask him a few questions about the royal family and what they actually do. Contrary to my uneducated assumptions, they don't just sit around being fabulously wealthy. They still have the ultimate power over what happens in the country (though parliament can check them if they feel it necessary) and they make the important decisions (or the Prime Minister does it for them). Also, the Queen apparently started a ton of companies over the years and was at one point making about 30 pounds per second. Yuck. I also learned that England does NOT want her son Charles to be king (something about how he treated Diana? I think they loved her a lot over here), so the Queen is planning on abdicating and nominating her grandson Will for the crown. After that, parliament votes and then the country votes (and common consensus is that they'll all vote yes--they love Will as much as they loved Diana). I thought this was all very interesting. What time was not spent in conversation was spent watching Michael Phelps win his swimming races by coming up from behind in the last 50 meters. He was behind six people when he turned around and then all of a sudden he had the gold medal.
O.O
And on that note, I'll stop rambling about royal families and the Olympics and tell you about edinburgh. It's beautiful. It's like Rohan and Gondor combined. There's a giant castle in the center of the city on a rock that sits above everything else. The rest of the city is built into and around the surrounding landscape, so you could be in the center of the city but have a mountain two streets away. It's really cool. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh window shopping and wandering down streets. Alexis and I found a street where her ancestors owned a shop and she got to take a lot of pictures there. We also found another cathedral and just sat in it for a few minutes. Another find? The Elephant Cafe. It's the place where JKR created Harry Potter on the corner of a napkin. She was dirt poor and would buy a coffee and drink it really slowly so she could just sit inside. I didn't eat there, but my friends did. I took plenty of pictures, though.
Saturday night, we finished up our trip with one final show: the Edinburgh Royal Military Tattoo. Oh my goodness, it was amazing, especially for a band nerd like myself. Tere was a lot of marching and a lot of bagpipes and even some traditional dancing. I took videos of most of it because it was just too cool. The highlights, though? USA's military european band doing a medley of superhero songs, the fireworks accompanied by live music, the exhileration of hearinga hundred pipers accompanied by drums, the Norwegians marching like nobody's business, the drum corps with the drums that lit up when you hit them, and last but not least, hearing a selection of music from Brave and then being told that the composer, Patrick Doyle, was in the audience with us that night. He also composed the music for Harry Potter 4! The tattoo was amazing and I would come back during the Fringe again if it meant being able to see it again too.
Today? We went to church in Edinburgh and attended at YSA sunday school class with a bunch of Scottish boys and one African boy who looked like Wayne Brady. It was like being in a high school sunday school class again. Then we had a wonderful Relief Society lesson on Charity. After church, we took a brief trip to Loch Lomond before heading to Glasgow, which is where I am now. And I'm sad to say that this concludes the British Isles portion of my adventure. Tomorrow we all fly out--most of us to the US, but four of us to Paris. I'm excited (and a little bit nervous) about the rest of this trip, but I have to say that I am going to miss this place, and especially the people I've seen it with. I'm sad to leave it behind, but I'm also really excited to come home. And to go to Disneyland. :)
This is me, signing out from GB for the last time, guys! It's been amazing.
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