Experiencing Edinburgh

September 30-October 1
Edinburgh

Charlotte:

This morning, we got ready to leave St Andrews to go to Edinburgh. Mom felt very yucky because she was sick.

We took our luggage on a city bus to the bus station to catch our ride to Edinburgh. The bus ride was two hours long. Grandma let me play on her phone. (Thanks, Grandma!)

When we got to Edinburgh, we had to walk up a really big hill to get to our apartment. The apartment was very nice and huge. We had to climb up lots of spiral stairs to get to it, but that was fun. Grandma loved the views from the apartment windows.

Once we settled in a little, Grandma, Dad, and Sam went out to explore. I stayed with Mom because she was too sick to go out.

About dinner time, Dad came back to get me. We went to a pub to eat. I had delicious fish and chips. Grandma and Sam both had the steak and ale pie, which they both said was not good, and Dad had a good burger.

After supper, we looked in some shops and then stopped for ice cream. We brought some home for Mommy, too. It was so tasty!

Dad:

Once the kids were in bed, I finally had a chance to taste the four other whiskey samples I got from Dalwhinnie. Some of them were really strong!

Sam:

When we woke up in the morning we decided to go to a big castle called Edinburgh Castle that was nearby. On the way, we looked in a big church called St. Giles.

It was on a hill overlooking the entire city and had 3 rows of cannons plus some more! We took a tour of the castle dungeons, inside of the castle grounds and we even got to see some of the Scottish crown jewels which were in a room with two heavy metal doors that had huge padlocks.

In the prison/dungeon, the was a few rooms that were each used for different things. Some were used for eating and some were used for sleeping in hammocks. They only got to eat bread, cheese and meat daily and on Sunday they got pea soup. Overall it was a good prison because they got more food than most other prisons.

Some of the men in prison made beautiful boxes out of straw from their beds and bones from their meat. They were allowed to sell these to people at a special market inside the castle walls.

The last building we saw on the castle grounds was a little chapel that is the oldest building in Edinburgh.

Charlotte:

After leaving the castle, we walked to a street that was used in the Harry Potter movies as Diagon Alley.

We found a nice restaurant called Bertie’s for our lunch. It is famous for fish and chips. We all loved our food – Dad and Grandma had the fish and chips, Sam and I had chicken goujons (I had mine with mashed potatoes and gravy), and Mom had a battered sausage and chips. We had dessert, too! Sam and I had gigantic bowls of ice cream with brownie pieces and sauce. It was so big that I couldn’t finish it all (they called it a mini dessert – hehe). Mom had sticky toffee pudding (her favourite). Grandma and Dad shared a deep-fried Mars bar.

Then we went to what some people say is the best Harry Potter shop in Britain. It has three storeys. At the top, there was the Chamber of Secrets! I got to dress up in a cloak and my house scarf (Hufflepuff) and practice some spells. There was even a wand to use. After we had looked at the other floors, I bought a spell book for myself. I’m studying it lots!

We also visited a joke shop that was meant to be like the Weasleys’ favourite store and a bunch of other little shops on the way back to get our luggage.

We took a bus to the airport next. Off to Amsterdam!