Sarah and Alex's Visit (so far)

Sarah and Alex's visit (so far) has been great! They got here yesterday (Friday) morning after flying first class the whole way. We met up without too much difficulty, then headed to their hotel to drop off their stuff. The hotel seems really nice, and they said they like it.

After dropping off their stuff, we went to my flat so they could see it, then we went to the castle. I hadn't been yet (I was waiting until visitors came), so that was fun. It's big and picturesque, with a lot of museums and exhibits to see. We took a free guided tour then explored the buildings. We were there for the One O'clock gun, which they fire off everyday at one o'clock.

After the castle we got lunch at a little deli by campus, which was really good. Then they got a campus tour before heading back to my flat for a break (complete with cupcakes from my birthday).

Next we went back up the Royal Mile to the Camera Obscura, which is a building with a lot of optical illusion exhibits, but at the top is a camera obscura which is sort of like a periscope. There are mirrors on top of the building and the image is projected onto a table in a room and you can turn the "periscope" to look around the city, and the image is amazingly clear. So that was cool, and we got a good view from the terrace around the top of the building.

After that we walked around the castle down to Princes Gardens, then up to Princes Street which is a big shopping street so we stopped in a few stores. They went back to their hotel after that for about an hour, then we went to dinner at The Elephant House, which I've written about before. After we had finished eating an American lady that had been sitting near us came over to chat so that was interesting. She was maybe in her early 60s and is living in London for work. She was pretty outspoken and invited us over to her place for tea, but obviously we didn't do that.... Sarah and Alex were pretty tired and jet lagged so they went back to their hotel after that.

The next morning we met at 10, had a quick Starbucks stop, then walked down the Royal Mile towards Holyrood Palace (the Queen's official residence when she's in town). We didn't go in (it's expensive), but after that we hiked Arthur's Seat. We've had great weather this whole weekend so we had good views from the top. Here's a picture of the 3 of us at the top:

When we got down we tried to go back up the Royal Mile but there was a big rally in town today and the police had the streets blocked off. The Scottish Defense League (an apparently anti-muslim, fascist, extreme right group) planned a rally for today so a huge number of people (mostly students) organized a giant protest against that rally. I guess a similar thing happened in Glasgow in November and a lot of people were hurt and arrested, so Edinburgh really prepared for this one. Streets were blocked off to keep the two sides separate and huuuuge numbers of police were around. They were swarming the streets:

and there were vans parked everywhere just full of policemen waiting for something to happen. We ran into a small group of protesters who were trying to join the big group:

The police blocked off the street so they couldn't get through, but that meant we couldn't get through either, so we had to go around using other streets. Here's a BBC article about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8525939.stm

Eventually we did get back and we went to lunch at Elephants and Bagels, which was good. Then we went to Greyfriar's Kirkyard, a big famous graveyard close to my flat. After that we took the bus to Murrayfield Curling Club since Sarah and Alex both curl. They wanted to see some curling in Scotland since that's where it was invented. They got to exchange pins from their curling clubs, which I guess is a big thing, so that was cool. I learned all about curling! Here's a video. If you turn up the sound you can hear Sarah commentating:

We watched a full match, about 2 hours, then took the bus back to the city. They went back to their hotel for about an hour before dinner. We went to dinner at Blonde, a nice restaurant, for my birthday. It was great! We thought the food was great and it was a really nice place. After that we went to a little pub by my flat where they play live music every night so that was fun, then we split up for the night.

On the agenda for tomorrow: meet around 10, Starbucks stop, Calton Hill, souvenir shopping, lunch at Always Sunday, National museum of Scotland, early dinner at Palmyra, church, coffee shop.