Summertime

Wow I've had pretty much the best day ever. The weather was unbelievably nice. Low 80s, completely clear skies, no clouds at all. I started the day off by ducking in to the National Museum of Scotland to take a picture of Dolly (you know, the sheep. She was cloned in Scotland so they have her stuffed in the museum...). I've been in that museum a million times but for some reason never took a picture of her, so I wanted to do that before I left. Here is said picture:

Dolly:

Next I walked to the Meadows, which is a big park behind campus. Last week most of the trees were bright pink and it was beautiful, but I only got around to taking pictures now so most of the pink is gone. But it is still really pretty, and very green.

A path in the Meadows:

A little pink left:

The Meadows:

George Square, in the middle of campus:

My next stop was the school store to buy gifts for my family, and after that I headed up to the Royal Mile. There were sooooooo many people out today. There are a ton of tourists here this weekend (partially because the Edinburgh Marathon is tomorrow), and all the locals are out too because of the amazing weather. The atmosphere on the Royal Mile was great though. Saturdays are always fun because there are always street performers out and groups of people demonstrating about one thing or another. Here's a video of one of those groups:

I browsed the street vendor stalls and bought two Edinburgh prints. One is a square one of the Castle as viewed from Arthur's Seat. It's all shrouded in mist and it looks really cool. The other one is a long rectangle- the Edinburgh skyline at sunset as viewed from Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat is my favorite place in Edinburgh so I really wanted prints of the view from there. I love them! I almost got teary-eyed while I was picking them out though. I was looking at all these pictures of beautiful Edinburgh, that I've come to know so well over the last couple months, and behind me was a street performer playing now-familiar Scottish tunes. It made me really, really sad to leave. I'm not ready to go at all.

My next stop was the Edinburgh Farmers' Market. I took a while looking at all the stalls, then bought lunch there. I took my lunch to Princes Street Gardens to eat, then took pictures of the gardens. There were a ton of people there because of the weather, and it was just very pleasant.

Edinburgh Farmers' Market:

Fountain in Princes Street Gardens with castle behind:

Princes Street Gardens:

After lunch I went to the top of the Scott Memorial. It was cool getting a view from that side of town. The only other vantage points really are Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat, and those are both on the east side of town. So that was fun.

View of the Balmoral and Calton Hill from the Scott Memorial:

Princes Street:

The castle and the Mound

I made a quick stop at New College on my way back to my flat. New College is where the divinity school is, and I hadn't been there yet, so I wanted to check it out. I went inside a little but didn't spend much time there.

New College:

New College courtyard:

New College towers from the courtyard:

I went back to my flat to drop off my prints and get changed, then I went to the beach! What a perfect day for the beach. It was definitely hot enough to be there, but there was a slight breeze so you didn't get sweaty lying on the beach. I stayed there for a long time, about 3 hours, then went back to my flat. Ahhh it was so great.

The beach:

It's about 6:30 pm now, so I'm going to have dinner, then I don't know what I'm doing tonight.