07:15, got up and showered. It was really nice having our own bathroom; no wait, and it's only about a five foot walk from my bed. Breakfast was pretty good: Frosties (a.k.a. Frosted Flakes), bacon, a potato scone, and a croissant. The only problem I have with this B&B is that it doesn't really seem to be located next to anything. The rooms are great, it's got a pretty nice restaurant/bar/common area, and the management (whose names I've already forgotten) are great people, very nice, doing their best to serve us.
Today was Edinburgh Castle; awesome place, though not as awesome as it could have been. Though there has been a castle on the site for centuries--at least since the 1200s--most of the castle is newer than that. When our good friend Robert the Bruce took it from the English in the early 1300s, he decided that he didn't have the men or resources to hold it, and destroyed most of the original. I understand the reasoning behind that, but at the same time... why the hell did he have to do it? When you get a castle as defensible as Edinburgh, you make enough men to hold it. If that means taking men out of your field army, so be it. The English archers will rock you in the field anyways, so you may as well hole up in the castle and take away their advantage.
After the castle, Emily and I wandered up & down the Royal Mile, as well as a few other streets, not really accomplishing a whole lot. We found the Edinburgh City Museum, that had some pretty cool stuff. The building itself was really old too: it still had a fireplace dating back to the 1500s. They still had the key to the old city, as well as some of the original plumbing, formed from hollowed out tree trunks. Unfortunately, they also had a lot of stuff from the Victorian era... darn those Victorians.
After that, we pretty much just wandered around. We stopped by the Edinburgh Dungeon, but didn't end up going in, since it cost £8. Found an advertisement for the "Gardens of Tuscany," and went looking for that. When we finally found the address, it turned out to the be City Art Centre. "Well, maybe it's on the roof," we thought. Wrong! Idiots. We got up to the third floor, only to find that there was still another floor above us. Apart from a few bushes, the "Gardens of Tuscany" consisted of pictures of gardens in Tuscany. They were nice pictures, but I was really hoping for some actual gardens.
Assuming I'm not on crack or experiencing some sort of memory loss, at this point we wandered back to the Royal Mile for dinner at Deacon Brody's Tavern. We ran in to Jeanna, and decided to check out a few nearby shops while we waited for everybody else to show up. Mostly it was fun to look, but I did end up picking out the kilt that I wanted to buy. It really made me wish that I was Scottish and had more money to spend, because it would be awesome to have the full outfit (side note: we found one the next day for £549).
Dinner was good, but not outstanding. Pretty much standard pub fare, it seems. Stopped by an internet cafe on the way back to the B&B and checked out what was going on in the real world. Not much, it turned out. Gabe & Tycho are still funny, junk mail still sucks, and Dave is still working on being 1337--this time, he managed to snag an LCD projector for our room, which is very cool indeed.
When we got back, Jeanna and I took our Cuban cigars outside, and Rob brought his pipe along. Our hostess proved her coolness once again by propping the door open for us and getting a picture of us all on Jeanna's camera. To be perfectly honest though, the Cuban was not the best cigar I've ever had. In fact, it really wasn't all that great. Maybe it was just the kind I bought (Romeo y Julietta), or maybe they're only good when they're illegal. Whatever the reason, I submit that Cuban cigars are overrated. Ate a mint, used mouthwash, brushed my teeth, then went to bed.
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