Scotland, Day 2: Edinburgh

We actually spent the night in nearby Livingston and so needed to travel a bit more to get to Edinburgh proper. After a quick breakfast (and it's worth noting how we didn't expect to have to buy any food on this trip; as typical Asians we had packed three days worth of the stuff. I found that both quite amazing and terrifying at the same time. It's came as a surprise to me that we were so well stocked and to be honest it wasn't something I liked), we headed off.

It took around an hour to find the castle but even longer to get to it; I was beginning to get slightly impatient with my family taking their time doing ANYTHING (they were even suggesting we skip the castle altogether). It seemed like we were wasting so much time taking pictures of painted cows (yes, those ones) and things that I almost gave up on doing anything more interesting. Having said all that, we did manage to and the castle was pretty cool. We did wait for the 1pm gun to fire until we realised it didn't actually do that on Sundays.

What little else we saw of the city was ace. It seems like a nice, chilled out place to be and I think I'd go back. Unfortunately we didn't really spend that much time there today as we had to make it up to Inverness (another 150 miles away) so after driving around the city for a while longer, we left the capital.

We passed over the Forth Road Bridge and into Dumfermline where we stopped off to see its abbey, and apparently more important for my travel companions, an Asda. Again, it had no Asian staff, but at least it gave me a chance to wow the locals with my accent: "Could you point me to where the bottled water can be found" I asked in my bestest phone voice. I even got a reply containing "aye" and "wee". Sigh. I so want to marry a Scot someday.

I insisted that we visit St Andrews on the way to Inverness. It was late in the day and the chances were that the Cathedral (I love chuches as much as any other place of worship) would be closed to the public, but I was determined to be able to say we had done more than just the castle today. And although it was closed I did mange to get some piccies. And see the golf course. And the university. Ho hum.

We then set off proper; there were to be no further stops till our hotel. And on the way to Inverness we saw some brilliant scenes - the kind you always imagine when you think of Scotland. I was actually quite disappointed that we would be returning the next day...