day 358

oh, edinburgh, how i love thee. 

1. what once was a treasured experience is now a dreaded outing. i refer to the dilemma of eating out on vacation. you start your trip excited at the notion that you don't have to cook dinner, you can choose from a wide variety of menus, no dishes to clean, a cozy environment, and someone to wait on you. by the end of your vacation, the only thing you want to see is something NOT from a restaurant. for example, all i want to eat right now is my mum's swedish meatballs with some well seasoned veggies and some water. sadly, i must continue to eat restaurant food for the next 9 days. tonight's menu was chicken tika masala from an indian restaurant in edinburgh. not great, but what did i expect?

i've decided that restaurants in big tourist areas have it made. their food doesn't have to be great because this is simply a one-time meal for the tourist. a necessity. something to get them by until the next meal. maybe i'll move here and open a restaurant...

2. let me tell you about this awesome place called camera obscura. it is awesome. it's a 5 story museum that is filled with optical illusions. you start out at the top where a fun little tour guide lady shows you the whole city of edinburgh through her ginormous camera obscura. then you make your way down through the fun house/museum/learning center that i have to say is cooler than san francisco's exploratorium. the highlight however was at the very end when brooke and i experienced the vortex. we loved it so much, we went through it about 5 extra times, even running in front of people. i know- we're children. you walk through this tunnel on a catwalk-like bridge and because of the way the lights are running it makes you feel like the room is spinning. you think, "ha! that is nonsense. it wouldn't fool me." oh, how you're wrong. about 1/4 of the way across the catwalk, you immediately start falling over from side to side. brooke and i were laughing SO HARD. it might be the best thing about edinburgh. haha, well, might be.

(not me... obviously, but a pic of the vortex)

3. didn't get to see nessie on this trip, but watched a hilarious 3-D movie about the study of the loch ness monster. i knew there were some people out there that believed in nessie, but not to the extent of one adrian shine. the man is kinda weird. his 20 minute movie that looked like it was made in an hour gave us all the facts and myths surrounding the history of the loch ness monster. i must say, it was 20 minutes of my life well spent considering how much it made us all laugh. 

4. after trekking up MANY flights of stairs (have i mentioned that europe has over a trillion flights of stairs? they do), we finally made it to the royal mile and to the entrance of the edinburgh castle. SO AMAZING!!! this castle is built on what looks (and feels) like a mountain. you can see it as you leave our apartment and it just looms from above. truly an amazing piece of architecture. we got to explore the grounds with our tour guide, but brooke and i had to leave after awhile cos his B.O. was so bad that we couldn't concentrate. not totally his fault, it was hot that day. i am constantly amazed at how long these buildings (and artifacts!) have survived! quite impressive. 

5. our apartment is dope. 

well, that is all for today. my posts are getting more boring. probably cos brooke is staring me down so she can use the computer and talk to her boo. 

(random wedding at the castle. kinda wish i could get married in a castle)

(beak wants ethan to be this guy for halloween)

(i look happy to have my head on a plate...)

(...while brooke actually plays the part of a head on a plate)

(poor little midget brooke)