Edinburgh: Part 3

A bagpiper outside of Princes Gardens

I could be wrong, but this may actually be the last post I write about the UK.  We'll have to see.  The rest of the week was more or less quietly productive.  We looked for work, we explored, and we learned one very valuable lesson about traveling:

It's hard enough trying to find places to stay during peak season, but when you go somewhere you need to be very aware of what other events are happening in the country you mean to visit.

I'll explain that closer to the end.

Monday and Tuesday were both very quiet days.  We walked the Royal Mile and Princes street.  We handed in CV's left and right.  Over and over again we were continually told that unless we already had permission to work in the UK that we weren't hireable in spite of the fact that we were more than qualified for the jobs we were applying for.  At least these schools were nice enough to point out that we really should have been bombarding schools on the continent, since summer is actually peak season for ESL classes on the British Isles.  That's life for you.

 One chamber of many in the vaults under Edinburgh where suspected witches were interrogated.

We did do some fun things though: we spent almost an entire day exploring Edinburgh castle and enjoying the views from the walls, then went on a couple of walking tours addressing the more sinister aspects of the Scottish capital's history.  We also went to an armourer that one of our tour guides recommended to us so I could ease my rapier withdrawal a little bit.  Yes, I just compared my love of rapier fighting to an addiction and I'm not in the least bit ashamed of it.

Not sure what this bone belonged to...

The vaults continue onward.

The view from Edinburgh Castle.

I couldn't resist sticking my head into Mons Meg.

Close to the birthplace of Arthur Conan Doyle.  And delicious haggis burgers.

The sword of Rob Roy MacGregor, courtesy of Paul MacDonald (in the background) at MacDonald Armouries.

The days we stayed at the cottage were spent trying to plan our next move.  The job interviews and the lack of foresight meant that we unfortunately had to impose on Isabel and Rab longer than we had planned. 

We do very much appreciate it.  Really.  Our roof is available to you as soon as we have one.

This is why you really need to pay attention to the sporting events happening in the country you mean to visit.  We were hoping to go to the highlands and spent a couple days contacting hostels and people on couch surfing websites.  Every accessible hostel in Scotland -- whether highlands or low -- was booked.  When we called, nobody said they could understand it.  The amount of activity was unusual.  It wasn't until we were talking to a friend in Glasgow that we realized everything was going crazy in Scotland because the Commonwealth Games were happening there just when we were trying to explore.

Are we sure this is Scotland?  I thought it rained.

When we finally gave up on seeing more of Scotland (much to our despair), we decided that it was best to go to Paris since it was cheaper than going back to London.

And Sarah has wanted to see Paris since she was in high school.  I was excited for it too.

We made preparations to leave as Isabel and Rab were getting ready to go to their caravan on the border.  They were more than happy to let us remain at their place until it was time to make our way to the bus station, so in return we did a little bit of tidying before we left.  Aside from our first day and our last day, the time we spent in Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous.  We were ready for new adventures, but it was still sad for us to leave.

One day we well go back.