seekingmygreaterperhaps

The last you heard, I had done nothing but eat in Scotland. Well fear not, loyal readers, I have indeed been cultured here. We spent the whole day yesterday out touring, and saw quite some awesome things.

First stop of the day was Princes St. At the top of this street is Edinburgh Castle. We did not actually go in, but did take some awesome pics outside of it. It was unbelievably windy at the top of the city… and really everywhere in general. Scotland has a couple types of weather- windy, rainy, cold, or a combination of the three. That doesn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves though.

Our next stop was the coolest musuem I have ever been to in my life. It’s called Camera Obscura, and it’s an optical illusion based musuem with 6 stories. My inner-psychologist was nerding out and thanking IU for making me take a class on Sensation and Perception (meaning I knew why all of the illusions worked… therefore making me a genius).

First there was a neon-lighted mirror maze. SUPER COOL. Then there was a “Vortex tunnel” which is a walkway with lights swirling around you. It’s very hard to describe, and even harder to take a picture of. I’ll do my best: It’s not a long walkway, but it’s enclosed. There is a little metal handrail and you walk through. The lights are spinning around you and it feels like you are falling over. If you stay in there too long, you might get sick. It’s trippy and awesome at the same time.

There was a show included, where we used the actual “camera” which uses mirros and the sun to act as a telescope type thing during the day. We got to look at the whole city, and it was real-time, meaning you can see people walking around.

There are some floors with hologram type things, and electricity tricks, and lighting mirages. My favorite on this floor was… I have no idea what it’s called so let’s call it the “glow photo.” What this does is you stand in front of basicall a green screen but of light, and then there is a flash, and your shadows get taken and stays on the green screen. My sister Shannon and I used to play with a much smaller version of this in her room when we were little.

A view from infinity.

I also got to be a headless entree, and be a really small person (for the first time in my life) using some sweet real life optical illusions.

Hands down, this was the highlight of Edinburgh for me, but the day was just starting.

Next stop- The Elephant House cafe. Don’t recognize the importance of this? Oh it’s just where JK Rowling wrote the first and second Harry Potter books. Lore goes that it was cheaper for her to buy food than to heat her house, so she went there. We had lunch there and it was quite tasty. But the bathrooms were the best. Harry Potter fans from around the world come to this spot, and the bathroom graffiti is magnificant. On the walls are everything from HP quotes, thanks to JKR for impacting their childhood, and (my favorite) on the toilet seat “OMG JKR ONCE SAT HERE->” I met some girls in the bathroom from New York, and one said, “this is kind of like a pilgrammage for me.” it’s a neat experience to say the least.

Immediately after lunch we went to Patissere Valerie and had cake. I induldged in Black Forrest Cake. YUM.

Later on in the day we went to a Pub Quiz… which insulted my intelligence, but we had a good time. I now have a cold from being in the rain and cold, but I’m taking some vitamins and with some sleep I should kick it out in no time. Lucky for me, mom basically made me bring a small pharmacy along.

THANK YOU NICOLE FOR BEING A WONDERFUL HOST! I am so glad I reconnected with you, and I’m glad you yelled at the train people to let me on without a ticket because the machines were down! It’s a miracle I made it, running to a train witha 50+ pound backpack will make an Olympain out of me yet.

And now for a special treat for reading all the way to the end of this post: A picture of me and a bagpipe-ist: