First Picture Blog

Hopefully this works.

Since I have so many pictures and I am so far behind, I suppose I will start with stuff from before I left, so I can figure out how this works.

So, here we go.



This is Brace, in his coat I bought him for Christmas. I think I did rather well.




Neat picture stitching feature that my little digital point and shoot has. Awesome.
This was a very nice lunch with my Gramma and her best friend Sandi, Mom, and Brace.

Now, on to travel, since I have figure out how to post pictures.




Here is the plane at DIA on January 1st, 2009, at about 10 in the morning. From the point I was in an airplane to Toronto, then to London, and then Edinburgh. I finally reached Edinburgh at 10 am on January 2nd.

At the Edinburgh airport I met up with the other Arcadia students, Kate, Linda and Lucy. We caught a bus to the city center, to then find the Jury's Inn Hotel.

This was my first image of Edinburgh:


This is right on Waverly Bridge in the city center. The lovely old monument is in honor of Sir Walter Scott, and the farris wheel is the part of the Hogmanay (New Year) festival that was taking place in Edinburgh.







Sir Walter looks pretty thrilled about the New Year.

We also just happened to stumble upon St. Giles Cathedral.


At this point we were all so jet lagged and in complete awe of everything that we moved around in a silent cluster with our mouths gaping. The stained glass in this cathedral is phenomenal, but now I feel as though I was so tired at the time, I didn't really appreciate it.

After wandering around the city, and finally getting our rooms after a two hour wait, we napped and called families. Then a short orientation, and dinner at a pizza place, where they gave us haggis and apple pizza, which I regretfully did not try.

Next morning, more orientation, and then lunch at Le Sept. After we went on a quick walking tour of the city and saw Edinburgh Castle.

View from the castle.

I would like to point out the spectacularly sunny weather we experienced in Edinburgh.


Now, making this blog, I realize that I am really bad at taking pictures of these experiences. I think I am more concerned with participating and being a part of what I am experiencing than messing around with my new and confusing digital camera. I do wish I would have taken more pictures of our fun group eating adventures, haggis pizza and all that.
That said, I do plan on visiting Edinburgh again, and at that point I will take some stunning pictures.

I actually just got home from a ceilidh (big Scottish dance party) and it is 3 am, so I probably should be sleeping. So there are some nice intro photos to Edinburgh. Next up I will probably just post a whole bunch of pictures with less narrative. Then homestay adventures, and finally arrival in Glasgow!

I will leave you with these lovely images, taken at my first Scottish pub in Edinburgh, called the Scotsman's lounge, where they had live music and fun times.

First, Linda on the right, me on the left. Second Linda, top left, then Kate, Lucy, and myself.