Monday, Monday

It turns out that so far, Monday is the only day of the week I have to be anywhere before noon.  I know, I know, whine whine whine.  But I spent all day in the library doing homework, and as a result am all amped up.  Yes, I am actually that much of a dork.  I had a study party for Library Part II with my friend from SLC who is also here, and she and I both whined about the lack of academic discussion.  But so far my classes are super interesting, and I start tutorials tomorrow which should help.
Anyways, in order to help myself wind down, I decided to update.  I climbed Arthur's Seat, which is an 823 foot hill in Holyrood Park, located in the central area of the city.  It was quite the climb, but absolutely gorgeous.  I got a ton of great pictures of the city and some of the landscape, and I'm thinking about going back to explore more of the park next weekend if it's not too cold (according to my thermometer, it's currently 39 F).  I've been writing a lot of text-heavy posts, so consider this light reading :)

 We started by following a pretty steep path up the Salisbury Craigs, which run through the park and allow access to the higher peaks.

 This is Holyroodhouse Palace, the current Scottish residency for the British royal family.  On the day we went hiking, the queen was actually in residence due to the upcoming Pope visit.  The big tent on the lawn was for the reception, I think.  This was from about 1/4 of the way up.

 This was...not comforting.

 The hardest part of the whole hike was the very beginning, when we climbed the craigs.  When that flattened out for a bit, we felt so accomplished.  It also seemed pretty high!  I was definitely in an "embrace my city" mood.

 More of the park, which I'd love to go back and explore.  We picked a beautiful day to go, which helped, but it was incredibly windy!  Don't let the fluffy clouds fool you.

 The path we took up to the peaks. The people on the path were actually running up to the top.  I don't think I'll ever be in shape enough to do that.

 Faster than I expected, we made it to the top!  There were moments I thought we were going to be blown right off, but it was really beautiful.  We could even see the ocean at the edges of the city.

The peaks.  At the very left is the marker that shows the very top of Arthur's Seat, with the height and longitude/latitude on it.

 In order to get to the Seat, we had to go over a big hill that reminded me of the Sound of Music.  I might have sung a little bit of it, too, but I'm not totally owning up to that.  When we looked down at the hill from the top, we could see messages people had written with the stones that littered it.  My favorites were the birthday messages: Happy 50th, Happy 60th...it's definitely a great thing to do for a big birthday!

 And also a chance for travelers to leave their mark.

Cheers!