First Day in Edinburgh

I am pretty sure we walked 5 miles today in Edinburgh. Knowing that we had only gotten about 3 hours of restless sleep in the past 24 makes that pretty impressive. Scotland is beautiful. The country was SO GREEN as we were landing. The buildings are magnificent and the weather is unbelievable. After we arrived at city center and checked into our hotel, we took showers and rested for a bit...but only a bit...we knew we couldn't sleep or we'd never wake up again.

We left our hotel and walked to Princes Street. On our way, we admired much of the architecture and beautiful views...these are just a few examples...

Then we arrived here...

This is a monument built to honor Sir Walter Scott, the famous poet. The picture above is the guy who designed it. The statue above is of Sir Walter Scott. You can actually pay to go up into the monument, and go up we did! We walked up all 287 steps...

....and these were some of the breathtaking views from the top....

 Edinburgh Castle

 Another shot of the castle...

 Yes, we were that high up!!!

 Princes Gardens

Arthur's Seat

The views from the top were absolutely amazing. Here is another view of the monument that shows the very top. Go back up to the picture of the entire monument above and you will get an idea of how high we were! It was awesome! A little scary and VERY tight turns and spaces...and pretty dizzy going down. We climbed up the entire turret on a spiral staircase of 287 steps....

Here is the whole thing if you missed it....

Steve and I at the top of the monument....

After we finished touring the monument, we continued onto the Magnificent Mile....a one mile stretch of road that starts at Edinburgh Castle and ends at the Queen's residence. It is full of shops and restaurants. It is also where St. Giles Cathedral is located....

It was a beautiful cathedral. Steve tells me this is where all of Scotland's kings and queens were crowned (I think?) And something about a stone that was stolen from England and then returned. My history is sketchy. He says we will learn more about that tomorrow when we go to Edinburgh castle so I will be sure and listen very carefully so I can tell you the entire story! :)

After walking a little more, we saw the place where Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written (Deacon Brodie's Tavern) and we stopped for dinner at Biddy Milligans.

One more thing....you know you are in Scotland when....on every street corner you see this....

It has been so fun so far! And Steve is still napping on the bed. And since it is 10:30 here in Scotland, I will go wake him up to get ready for bed and I think I will head that way as well. Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow when we get to go to Edinburgh Castle!!

Traveling to Scotland

After dinner with friends and family on Sunday night and lunch with family on monday, we left on our honeymoon to Scotland on Monday afternoon. It was quite the adventure...our flight to London was delayed an hour so we were a little late getting in. We were very sweetly upgraded on our flight since it was our honeymoon. Our seats were fabulous....lots of leg room, personalized tvs with many stations, leg and foot rests. It was wondeful. We flew British Airways. We arrived at Heathrow and had to take a bus to Gatwick for our connecting flight. The flight to Edinburgh was about 15 minutes late to start with, and then we sat at the gate for 45 more minutes while they were loading suitcases. Who knew it took that long to load suitcases. The pilot really booked it to Edinburgh turning what was supposed to be an hour and a half flight into 45 minutes. One thing we learned is that people watching is great in other countries...the outfits! Oh my!! I should have taken a few pictures of that! Once we landed in Edinburgh, we had to take another bus to the city center and then walked to our hotel.

Here we are waiting on the plane to take off to London

Some of the goodies they gave us on our plane. There was a tootbrush and a teeny tiny tube of toothpaste, ear plugs, a sleeping mask, socks, and a pen. We also got a blanket, a pillow and headphones to use.

I thought these cans were so cute, and the pretzels they gave us were fantastic!

One of the choices for on-air entertainment....you know you are big when you are in flight entertainment!

Waiting on the bus to take us to Gatwick

Notice that everything is on the wrong side of the road...

More waiting at Gatwick...doesn't he look super tall in this picture? :)

WE MADE IT!!!!

We were so excited to make it to Edinburgh because it meant that our honeymoon had truly started! :)

Getting Ready for the Wedding

I know I am super behind on the blog, but I also know that many of you are looking for wedding and honeymoon pictures. So, I have a few wedding pictures that I will put on here and then my plan is to document each day of the honeymoon on here at night when we are resting. This way I don't have to todo it all when I get home and it allows me to download the pictures from the day and leaves more room for more!!! Currently, Steve is laying beside me asleep as I update the blog. We just finished our first day in Scotland and we are both super tired. I slept way more on the plane than he did so while he is resting, I am blogging for a little bit. :) So, without further ado, here are some "pre-wedding" pictures. Sadly these are the only ones I have on my camera so for now, these will have to do. As soon as I get more I will add them to the blog! I apologize that some of the pictures are facing the wrong way...I am on Steve's computer and am not sure how to fix it, but I will! :)