Enjoying Edinburgh

I've been in Edinburgh, Scotland since Saturday morning. It's Monday morning now and I'm elated that I'm not at work! :P Was considering doing a day trip to the Highlands (maybe Loch Ness) with the parents, but decided to just do more wandering around the side streets of the city today. Beautiful architecture and roads in the city, both old city and new.

The old city is something around 870 years old (don't remember exactly). We're staying on the corner of St. Giles Street and Lawnmarket, essentially right on the Royal Mile. Right smack dab in city center, more old city than new. Lot's of "closes" and "wynds", which are the side streets we'll be exploring today. From what I understand, a close is essentially a dead end alley (usually small arch leading you between buildings) and a wynd is a non-dead end alley :). We're only like 1/8 of a mile from Edinburgh Castle. The photo to the right is of the castle from below the clif it's on. The small windows in the bottom are the windows out from the prison underneath the castle.

The new city is 200 something years old (you can tell I'm not really a history buff), and is a bunch of Georgian architecture and built more with a grid structure.

Went to a place called Sandy Bell's (or something) last night and drank a few pints of scotish ale while listening to people jamming traditional music. Couple fiddlers, couple guitarists, couple people on wind instruments and harmonicas and a dude on a traditional drum.

I'll try to post later with some more photos of the place because it's really amazing to see.