Touristing at home: Ryan & Ronda

28 July 2014

Our first shot at being tour guides in Scotland. Our friends, Ryan & Ronda, came over to visit for a week. As luck would have it, they had coincidentally booked the same flight as us back to the UK!

Ryan and Ronda joined us for our Philadelphia to Edinburgh flight on our way home from the States. Ryan was great at capturing Nico being himself as we boarded.

Although I've been here more than a year, we haven't spent as much time seeing the rest of Scotland as we have working and seeing Edinburgh.

Welcome to my historic building workplace!

Edinburgh Castle
I've seen it every day for a year and I finally got a chance to see it for myself from the inside! Beautiful views and lots of history. The hilltop has been occupied or had fortifications since at least the 1300s. I think that much history warrants its own post at a later date :)  Here are some highlights:

View of the castle from the entrance area. 

Looking out at the city along one of the canons.

Looking along the row of flags with the Firth of Forth in the background.

Dog cemetery at the castle for regimental mascots and officers' dogs. The names we could read: Winkle, Yum Yum, and Sheena. 

One of the advantages of having friends in town is the excuse to try new restaurants. We went to Tuk Tuk (Indian street food) and had a good meal. The idea is essentially small dishes of food to share (like tapas). At the end, we were getting ready to pay and they said they had a special deal for everyone on Mondays: if you roll a die and get a 6, your food is free. We passed it to Ronda and she 'paid' for our meal by rolling a 6! Good food AND it was free!

Ronda's good luck got us a free dinner for four! Yay for Matka Monday!

Eating at semi-famous places: One of the locations where JK Rowling wrote part of Harry Potter.
There's another one right near my building.

Enjoying a nice dinner out after a long day of touristing (or working, in Nico's case).

Tune in next time for the trip to the highlands!