Monday

I am happy to say...thank goodness for benedryl.  After a three hour exhaustion induced nap no wonder we were confused about the time of day.  It doesn't get dark here until at least 9:30 pm. I have pictures and fun to share.  This city of Edinburgh is about 500,000 people.  They use the english pound so it is 1.00 American per $1.60 in pounds.  I am slowly getting used to this. There are buses everywhere and it is the preferred mode of transport.  There are many different colors and types and the tourist buses run every few minutes to take people all over the city.  On our first bus tour Kathy said I missed alot of historical information as I was sleeping sitting up but I didn't miss the churches we would visit. I have a weird obsession for cemeteries and crypts, Kathy loves churches and breast feeding pictures from the earliest dawn of time.  She can find them no matter where we go.

All over the city there are little alleyways called a "close". The buildings  are so vast and long that these were needed as a quick way to get around to one densely populated street or possibly pubs etc. This is called the fisher close. 

  

We went to the National Art Gallery. It was beautiful and had a lot of great paintings and sculptures.  A wonderful garden runs parallel to the main road called Princes St.

Here is  a thistle.  This is the important flower in jewelry and on lots of pendants. 

This arrangement is made of "hens and chicks".  I don't know if you can tell but the cross is made up

of them and it is suspended in the air. The gardener suspended himself on a ladder in the air over the flowers to hang down and weed.