to the land of our forefathers

Wow, with the kids on Spring Break this week I fully expected to wrap up the details of our UK trip on the blog, but between catching up on work and the worst case of seasonal allergies in my life, I am barely even eating! But here is the (somewhat long) account of our time in Scotland...aka the land of our forefathers! 

Seriously, upon arriving in Edinburgh it was so fun to see the names "Blair" and "Buchanan" all over everything so it made David and I feel very Scottish. I almost even bought a kilt but then I remembered that I live in Texas and would probably get made fun of every time I wore it. Oh well. 

 So we arrived in Edinburgh late on Tuesday night and stayed at this super swanky hotel called Dakota. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures of it but it made me want to stay in modern hotels (with their mood lighting, velvet curtains, towel warmers, etc.) all the time. On Wednesday morning, we meet with the University of Edinburgh and got a tour around campus. The husbands actually joined us for this one, which was fun for them to get to see us "in action." (Ironically, the rep. from Edinburgh actually came to visit our school in Houston today!).

This is Edinburgh's graduation hall. They also take some of their final exams in here. Talk about pressure!

The Edinburgh student union. Very Harry Potter-esque. I may or may not have asked a random student outside of here why Edinburgh has a funny spell. David was very embarrassed.

Then we grabbed some very Scottish lunch (haggis and shepherd's pie) at a cool place called Ensign Ewart's (another Dovie recommendation) right by Edinburgh Castle.

David of course wanted to be daring and authentic, so he tried the haggis. As you can see, it does NOT look appetizing. And although David looks okay here, he did admit that he almost threw up eating it!

Here is the group, minus David (who was taking the picture). Rob really likes walking pictures, as you can see.

So our time in Edinburgh was actually split up between two days - Wednesday and Saturday. After our time at St. Andrews, we came back to Edinburgh and David and I explored the Edinburgh Castle (a bit pricey and overrated), checked out the Scottish parliament and had English tea at a cute little tea house (Barb, you would have LOVED it). So here are some pictures from our other Edinburgh adventures:

Outside of the Castle

Amazing Views

Us with our super cool audio guides

English tea

Holyrood Palace - the Queen's summer Scottish palace

The very modern Scottish parliament

There was SO much more we could have done in Edinburgh - like shop on Prince Street, see some of the art museums, go in the Palace, but by Saturday we were so exhausted that we just wanted to sleep! It was a really cool city though, a mix of historical and modern touches.

Since I have already posted so many pictures, I will save St. Andrews for last, by far our FAVORITE part of the whole trip!