Kayla & Vanessa's Visit: Days 7-9

7.

Friday morning, we rushed out of the hostel and purchased a tube pass for the day.

We only had so many hours to see all the famous London sights!

Could we do it?

Well, that remained to be seen... 

Outside our hostel.
It was a really really nice hostel.
The only downside was that it was so far away from the city center.

First stop, Baker Street.
Yes folks, that is 221B!

The lovely Regent's Park.
Canada geese! 

Kayla's awesome heel-clicking-in-mid-air.

I've never seen so many herons in one place before.
There were about ten, just sitting in the grass, people-watching.

Ducklings!
They were so cute and fluffy!

Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself, outside the Baker Street Tube station.

The Marble Arch

Horse-back riding in Hyde Park.

All of a sudden, these gentlemen came through the Wellington Arch
while we were resting our feet for a moment.

It just so happened that when we went by Buckingham Palace,
the guard was changing.
We had to elbow our way through the crowds to see anything.

Buck Palace.

The iconic London Eye.

The even more iconic Big Ben -
with Kayla and Vanessa in front of it, making a cool picture simply awesome.

A statue of Mr. Winston Churchill

And Mr. Oliver Cromwell outside the Parliament buildings.

Westminster Abbey

The Tower Bridge, as seen from London Bridge.

The Tower of London.
Somehow, I thought it would be more... towery and tall.

After London Bridge, we had to book it back to our hostel, pick up our luggage, and race to the train station to head to Edinburgh.

We made the train. Just.

See? The impressive Edinburgh Castle from our hostel window.
That ugly stadium thing in front of it is where they have the Military Tattoo.
It's "temporary," believe it or not.
Now that the Tattoo is over, they can start taking it down so that they can start putting it up again for next year.

8.

The Writers' Museum
Exhibits for Burns, Stevenson, and Scott.
There were things like letters and original notes for manuscripts.
They even had yucky things like locks of hair :s 

Vanessa on a tour bus.

Typical Georgian style buildings that make up "new" Edinburgh.

Behind this rather unassuming shopfront...

...is this.
It made me SO HAPPY.

St. Giles High Kirk
(again)

Clarinda's Tearoom
It's very cute inside with lace table clothes and oodles of china plates on the walls.

Palace of the Holyrood

Arthur's Seat, overlooking the city.

On guard!

I LOVE Kayla's boots.

Courtyard in Holyrood

Ruins of Holyrood Abbey

Scottish Parliament Buildings
Somehow, it seems rather out of place with all the old buildings around it.

Us on a bus tour.

Jekyll & Hyde cafe!

We stayed in the Avengers room at Castle Rock Hostel.

These were our beds:

Me

Vanessa

Kayla

9.

Sunday morning, we went to St. Columba's Free Church of Scotland just down the street from the Castle Rock Hostel.

Vanessa wasn't feeling well, so she went back to the hostel and Kayla and I went back to Clarinda's for lunch.

Princes Street gardens

Kayla and I spent some time in the Scottish National Gallery after lunch.
There were some pretty impressive paintings there!
We spent quite a lot of time in the Italian/Renaissance section.

Goodbye, Castle Rock!
On our way back to Balmullo.