Last Day of Turkey Vacation...

Although we had our last day in Scotland- our trip still wasn't QUITE over.

He flew out of Edinburgh Saturday morning, and spent the last half day in Dublin.

We had such a clear view as we flew in!

First things first...

some food.

We grabbed some grub at a little grocery store and picnicked in the park- St. Stephen's Green.

We just explored downtown Dublin... with bouts of going inside to thaw.

We walked around this fun mall for quite some time.

We found the theatre that Riverdance performs in!

Sadly- they weren't doing a show that night...

Boo.

Downtown Dublin.

Another walk past the Dublin Castle...

And Christ's Church...

We had a hostel for this night... our first hostel of the trip.

It was pretty much the bare minumum.

But hey- it had clean sheets.

We cleaned up and got ready for our Irish dinner and dance show!

We had pretty awesome seats...

(that's the stage behind Jon)

and had some pretty awesome food!

Irish stew...

Prime rib...

 And cute lil' desserts.

 After dinner, the music started!

And then the dancers came out!

So fun.

Makes us miss those folk dancing days.

Sadly, we were up at 3am and out of Ireland by 6am the next morning!

Goodbye beautiful British Isles, we had the best of times.

Last Scottish Post...

Friday we spent the day exploring Edinburgh!

We woke up early and started our trek up to Edinburgh Castle...

 

Real men carry strollers...

 Beautiful huh? 

We were in awe.

Our one of few group pics

Let's go inside!

And the view from the top was pretty stellar!

It was a rather cold and blustery day, which made our city tour kind of rough- BUT there were so many great things to see!

We found another free tour... and we were off!

 Down the Royal Mile

Tron Church

 

AND one of the best parts of the tour, was that our tour guide took us by lots of Harry Potter nerd sites.

We loved it.

Here we have J.K. Rowling's hands!

 I've officially touched J.K. Rowling.

Life complete.

 This is where J.K. Rowling would come to write (and to save money on her heating bill!)

Crazy to think that now she's one of the wealthiest women in the world.

 

Out the back of the cafe, you can see this castle... which people call the "original Hogwarts". It serves as a school and has four main towers... maybe where she got the idea for the four houses of Hogwarts?

 Also out the back of the cafe is this graveyard.

J.K. Rowling took the advice of other writer colleagues who told her to gather interesting character names from graveyards.

(Creepy, but ok.)

In this graveyard you can find the last name of McGonagall, Moody, and...

 Thomas Riddell!

Buried next to his father... also Thomas Riddell...

we're pretty sure it's Voldemort's real grave.

 Warming up and food was a must after traipsing around the cold city...

 So we stopped in a recommended pub for some Haggis, Neeps and Tatties.

Haggis = sheep lungs, intestines, and other bits... mixed with oats and herbs... and then boiled inside a sheep stomach

Neeps = mashed turnips

Tatties = mashed potatoes

Smothered in gravy.

Not gonna lie- it was kind of delicious.

 Edinburgh- you're amazing.