Edinburgh

The first day I got in, we spent walking around town. We went to Mile or High Street, which is filled with beautiful architecture and great shopping areas. So beautiful! Went on a tour of the slums/ghost tour the second day. Apparently Edinburgh is built on/between volcanos, making the city hilly. At one point, they wanted to flatten out the city and decided to make it flat, causing an underground city to be formed. At first, this underground city was rented to high-end stores, which sold gold, jewelry, clothes, etc. However, the structure was not good, and it leaked every time it rained (and it rains a lot in Edinburgh). The shops were eventually abandoned on this 'bridge' and homeless people moved in. It was a very glum/dreary place with anywhere from 10-50 people staying in one room. They would do anything (and I mean anything) to survive. Because of some of the things that were done, it is thought that the underground city is now haunted.

Today we went to the castle. Wow! It is huge! And beautiful! We saw an original building that was built in the 11th century, and some more modern buildings that were built using recycled bricks from the original buildings. My favorite building was the one built for POW (and Scotland's own soldiers for when they misbehaved). Scotland's soldiers lived in the Castle, in a building that has seven floors! The infantry stayed in the Castle because it was on the top of a volcano, making it a safe place when they went to war with their English 'friends.' The oldest building is a church dedicated to Queen Margaret. Apparently the Scots thought they were going to lose a war to England, so they decided to destroy all of their buildings instead of getting them destroyed. They demolished every building except for the Church because it was dedicated to Queen/Saint Margaret. The irony: Scotland won the war!

Besides sight seeing, we have ridden the course. It is a very scary course with a huge incline and a very scary, turny, downhill. It is on what I would call a 'grainy' road, which make me uncomfortable with tight turns. Descending at 30+mph would not be a problem, except for the fact that I can't get my hands off the brakes! It will be an interesting and fun race come Sunday.

The USA team is awesome and I'm glad to be able to get to know them.