Today started by schlepping all my bags across the city to relocate to a new hostel (Argyle Backpackers), one of the only ones in the entire city that had vacancy. It's considerably more expensive than yesterday's without much of an obvious upside. As a matter of fact, it's remarkably quiet and seems to be populated primarily by moms dropping their kids off at the nearby university. Not quite the lively scene I was expecting, but at least people aren't too loud. Last night my earplugs were vital since the huge room had a ton of snorers.

Anyway, the two big things I did today were the National Museum of Scotland and the big castle in the heart of the city. The museum was fantastic and extremely informative, with tons of exhibits spanning not just Scotland's human history, but also its geology and natural history. I had no idea the Romans had such an influence on Scotland; I figured that more or less ended with Hadrian's Wall. The castle was really cool too, though the museums it contained weren't especially interesting. They were mostly about random Scottish admirals that contributed to British colonial efforts overseas. The castle probably has the best views of the city since you're right there. It's too bad you can't explore it very freely. In between these attractions I had lunch at a local restaurant, getting a fairly bland panini but also a side of what they called "haggis balls". They were basically lightly fried haggis meatballs and were actually quite good, easily one of the better things I've had here. Dinner was supermarket tortellini in red sauce and steamed zucchini. Not great. I went to the pub across the street which was pretty nice. It wasn't that different from an American place except that the good beer was about half the price. I had a few good beers in the local style and, while none were Treehouse, I enjoyed both. I also got talking with a local whose mind was blown to learn that Seattle is not actually the capitol of America - she was apparently confusing her Washingtons.

I booked tickets for tomorrow on a bus tour of the Highlands; we'll see Inverness and a variety of stops along the way. It runs all day, and tomorrow will be my last night in the city. Thursday I've booked my train tickets for London, so I may try to find a hostel there tonight or on the bus ride tomorrow. Hopefully I can rebook this hostel for tomorrow night, since my bus tour is all of tomorrow and I won't really have any time to move the bags if they don't let me extend through tomorrow night.

A note on transit - Edinburgh has no subway, but does have a fairly extensive network of buses and trams. I've been quite impressed by what they've managed to do without a proper metro, though. Monday night coming back from the beach I stayed a few minutes after with one of the hostel volunteers to help clean up, and we missed the bus everyone else took. Despite being well outside the city center, the next bus was only 8 minutes later. Everywhere I've wanted to go, there's been a pretty regularly operating bus line. I've mostly opted to walk anyway since I think it enhances my experience of the city (and is free), but I wish Boston's bus system was anywhere near this reliable. I have also had to relearn to check for traffic coming from the left when I cross the road since the UK drives on the other side. Worth mentioning, in most countries people understand that they should use sidewalks the same way they use roads. In America people walk on the right side of the road because they drive on the right. In New Zealand people walk on the left because they drive on the left. Here, nobody seems to have any idea what they're doing and just walk randomly down the middle of the sidewalk without any indication of which way they're going to break. If NZ can figure it out, the UK should be able to as well.