"This pub is older than your country!"

 I took advantage of my sunny weekend in Edinburgh and went exploring. Yesterday I went down to the beach with my friend Mary Caroline and a bunch of people in her dorm. It's about 3 miles away from the residence halls and not the most scenic walk, but it was really nice to see the beach and parts of Edinburgh I didn't even knew existed. 2 of the guys we went with even went for a little dip in the ocean..burr. We didn't do much exploring around the beach, but I do want to go back again and explore the shops and arcades that are there. Apparently there are some really touristy/tacky arcades that I want to check out.

On the way back we stopped into the oldest bar in Scotland, which was established in 1360. I didn't stay for a drink because I wanted to go to the gym (which closes at 5:30 on the weekends so I didn't even make it), but I will most definitely be going back. Also, people here find it very strange how young the United States is in comparison to Europe. I've had several separate conversations about it. It blows their minds.

"This pub is older than your country!"

Today I went exploring by myself and went to the National Gallery of Scotland. It's a small museum with an okay collection, but I did find some works that I really loved. Here are two of my favorites:

Robert Burns' 'Diana with her Nymphs'

'Olive Trees' by Vincent Van Gogh

It was another beautiful, sunny day and I'm excited for it to be like this all week! Unfortunately I have loads of work to do, so my adventuring will have to wait until this weekend, when I will be going to a concert Friday night and a trip with Arcadia to the Scottish English borders.

I did not edit this photo at all: the sky is this blue, and the grass this green