A Dingo Ate Me Baby!

Good morning! I awake feeling like a queen in my castle, though a tired queen... Make note that castle doors closing sound like a cannon going off so when you try to sleep in a castle, you will be awakened by every door shutting throughout the night! That is unless you are my Love, who slept like a baby. I guess his snoring drowned out all noise around him. None the less, I would sleep a thousand sleepless nights here before complaining. We are at The  Witchery which is right under the gates of Edinburgh Castle. Now before you make judgement on its name (as I did) you have to understand Edinburgh's history, which I know little of, but what I did learn was that my "castle" is really a "building" built in 1595. The now hotel takes its name from the many hundreds of witches that were burned at the stake here on Castlehill during the sixteenth & seventeenth century. This spot runs deep in history as being the area where more witches were burned than any other place in Scotland during the reign of James VI. There is an inscription in the stone over the court yard that is over 400 years old saying "O Lord in thee is all my traist". So see! It's not a devils hotel! Ha ha. Ok, that is your history lesson for the day. There are only 8 rooms here & you climb a locked castle-like stair way that is carved from stone & winds tightly up a tower. If you meet someone along the way, which we have not, you would have to step off into the platform of one of the rooms. The reason I mention this is because this is a hotel many famous people like to stay, our room book lists Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones & Pierce Brosnan (along with many many other names I do not recognize. The room would take me forever to describe, think of my home decor as far as packed with something to look at in every corner. The room itself has dark tapestry covered walls, massive crown molding that is gold & dark brown, ceilings that are covered in some sort of golden fabric & wooden floors w/ beautiful rugs everywhere. There is a living space w/ antiques everywhere! Then a bedroom with chandeliers & one of those beds that is covered in a heavy canopy & antique bed that has wood work to the massive ceiling! The bathroom can only be described as endless mirrors & pillars centered around a claw footed tub. (ahhhh) my favorite things here have to be the breakfast area which has a table & chairs made from antlers & that there are antique "costume" pieces I tried on. Ha ha. They are not costume, they are actual British soldier boots I guess, they got to my thighs, metal spiked helmets, all kinds of things! No worries, we well documented everything in picutres. We are like 2 little kids left alone & trusted in a candy store. We are like, "whaaat!? Are we really staying here!?" ;) So Dustin (in typical style) was ready to run off & see more of the city as soon as breakfast was delivered. I one the other hand wanted to crawl back into the bed & take in the classical music they have playing for us & pretend this room is mine a bit longer. So on commercial break this is what I hear (in a British accent), "over the weekend a dingo ate a ladies baby, just like the case back in the 80's. It's grabbed her baby at a campsite & has not been recovered" I felt terrible for laughing, as that is truly horrid, but how many times have you heard, "a dingo ate me baby!"? I always thought it was a line from a movie or something. We are terrible for mocking an actual mum who lost her baby to a dingo! :/ So Edinburgh makes me feel very emotional, it's is so beautiful & everything is so old & magnificent I don't feel worthy of looking at it without the time to know its story. That probably sounds rediculous but we went into the most beautiful church yesterday & my uneducated eyes grazing along all the stained glass & carvings & all I know is, "pretty!" & then realizing that each carving & each glass panel was an important story that the scottish wanted documented here & I felt overwhelmed. I have never had a mind for history but this trip has swung open a desire to know it like never before. Dustin & I have promised ourselves that this city will be a place we return to as soon as possible over anywhere else we have been so far. We leave at noon on a train to London & though I am glad we have set a schedule by way of purchased hotel rooms, I wish we could stay here the rest of our time.  So last night we walked down the Royal Mile (we are at the top w/ only the main castle above us) & stopped in the pub to use their wifi & visited with the girl behind the bar. She found out we had never eaten haggis which is one of their main local foods & told a waiter to bring us some to try. It looked a bit like a pesto of sorts & tasted kind of like an herbed ground sausage, with tiny chewy pieces. Pretty good though, "what is this?" I ask. "that is a sheeps lungs, liver & heart. Pretty good, yes?" 8-/