I Blame Prince Philip

Today we decided to do the free walking tour (which I've done before, here and in Prague), but it was just starting to rain as we got close, so we chickened out and went for coffee instead. The coffee shop we were passing at the time of out-chickening happened to be the one where J.K. supposedly sat and wrote the early Harry Potters, so it seemed too good to pass up.

Plus, it was cold outside.

HP graffiti in the bathroom.

Once again, we were dressed inappropriately for the weather. Apparently "it was warm yesterday" doth not a good weather forecast make. So we planned some indoor pursuits, and set off for the Camera Obscura.

Cower, brief mortals!

We had a lot of fun with all the optical illusions and strange mirror tricks. Particularly cool was the vortex tunnel, which consisted of a bridge in a spinning tunnel of lights with mirrors at either end. It was impossible to walk in a straight line along the bridge, because the lights made it seem like the whole room was turning. Apparently, our brains are really easily tricked. Sometimes I feel like tertiary education didn't prepare me for real life at all (I'm also bad at tying shoelaces and crossing the road).

Lost in the mirror maze.

We gave our poor brains a break and went for a tour of Holyroodhouse Palace. This time, we did pick up the free audio guides, so we got to learn some actual history instead of having to make it up ourselves (although, for the record, ours would totally have been cooler).

They told us this was the abbey, but we're pretty sure it's Prince Philip's lair, where he plots and listens to loud emo music.

What a delightful day to be out.

After much deliberation, we decided that we had two more days to be adventurous, and so we escaped the wind and the rain and returned to the hostel to lurk and drink tea. Out of glasses, stirred with knives, because we're classy folk.

Youth hostel chic.

We later discovered that someone had stolen our pasta sauce. I blame Prince Philip.