After Juzzie blew my mind we found these adorable little Asian girls…

…promoting a show called Taekwon vs. B-Boy. Sounded interesting and we had a 2 for 1 coupon, so we went down to venue 112 to check it out and were pleasantly surprised by the performance. The dancing and martial arts worked very well together on stage with a lot of cross over. It even had it’s own love story sub-plot which was quite funny.

After the show we took a quick photo with the crews…

…and then headed back to Linda’s house for a farewell drink with the flatmates.

A special thanks to Linda for making our stay in Edinburgh so enjoyable. We’ll never forget it!

Lots of mirrors with lights…

…mirrors without lights…

…distortion mirrors…

…hidden images…

…plasma balls…

…and plasma cylinders…

The most fun part was a large dark hallway with glass on both walls stretching from floor to ceiling. Behind the glass were grids of of single points of lights that would change colors, and behind the light were mirrors. Standing in this hallway seemed like you were standing in the middle of space with multicolored stars all around you for as far as you could see.

I cranked up the exposure on the camera and moved it around a bit as the points of light changed colors to create these cool images.

Like most days in Scotland, the rain will come and go hour by hour. When we started on the hike near the uber-modern parliament building it was a beautiful sunny day.

But once we reached the base of this extinct volcano, the dark clouds started moving in.

We already came this far, so there is no tuning back now… Onwards ho!

Jay wasn’t too happy with his choice of attire once we got further up to find this was more like a hike through the Nile river.

But every few hundred yards, the slipping and slidding through mud puddles was all worth it when the sun would break through and reveal amazing views.

Both far away…

and close up…

The summit was INCREDIBLE! Both an incredible view…

…and incredibly windy…

I really felt like I was on the top of the world.

After taking it all in…

[Click to see the large 360 degree panorama]

We hiked back down the other side of the mountain, and explored the ruins of St. Anthony’s chapel that was built around 1426

It provided a nice place to practice rock climbing

After dominating Holyrood, we waked back up The Royal Mile, grabbed a bite to eat at a Thai/Indian restaurant, and then rushed off to one of the most popular comedy shows of the festival.

There was a Canadian on a unicycle juggling flaming clubs, but that was nothing compared to what we saw next.

Another Canadian in a nearby plaza had just rode in (from Canada) on a motorcycle! He was a Santa Cruz trained juggler with multiple world records. He was juggling chainsaws, grenades, machetes amoungst other things. He must have sensed his fellow Santa Cruzians in the audience as he selected Jay out of the crowd for a little assistance.

Check the video for the rest of the story as words just wouldn’t do it justice.

But first we had to fuel up…

After a 15 minute hike up Castle Rock we reached the summit…

…where we passed through the first line of defence, the outer castle gates…

…to the the first line of offense, the dozens of cannons…

…overlooking the entire city below.

After winding around the inner castle roads, and climbing a few flights of stairs…

…we breached the inner walls of the castle! Before us now was The Crown Room, where the infamous Crowned Jewels of Scotland are housed.

We instantly agreed that taking the Crowned Jewels back to America would be the ULTIMATE souvenir. Based on the history of the jewels (not to mention the vault they were stored in) we knew the Scotts would not lay down easily when we stormed the castle. So we first popped into the War Museum and suited up in armor…

…and selected our weapons carefully…

As you can see we opted for power over dexterity. Mons Meg was no joke when it came to POWER! This 6 ton bombard is capable of firing a 330 pound gun-stone nearly 2 miles!

Our choice of weapon backfired on us however. Turns out Meg’s barrel burst in 1681. So sadly we will have to return to The States empty handed. We fled the castle just as the drawbridge was closing.

And headed into town to check out some of the Edinburgh Festivals street performers. But wait, who is that guy on the far right?

Why it’s Jay! Stay tuned for the exciting story of Jay’s live performance…

Upon befriending the dog and passing his sniff tests, we met Linda’s flatmates Tina & Eileen, who like Linda are Germans studying language here at Uni. In addition, we met her other flatmate Ricardo from Lima. He later gave us some good travel tips for the South American leg of our trip.

This CouchSurfing thing just keeps getting better and better each time. Linda was so nice, and even donated her entire room for us to stay in. So hospitable!

We’ll venture out into the city early tomorrow to see what adventure we will encounter. Tonight we’re hanging with the hosts and getting recommendations of must-see-sights.

The city itself seems to be a bit victimized by the international conglomerates. The Gap. HMV. T.G.I. Fridays. McDonalds all seem to dominate the very busy pedestrian-only Buchanan and Argyle Streets. The outskirts of this shopping meca are littered with boarded up mom and pop shops that once were. About the only establishments with lit neon signs in the windows were the old pubs that are still frequented by the older locals. On the upside, the new development area provided an spot for some funky Scottish street performers to show off their skills.

The western part of the city however made the trip worthwhile. There were some well kept gardens that were full of color.

As well as tennis courts, lawn bowling greens, fountains…

…skate parks…

…sculptures…

…a river…

…and what looked like a church…

… actually turned out to be The University of Glasgow. The grounds of the campus were absolutely amazing! I couldn’t help but feel that it was used as the background for many Oscar winning performances.

But for me, the highlight of the trip had to be God! Apparently unbeknownst to me he/she/it released a new album! Available on CD, Vinyl and Download.

I don’t know about you, but I for one am super excited to hear what the big G can do with an electric bass guitar!

But here’s where Glasgow really takes a turn for the worst…

CAN YOU BELEIVE IT!!?!? God has been CANCELLED!?

This guys expression pretty much says it all

Shocking! Yeah, I know.

No, but in all seriousness, those “Cancelled” stickers were seen on numerous posters throughout the city. And if you were to look really closely at them they are quite an ingenious bit of social engineering on the part of the Glasgow city council. Instead of pre-posting signs on walls that say “Post No Bills” they instead wait for those bills to be posted, and then slap “Cancelled” stickers on them so as to deceive the passers by into thinking the advertised album/concert/event, etc… has in fact been canceled. It would be interesting to see statistical data that shows if sales actually are affected, or if people have learned to just tune out the red and white stickers and still go buy God’s Greatest Hits anyways.

… and Scotland upon arrival.

It’s wet outside. Yuck. We are off to catch a cab and brave a whole new world of CouchSurfing! This should be interesting!