Hogmanay Day 2 of 3

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It's Saturday and we feel so much better. We stroll up to the Royal Mile street and check out The Elephant House, Arthur's Seat and a quick bite of Scottish smoked salmon at The Tass.

We first stop by The Elephant House for some much needed morning coffee. On the outside it looks like a typical cafe, but once you go inside, you start to realize something is a bit off (in a good way). It starts with its elephant theme throughout the place. What really sets it apart though is after you place your order, you can grab a table at the back, and while sitting there, you'll realize as you look out the window that you're treated to a majestic and unobstructed view of the Edinburgh Castle (snazzy if I may add too). At that point, I was just in disbelief. I wish we had a cafe in Simi Valley that you could go to every morning and be treated to a view like that. My friend chuckles as I slam my fist on the table, cursing under my breath as to the state of things and as to why I am not living in Edinburgh.

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We head on out, enjoying the sun. We did realize it was a strange day for that reason since the sun is rarely out. We were not the only ones to realize this as we strolled up to the Royal Mile and noticed lots of people out on the streets already. We check out more places and Chris decides to finally fork over some £'s for a pipe set. He laughs as he tries to convince himself he made a wise choice being he has waited three-four years to get it.

We finally arrive at the bottom of Arthur's Seat hill. From the looks of it, it didn't seem that bad of a walk, but by the end, I was extremely out of breath. The view didn't seem to help in gathering back my breath as we soaked in the panoramic city skyline views.

We later stop by The Tass for some dinner before we check out the second night of the Hogmanay festival. We return to the hostel for an hour of rest and head right back out to try to get some front row views of the street festival.

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As we're walking, we see a group of crowd huddled in a corner of Princes Street, right behind the Gardens, so we check it out. It turns out to be the starting point of the band of bag pipers, a whole sh'load of 'em too from what I hear. By this point, hundreds, if not thousands of people have already swarmed the area as we weasel our way through to the front of the crowd. The band starts and the whole crowd errupts to a roar as the festival begins again for a second night.

Watching about fifty bagpipers and drummers strut their stuff was something beyond amazing. It was loud and exhilarating! We followed them all the way to George's Street and from there, we got lost as we walked back and forth checking out all the venues. At one point we participated in some Ceilidh dance. I highly recommend doing it at least once. I haven't had that much fun in such a long time. The festival ends after a long drawn out performance by street performers whose main forte is fire (and lots of it)! Don't be fooled though, as long as it was (and most definitely confusing), it was too much fun watching strangely dressed performers dance around with ten foot poles and giant headphones strapped to their heads.