Days 11 and 12

Okay so it's Saturday morning when I'm writing this, and my journal is in my room where I can't go get it without waking everyone up. So I don't really remember Thursday all that well. 

I do remember this, however,

I stopped by a bakery and got a croissant, which I then ate in those gardens that i really like. Was it Thursday or Wednesday that I stopped by another hostel to book for this weekend? I can't even remember. 

I stood on one of the overpasses above the gardens for a good 20 minutes, just admiring everything, but when it started to drizzle, I decided to move on. So I went to the nearby National Gallery. It was okay. I mean, I'm not really one to be a critic of art from past centuries, so it's not something that particularly interested me. It was more of a way to just pass the time. So I spent about an hour in the 17 rooms there, just walking around looking at all this amazing art. Lots of depictions of Jesus and Mary, as well as many statues. No pictures allowed. So I have none. Oh well.

The building adjacent to the National Gallery is another Gallery, but more for modern art pieces. (It's not to be confused with the Modern Art Gallery, though. Two completely different things.) And to be honest, I wasn't impressed at all. Much of the building was shut off because they were setti something up, so there was 1 room open. 1 room with squeaky floors and 4 pieces of art. Very dissatisfying. I was in and out within 2 minutes. 

And other than that pitiful gallery, my day wasn't very super. It started raining pretty hard after that, and the only think I wanted to do was to get warm and out of the rain, so I figured "well hey, there's a mall very closeby. It's indoors. I could go there."  And you know what's in the mall? Lots and lots of clothes. So many clothes. An Anime shop. A Scottish Gift Shop. And a lot of American fast food places. But passing by them, all of them looked very modern. They don't look at all like they do in America. These actually look fancy.

Also I bought a lot of grapes and ate a lot of grapes. 

Fast forward the next few hours to Friday morning. After a conversation with Grandpa, I felt like I couldn't leave Edinburgh without going to the zoo. 

And let me tell ya,

It was a lot of fun. I was there at about 9:00 and was there until past 3:00. There was so much to see, and I had to stay at least until 2:15 to see the Penguin March. 

I started off with the Meerkats, of course. Walked through the Pelican exhibit. And then I walked over to see the Giant Panda, but was distracted by the Capuchin Monkeys. Those things are just the most adorable things. They're just... Ugh I love them.

Finally I made it to the Panda exhibit, which wasn't very exciting when I remembered that mostly, they just sleep.

But I mean, it was still pretty adorable. It probably wants to be out in the wild, but it would get hunted so quickly. At least, that's what they said on the information board...

And you know what comes after the panda??

The most adorable little creatures in the world, aka penguins. They're such cutie pies, my goodness. 

This one is Snowflake and his two babies. He had to fight off other penguins who kept trying to steal pebbles from his nest. 

And I spent a good 30 minutes just watching the Penguins. Because they're that cute. 

I made my way up to the grassland area, where I saw the norm: emus, llamas, and then this cool guy:

I wish I had a better picture of him, or at least knew what he was...

Walked by and saw the lions. Typical lions. I walked through their dinosaur exhibit, where I'm pretty sure that if there were video cameras watching the place and little microphones, whoever was watching and listening inhad a great time listening to me talk to those guys. 

Saw the tiger. Kind of. I watched the Gibbons for a while, and they're also lovely. Just how human-like they can act sometimes. (Or is it humans that act like gibbons????) 

Oh! And I had some really really good pizza for lunch! It wasn't that expensive either! And it tasted super good! And the garlic bread was quite wonderful. Oh man. I wish I had more...

Went to the penguin march when the time came. It wasn't as exciting as I hoped. They walked a total of like 30 feet? But it was still pretty cool I guess. 

I'd edit these photos to make them look better but I can't do that on here easily. 

So there ya go. There's my Friday. I came back to see some awesome news on Facebook. And overall, it was a pretty good day. My new roommates are from Finland, so we talked a lot a out a variety of things. 

I wanted to do this blog yesterday, but I forgot... Oopsie...

Alrighty. Love yall.