I have so many stories to tell from my 3-day weekend in Edinburgh. The trip got off to a slow start when I missed my 14:30 train out of King's Cross and had to upgrade my ticket to leave at 15:00. Although it was a painful lesson, at least in the wallet, I've learned not to cut it close with trains. They always leave on time, and you should really be there 15 min in advance to get a good seat, which brings up another point. This being my first time on National Express, I neglected to reserve a seat for both the outward and return journeys. Big mistake. While the train leaving on Thursday had plenty of unreserved seats, the train heading back on Sunday had precious few of these open seats. I must have walked up and down the aisle 3 or 4 times, suitcase in hand, while the train was moving, looking for somewhere to sit. Once I saw the £50 penalty for sitting in a reserved seat, I wasn't taking any chances, even if I thought the person who reserved the seat was not on board.

This trip was also the first time I spent the night at a hostel. Since I mistakenly left my earplugs in London, I didn't get a lot of sleep the first two nights. While I had made a provisional reservation for 3 nights, I got confirmation for the first two on the day I was leaving, with a note that the hostel was full for Saturday night. I ended up having to go out looking on Friday night, but the third place I went had some space, although it was £10 more per night than the first hostel I stayed at. Had I made plans for this trip sooner, I would have had fewer difficulties and would have paid less for my train ticket.

Aside from the aforementioned issues, I thouroughly enjoyed the weekend. On Friday, I visited Edinburgh Castle, which has been around in some form since at least the 1300s. The area seems to have received the name Edinburgh when the Angles settled it in 638 AD, after defeating a Celtic war band led by King Mynyddog. In one of the buildings on the castle rock, Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to James (VI of Scotland, I of England) on June 19, 1566. After some marital problems, Mary fled to London, where she was imprisoned and eventually beheaded by her cousin, Elizabeth I, who feared that Mary might try to assert her legitimate claim to the English throne.

For me, perhaps the most interesting item in the castle was the One O'Clock Gun. The gun was first fired in 1861 to provide an audible time signal for ships in the nearby port of Leith, so captains could accurately set their chronometers before leaving on a voyage. Since ancient times, mariners had set their chronometers by the stars. Prior to the existence of the One O'Clock Gun, captains leaving Edinburgh had to climb up to the City Observatory to set their chronometers. As Scots are known for being shrewd with money, the time of 1 o'clock was chosen rather than noon, so only 1 ball had to be fired instead of 12. When the gun was first put into use, it was part of an elaborate system that also included a timeball, dropped at the top of the Nelson Monument. Both the gun and the timeball were electrically connected to the obeservatory, with about 3700 ft of wire connecting the observatory to Half-Moon Battery at the castle, where the gun is fired. Originally, just the timeball was used, but it couldn't be seen through the fog, so the addition of the gun alleviated this problem. The original One O'Clock Gun was a 18-pound cannon, but the gun has changed many times over the years and is now a 105 mm field gun. One of the guns recently retired was used in the battle of El Alamein in WWII. Locals expect to hear the gun, but it usually startles visitors. I got to witness the firing of the gun at 13:00 on Friday, and it was really loud from 100 feet away. After 4 weeks of use, the batteries in my camera died at 12:57, so I had to change them really fast to capture the firing of the gun.