Baloo from Jungle Book may be the best disney character that has ever been.

So here is me right now:
I am worn out. I’ve been kinda sick the last couple days with a nasty chest cold and it’s driving me nuts. There’s nothing more annoying than a sickness that you can’t do anything about. You just have to live with it. I mean I bought a couple different kinds of cough syrup though and those have helped. I got one that is for “chesty coughs” and it is flavored cherry. Now I’ve always been skeptical of those medicines that are in liquid form and state that they are some flavor. I mean I’ve always felt like those flavor labels are just bold-face lies. However, my other cough syrup is for “dry itchy coughs” and it is not flavored. Oh my gosh. I seriously almost puke when I drink it. And then for the next 5 hours after I drink it, I keep burping that foul (or fowl?) taste into my mouth and gag again. But hey, it’s better than the dry itchy coughs that it effectively eliminates. I’ve got to give it that. But really, I’m just sick of my throat hurting and I’m ready to not have to deal with it anymore.

Reason number 2 that I am tired: I walk at LEAST 10 miles each day. Sometimes aimlessly, sometimes not so aimlessly. In Ireland, walking that far wasn’t so bad cause everything is flat. However, in Scotland, there are some significant elevation changes to deal with and so walking all over this city is wearing me out. I can’t really complain though right? Considering that it’s completely my choice to wear myself out?

So today I got up and went first to the National Museum of Scotland. It was ranked a prestigious 3 stars in my guide book (which I usually don’t even look at anymore) but considering that 3 stars is the highest ranking that a site can receive in this guide book (there are only 3 sites awarded the prestigious 3-star ranking in Edinburgh; one of them being the castle which was awesome), I figured I should go check it out. I was let down. It was set up with a different time period on each of it’s 6 floors and you were supposed to be able to “walk through history” as you advanced floors. Whatever. I just don’t get that excited about seeing really old jewelry and pieces of fabric that must have been from coats, etc. The only picture I took in there was of this guy cause I got a good vibe from him. He seemed legit:
So then I moved on to the real destination for my day which was a hiking trail just outside of the town area. It was called Arthur’s Seat and was a trail up to the top of this big cliff that is higher than anything in the town and overlooks the whole city. Now I DID take some pictures, but I almost don’t even want to post them cause they do this hike zero justice. It was probably the most beautiful hiking trail I’ve ever been on. And when I got up to the top, I could see straight down the Royal Mile to the Castle at the end of it perched on it’s own cliff watching over the city. It was really awesome. It wore me out though. It was about a 5 mile trail I think and it was very steep at parts. Like steep enough that I used my hands and kinda scrambled up as opposed to hiking. Totally worth it though. It was beautiful. I guess I’ll go ahead and post these pictures but just remember, these are just from my phone and do the beauty no justice:
So there’s a guy sitting in this room right now wearing a shirt that reads “Jack Bauer wouldn’t stand for this shit.” I am just trying to picture myself EVER being at a point where I would wear a shirt that said that in public. I don’t think I can. Maybe that makes me too self-conscious…

On another note, there are a ton of people playing music in the streets here in Edinburgh. I love it. But by far the best thing that I have seen happen is when this guy I was watching, who really was extremely talented, started playing an awesome acoustic version of that song from Jungle Book that goes like “I wanna be a man, man cub…” I was ALL OVER IT. I gave him like 5 pounds cause it was so awesome.

On a related note, yesterday is actually the first day on my entire trip that I have managed to come in under my original daily budget. So that’s kind of good news and bad news at the same time I guess…

Ok well I’m just really really tired and I hate how much I’m coughing right now so I’m gonna go try to sleep for a couple hours. If that doesn’t work though, I guess I’ll just watch the office and eat Pringles…which honestly sounds just as good…

Buh Bye!!

Oh and this is the mix that I made to listen to while I was walking around today. It HIT. THE. SPOT. In a major way. I know it’s random and I better not get judged for putting a John Mayer song on there..

Ok i'm out.

Tired Rod.