Today began bright and early with a class sesssion, and then we headed to two museums, the Writer's Museum, and the National Museum of Scotland.

The Writer's Museum was slightly cramped(and rather warm!) but it was interesting. I guess it's one of my quirks, but I love seeing the death masks of famous people. An interesting fact about Sir Walter Scott's death mask is that there's a huge gash in his forehead. It wasn't a scar, though. After his death, surgeons cut open his head to determine whether his brain was larger than the average human brain because he was a genius. Unfortunately, it was just average sizes, and these is now a huge gash in all of his death masks.

Afterwards our group headed to the National Museum of Scotland, which, to me, was much more interesting. Although about 2/3 of the museum were closed to the public for renovations, it was still huge. I could have spent days in that museum. My favorite parts, however, were the small replicas of boats, particularly Hermes, a boat that was sunk in 1914 by a torpedo. At the same time, there were tons of costumes that kids could try on.. and I did my best to try on as well! The Roman history exhibits were very interesting, too. It's amazing to see how many artifacts and relics have been preserved for thousands of years, and still have legible hand writing and dates.

Overall, it was an interesting day. The longer I'm here, the more I'm realizing how extensive of a history Scotland has, and how despite time and war and reformations, these people have done their very best to preserve it, cherish it, and show it to the world.