Everything, Nothing, and I'm a Middle Child

About a week into our trip here in Edinburgh, Nathan took us to Falkland Palace. It's about an hour north of Edinburgh and used to be the capital of Scotland. Which is pretty cool to me.

Okay, so we paid a slightly irrational amount of money to see the palace for a brief visit, but I know my attention span and 40 minutes was really about all I would have spent in there anyway. We saw the whole palace (not including the 'unofficial' tour Nathan would have been happy to initiate, ahem), got information from guides-in-costume and then spent a very enjoyable time in the gardens, which were open after the palace closed. The guides even knew how the Falkland Islands got their name, which was pretty cool for me. I admit it, the entire intrigue of the place has to do with the fact that I was born in the Falklands, but it was special for me and I appreciate that no one made fun of me for finding it special when clearly it's a bit flimsy.

Afterward we went to dinner at a homey place in the village of Falkland, which made very yummy veggies and desserts (yeah, the mains were, well, err - passable).

I also met a young man at the devotional we went to the other night who grew up in the Falklands. I'd met his parents a few months ago while they were on pilgrimage in Haifa. Coolio!

Oh, the name. I figure some of you might want to know: so, one of the kings wanted one of his friends to be more important, so he made him the Earl of Falkland (or maybe duke, but I think it was earl). Anyway, it meant nothing, but it was a title. Now this Earl of Falkland (meaning 'hunting land') was in charge of the seas at the time, so when the islands were 'discovered', either he named them after himself or someone else did or whatever. Oh, and it wasn't his palace. So there you go, unrelated, except for the king part - he would occasionally live at the palace.