Scotland Blog III
The Birthplace of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series! PART I.
Edinburgh is the capital and largest city in Scotland, so there's endless historic places to visit. I loved everything I visited in Edinburgh, but my absolute favorite was two coffee/tea shops where the creator of Harry Potter actually sat and wrote the first two books! But first a little background.

British born Joanne Rowling is the perfect rags to riches story. She thought of the Harry Potter story while waiting on a stalled train, and in the seven years between that day and publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, she lost her mother, married, had a daughter, divorced and slipped into poverty. She moved to Edinburgh because her sister was there, and it was at the cafe owned by her brother-in-law that she wrote parts of Harry Potter.
The cafe was at that time called Spoon, but it is now called Black Medicine Coffee Co. This plaque is on the wall on the outside of the building.
I explored the inside of the cafe and was enchanted by the different rooms and furnishings. It was easy to imagine Rowling hard at work here, her baby daughter asleep in her pram, next to her.



Not far from this cafe is The Elephant House. Rowling also wrote Harry Potter here. She was still writing here when the first book was published, but with her growing fame, it was soon impossible to write without being interrupted.

Inside the Elephant House are pictures of Rowling actually writing in the cafe,
but the biggest surprise was the bathroom! The walls, and every available inch of space, are covered in messages thanking Rowling for writing Harry Potter! They are written in different colored magic markers and say things like, "Thank you for making my childhood wonderful."













 I can honestly say, I've never taken pictures of bathroom graffiti
 before!