The White Heron (Part 1)

Well, I survived the night. I ended up getting virtually no sleep, and spent the night looking for an outdoor outlet to recharge my computer and just lying there staring at the sky. At one point I came across a 24-hour McDonalds, so I had some chicken nuggets too. Around 5:00am I headed back to the train station and rented a locker to dump my computer in backpack in. They clean them out every day at 4:30am, so I had to lug them around until that point. Even though the castle didn't open until 9:00am, I had nothing better to do so I headed in that direction and just started wandering along the path around it. That walk is one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. When I started it was completely dark, and I watched the entire dawn while walking along a path along the outer wall, right next to the moat. I can't really describe it properly, and the pictures I took couldn't capture it, but the combination of the sun rising, the soft mist coming off the water, the green lichen and rounded rocks of the wall made it feel like a set out of Lord of the Rings. Everything just had this aura around it. So, I ended up wandering around the castle for something near 3 hours (I ended up walking around the outside 3 times), and then headed back to the main entrance to get ready for the actual walk up to the castle.