Edinburgh, Scotland: January 31st - February 3rd

I just got back from Scotland, which turned out to be an amazing trip. I honestly wasn't putting it on my list of places I had to see, but it was our first out of the country trip and it was surprising in many, many ways. Let me explain.

First of all, we took the bus because it was the cheapest route. The bus means that we would take basically 10 hours to get to Edinburgh, after all of the stops were factored in. We left Thursday night, which was difficult for me due to the fact that I had gotten back from London late and I still had homework to do. Getting up early, I went straight through the day until 2:15 and then came back and crashed for a few hours. At about six, I took a shower and Natalie and I gathered up our backpacks and headed to O'Neill's to meet up with the group. And since we are turning into cheapies, we bought a can of beer each to stash in our bags for the bus ride. We got to O'Neill's before anyone else did, receiving a ton of weird looks due to the fact that we had all our stuff and everyone else there was drinking and dancing. We each bought a pint (so much for our cheapness, but Stella always sounds good!) and waited for the others. Our bus was at 10 pm, so we hung out for a bit then went to the bus depot. It was empty and we all got to spread out so that was awesome, we laughed and had fun. An hour and a half into it, we switched buses, and this was the eight hour portion. It was PACKED. We were all forced to wake people up to ask them to move so we could sit and none of us got to sit together. It sucked. It was a long and horrible ride, that we have vowed will never, ever happen again.

We arrived in Edinburgh at about 8 in the morning, exhausted and hungry. It was FREEZING and we were all instantly cranky. We found our hostel fairly easily and set all our stuff down since check-in wasn't until 2, and then forced ourselves to go out and make a day of it. Since we left today, we only had 2 full days to explore and we were not going to waste them.

Here's all the places we went with a brief description and key points, mixed with a few pieces of advice.

Edinburgh Castle: A must see. Gorgeous view, tons of historical buildings, and the Crowned Jewels are there. Phenomenal. We also got to see them shoot off a cannon, which was super cool and exploded our eardrums. Also our first encounter with men in kilts-- not too shabby of a look, I must say. I would recommend the audio tour, even if you have to pay (you will see why shortly).

The Whiskey Tour: Discovered that we all hate whiskey, but the tour guide was so funny and the tour so bad that you almost have to do it for the fun of it all. We got stuck on the little car ride and were forced back into movement after being rear-ended by the people behind us. Laughed really, really hard. Decided that drowning in a vat of whiskey would be the worst death ever. Learned some really (truly) interesting facts about whiskey and Scotland.

Kilt Making Factory: It was how kilts and scarves were made (the plaid ones) and it was actually kind of cool to see. You get bombarded with apparel to buy, but if you are from Scottish descent you might find some pretty interesting stuff on your family lineage.

St. Giles Church: The COOLEST organ I have ever seen in my life. The stained glass windows are beautiful and I took tons of pictures of them (oh by the way, pics not working on PhotoBucket, they're on Facebook!). Takes about 10 minutes to do and it's free so I would recommend it.

After this we went to World's End Pub for dinner and had fish and chips (delicious, Dad!) and decided we were super tired. We checked into the hostel, and we were all put in the room called Star Wars, and each of our beds had their own names. I started out as Luke but wanted the top bunk so I incidentally became Princess Leia. The hostel was really nice (ADVICE: Stay here, it's pretty cheap and the people are great! Royal Mile Backpackers!) and we all bundled up and fell asleep at about 8 o'clock. We woke up early the next day and split into two groups after breakfast. My group saw:

The Elephant House: Where JK Rowling scribbled out Harry Potter on napkins. Amazing atmosphere, a clear shot of Edinburgh Castle (maybe some Hogwarts incentive?), and great food for a really good price. Bought a t-shirt to remember it by.

Holyrood Palace: Where the Queen stays when she's not in England. This is where we discovered that you have to do the audio tours, because if we hadn't done it we would have been bored out of our minds. However, it turned out to be fascinating. Apparently Mary, Queen of the Scots back in the day, was somewhat of a ho. We went into her room and the audio tour told us that it was there that her and her Italian secretary, Rizzio, used to spend many hours in the little nook off to the side, talking and what not. Apparently Darnley, her husband, wasn't into this-- he and a few of his men stormed in one night, held a very pregnany Mary at gunpoint, and dragged Rizzio into the next room, stabbing him 56 times. We now have an obsession with this murder story. Wouldn't have happened without the audio tour. Castle was gorgeous! You cannot see the newer parts; what we saw was mostly used a couple of centuries ago. We also saw the room where people get knighted, and there was mention of Sean Connery being one of those people.

The Majestic Tour: Bus tour around Edinburgh. Not super exciting, but gives a good history of a few places and their connections to artists and authors. It also shows you most of New Edinburgh, which is the majority of the town now it seems. We got to see the river and we also got to see a woman and her husband eat shit by sliding off the vinyl seats on the top floor of the bus. Hurt not to laugh-- they were okay, but the bus driver kept pulling over and coming up to check.

The Terror Tour: Scared me to death. Learned some interesting history on the old torture devices of Edinburgh, how they burned witches, where they put bubonic plague victims, and how they used to throw shit out their windows. Apparently in the 1600s, when Scotland was fighting with the English, they built walls to keep England out. Instead, they trapped themselves in to an area of 1 mile by 1/4 of a mile, holding 40,000 people. They were forced to build up, and many buildings were up to 12 stories high. They thought stone would be too heavy, however, and many of the top floors began to sag into each other and collapse completely. We went inside to the vaults, which were made of stone and about 20 x 20 feet, with sloped ceilings that didn't reach higher than 8 feet. We learned that being homeless was a crime then, so many people would hide in these places, surviving in the pitch black, because "if you were rich enough to afford a candle, you were rich enough to not be homeless". Since people threw their shit out the window, it would seep through the ground into these places, and since they lived in pitch black, they were forced to live in their own excrement as well. The life expectancy of a healthy man was at most a year, for a child a matter of a few months. Apparently the room we stayed in there was a ghost of a little boy looking for his mother (Gina, our group "mom" due to her motherly nature, decided against that title for the rest of the night). The next room we went into had a circle made of stones in the middle, which apparently held a very angry poltergeist. People that walk through the circle experience scratches or burn marks on their bodies, usually on their necks or arms. Creepy. The last room we went into was one that had held 124 people at one point, who had rushed in their for safety during an intense fire. Trapped in there as the entrance collapsed, they were cooked to death (the rooms are all made of stone) and were found 5 days later, after the stones cooled down, baked together as one. I almost peed my pants.

Up side: We got free coupons for a beer and discovered a great little pub, where the rest of our group met us. We ended up getting very drunk and dancing in the vaults that were open, especially the one right above the room with the angry ghost. It was really... creepy, since the music and the lights and the water dripping off the stone ceiling made me feel like I should have been on acid and attending a rave. Had I not been so under the influence, I probably would have been too creeped out to stay. But we had fun, made it home barely in time before our hostel locked the door for the night, and crashed. Our bus ride this morning was long and lasted until 9 o'clock tonight. Never again.

Also, fun fact: Apparently I give off a lesbian vibe. I've been hit on a few times by girls, but in the pub in Scotland this girl next to me told me that I should throw my hat on stage (I didn't know we would be going out, and my hair was greasy-- hence, the hat). I said "no" politely and with a laugh. She laughed too, but then told me I should and she would run her fingers through my hair. Weird thing was, I knew she was drunk so I wasn't really bothered by this. I just laughed and said "Nah, that's ok". That was basically the end of our conversation. About 20 minutes later, she and her friend stood up to leave. I said, "Oh you're leaving? Well, have a good night!" She leaned over and grabbed my face, and for half a second I thought she was going to plant one on my lips. Instead she sloppily kissed me on the cheek and said (in a very thick Scottish accent) "You have fun tonight!" I smiled awkwardly and she walked away. Turning back to my table, I found all the members of my group staring at me, with a "What the hell was that?!" look on their face. So apparently, I have a girlfriend. Sweet.

Anyway, all in all, Scotland was amazing. I wish we had had more time there but the time we did have was soooo fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone else. Oh and also, you can hike to the top of this huge mountainous hill, but we didn't because it would have sucked up 3 hours and it started pouring. Still, I bet the pictures/view from the top are breathtaking. I recommend it!