Also, a pronounciation lesson: at first I thought Edinburgh was pronounced "EdinBURG," but I was quickly correctly. It is really "Edin-BOROUGH," although the Scottish pronounce it more like "Edin-burra."
DAY ONE! We left bright and early on Friday morning (our train left at 9:30) from Kings Cross Station. We had reserved seats, and I ended up at a table, which was nice. The journey was supposed to be 5 hours, so I settled in with my iPod and slept for a little while. At each stop, a woman would come on the PA and say where we were and our estimated arrival time in Edinburgh. For most of the trip, we were about 20 minutes behind schedule-not too bad. After about 3 hours, I couldn't sleep anymore so I ate my lunch and just looked out the window. Up until this point, the scenery had been pretty, but nothing we hadn't seen before on our previous train rides. Finally I saw green farmland and little Scottish cottages. It was a pretty clear and sunny day, which made it even better.
The coast!
Of course, as we started nearing Edinburgh, we smelled something like burning rubber and our train completely stopped. Thankfully, nothing was wrong with our train, but apparently one up the tracks had broken down. We had to wait for the rails to be cleared, and then we picked up the passengers who had been on that train. By this time everyone was sick of being on a train; it had been the 5 hours our ride was supposed to bed. We ended up pulling into Edinburgh about an hour after we were supposed to. I can't read on the train because I get motion sick, so I was getting pretty bored. We got off the train and walked to our hotel, which was about a 10-15 minute walk away.
The hotel was cute and pretty nice (if not freezing). Of course, I happened to be on the top floor again, and had to walk up 4 flights of semi-spiral stairs to get to the room. Oh well, I'm used to it now from Madison House. My only real complaint was the fact that both times I showered in the morning, my water was FREEZING. But it got the job done and was a place for us to sleep. We thought for sure all 28 of us would take up the hotel, but there were lots of other people staying there-probably families who we really annoyed, whoops!
After we put our stuff down, we all headed back to Waverley station for a hop on-hop off bus tour of Edinburgh. The sun was starting to set, and it was really quite beautiful. There was some time to kill before our tour started, so I took some pictures of the area.
Hotel next to Waverley Station
Memorial to the author Sir Walter Scott
Our tour was interesting, but pretty cheesy. We wore headphones and there was a recording of a man and a women explaining each thing we saw, but they had little banter and jokes that Fiona and I kept cringing at. We went on the "Majestic Tour," so we saw the Royal Botanical Gardens, Scottish Parliament, and other royal things. It was starting to get dark, so I couldn't get a very clear view of a lot of buildings. It was still nice to sit and look at Edinburgh, though!
The tour was finished around dinner time, so a group of us set off in search of somewhere to eat. We found a cool place called the Smoke Stack near our hotel that had a dinner special until 6:30; it was 6:20. We rushed inside and ordered our food. Not "authentic" Scottish food, but still very good and the service was great. The deal was you got an appetizer and a main course for the price of a normal main course. I got prawn cocktail and a goat cheese salad. So delicious! We had passed a restaurant advertising deep fried Mars bars on our way to the hotel, so of course we went to check it out for dessert. At this place, Cafe Piccante, you can get any candy bar deep fried. I had a bite and it was deliciously disgusting. Definitely a one time thing. On the way back we also passed a cool store that advertised wheat free and vegetarian food! I popped in and got some snacks for our tours the following days.
We headed back to the hotel room and got ready to go out. People in our group had heard about this place called the 3 Sisters, so we went there. It was AWESOME. It was a bar but they were playing really great 90s music when we walked in. We met so many people on stag (bachelor) and hen (bachlorette) parties. It was really strange. They would ask us what we were doing in Scotland and we would ask them what THEY were doing! It was really fun to dance and sing all night. We left when the bar closed and headed straight to bed.
DAY TWO! Five hours after falling asleep, I had to wake up for our Scottish Highlands tour. I took a freezing shower then had some breakfast from the hotel, which was actually pretty tasty. Our tour bus picked us up at 9:15 and we headed out to the countryside. I could tell right away that my stomach was not going to be happy with me this day. Not only was I still feeling the effects from the previous night, but the driver drove very fast and, since it was a bus, jerkily. The roads we drove on were very windy; that part of the day was really unpleasant. Our tour guide Patrick was great though. He wore a kilt and the whole get up, and was constantly cracking (lame) jokes, mostly about the English. I don't know how he didn't lose his voice, he talked the entire time, telling us really interesting information about everything we saw.
But the views were INCREDIBLE. Once we got out of the city, it was all green and flat, with a few rolling hills. I fell asleep for a little bit, but woke up at Doune Castle. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed here! It was a really cool old castle. Patrick our tour guide said it was a "small" castle, so we were given about 45 minutes to explore it. I don't know what a big castle would be, cause this thing was huge! There were so many rooms and little passageways. We went up spiral staircases (which were terrifying) and even got to go to the top of the castle. Everyone was yelling "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberry!" down to the people below.
View from the top!
We continued through the countryside and I continued to feel sicker...Everything was beautiful but I just wasn't feelin it. Finally we stopped somewhere to get lunch and stretch. I got a HUGE baked potato with tuna salad on top. I felt much better after lunch, although everyone was saying how badly they were feeling. We stopped a couple more times on our journey in some really cool little towns.
I've never seen anything like this scenery. The hills were just straight cliffs, with lochs (lakes) at the bottom. The fog covered half of the mountains, they seemed to go miles into the sky. I've lived in the mountains in Harrisonburg, but this is so different. It was actually breathtaking.
At one of our stops, I got a clan colored scarf! I had been told two clans (Ferguson and Cameron), and I wasn't totally sure which was more "correct," so I just got the Cameron clan because I thought it was prettier (and my middle name is Cameron!).
We got back around 7 to Edinburgh, grabbed dinner from Tesco and ate it in our room. Even though I had slept all day, I was still feeling really tired and run down, so I decided to stay in for the night. My roommates went to the same bar as the night before. I on the other hand read Pride and Prejudice and went to bed at 10:30. No regrets!
DAY THREE! Our last day was devoted to Edinburgh Castle and free time. We could sleep in a little bit, and didn't have to meet for our tour til 10. At 10, we walked over to the Edinburgh Castle. There were a few options: wander on your own, buy an audio tour, or wait for a guided tour. Colleen and I decided to do an audio tour. It ended being okay. The information for each location was really long and we were more interested in looking at the views that listening for 5 minutes. I should have done the guided tour because it would have been easier to hold my attention. Oh well! It was still beautiful and very interesting.
It's a miracle the castle is still standing, actually. It's been through many wars and sieges (many by the British), and has undergone a lot of damage. But it's still standing today, a testament to the fighting spirit of the Scottish!
After our tour, we were free to do whatever we wanted. Everyone was starving, so we went to a pub nearby on the Royal Mile. Everyone wanted to try haggis, so an authentic Scottish place was the way to go. The restaurant had lots of vegetarian options of the traditional Scottish food, so I got vegetarian haggis. Not really sure what was in it or how it compares to the real thing, but it was good! It was almost like rice. I think they put nuts and oatmeal in it to make mine. It was served with sweet and white mashed potatoes. Whatever was in it, it was delicious! Our server was really nice too; she was giving us suggestions of where to go and joking with us about the weather (which was awesome).
After filling up at lunch, we decided to check out the shops on the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is three streets, each about a mile long that goes from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace. It it part of Old Town Edinburgh. The streets are old cobblestone and lined with Scottish cashmere shops. Every so often we would hear someone on the street playing bagpipes. Colleen and I wandered into shops buying gifts for ourselves and family. I got a pretty Celtic knot ring on the street (it's sterling silver, so it was only 9 pounds). It was such a great day to be outside: sunny and 50 degrees. Everyone was joking it felt like summer in Scotland! I just spent the day wandering around Edinburgh, which was nice after such a long day on Saturday.
Our whole group met back at the hotel at 4 to walk back to the train station. Our train left at 5. Thankfully, we got back to London early this time! I was so exhausted, but it was a great weekend. I already want to go back to Scotland!!
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