Alright, now on to Edinburgh. My mom says I write too much, but I don't care! This is basically how I'm going to remember my trip, so suck it up, Ma!!! (love you)
The bus (coach) ride SUCKED. 6 hours in seats that recline 1/2 inch. It was reminiscent of my hellish plane ride here. However, Alex and I decided to watch The Office on my computer in between our speed-reading of Shakespeare's Henry IV, so that made it pass a bit faster.
Our hotel was right in the middle of everything, not on the Royal Mile but on Princes Street, which is almost equally as busy and fashionable. The hotel itself was eh, but better than our one in London because it had a hair dryer, soap and wireless internet.
Alex and I set off to explore at about 3pm on Sunday. We hit up Edinburgh Castle which is awesome--I really can't get enough of the castles. We don't have those in America! I love learning about all the horrifying things that happened in those places, I have no idea why. After the castle we just walked around and did some shopping. I spent so much money! But I got a cashmere tam and matching scarf, which I love! And I bought presents for a lot of people.
A note about Scottish people: they are so nice! In England, people are either indifferent or a little rude. Not mean, exactly, they just don't really give a crap. In Scotland, however, every single person we dealt with was fantastic. In the souvenir shop, this guy helped us pick stuff out (he may have been flirting with us, but we didn't care) and then the other guy at the counter gave us free pens and golf balls and other little things because we seemed like "good girls"! It was awesome. The waitresses are very helpful, much more American-ish in that they will come to your table, take your order, bring it, come two or three times to ask you if you need anything, bring your check, and smile at you. That doesn't happen in England, and we've eaten out quite a lot. We ate at 3 different restaurants in 3 different areas of Edinburgh and the service was amazing!
Anyway, that night Alex and I set off in search of a hookah bar we had found online. To our utter horror, it was closed for renovations. So we just decided to go to a pub instead. We walked down a close for quite some time, not liking the feel of this pub or thinking that one was too upscale, and then - lo and behold - we come to a pub called "Hogshead". OF COURSE we had to go in, and it was definitely the right decision. 4 Homecoming Scotland 2009 Ales, 2 Guinnesses, and a whisky shot later, it was STILL the right decision. Needless to say our adventure back to the hotel was interesting!
The next day, we were both fairly hungover ( . . . sorry Mom) so we stayed in bed until about 11am watching the BEST kid's show I have ever seen. It's called Den of Doom, and I can't even describe in words how awesome it is. It's a game show similar to Guts or Double Dare or all those old Nickelodeon shows. Google it and see what you find.
Saturday was a ton of fun. We did a little bit of shopping, finally ate at Pret a Manger which is this environmentally friendly chain that pre-makes sandwiches and cookies and stuff, and you basically "shop" for your food and then pay and sit and eat it. They are ALL OVER London, seriously on every street, so we decided to try it and it's really, really good. Anyway, we went back over to the Royal Mile and did the Scottish Whisky Experience, which shows you how whisky is made and then you have a whisky tasting session. It was awesome! We got a little souvenir glass, and I bought two little whiskys to give as gifts.
We then had time to kill before it was time for our Haunted Graveyard Tour, so we just walked up and down the Royal Mile looking in basically every souvenir shop. I found a book that details the history of Clan O'Hara! I had to buy it. Maybe I'll give it to my dad, but he doesn't read books.
Then it was the HAUNTED GRAVEYARD TOUR, by far my favorite part of the trip! First of all, the tour guide was super hot. Or at least I thought he was. His name was Fred. Then, he told us all about how Edinburgh was a horrible place to live for centuries, the sanitation was non-existent and there was poop ('jobby') and rats all over the streets, people were sick and disgusting and smelly, and everything just basically sucks, so they liked to torture people for fun. They loved their witch trials. He told us how they used to torture accused witches and their entire families, then they would die, and the city would apologize because they were found innocent and give them a nice Christian burial!
Then, Greyfriars Kirkyard. First of all, it's dark. We are in a graveyard which we later found out has hundreds of thousands of bodies buried in it, though there's only 400 headstones! The graveyard used to be in a valley, but now it's a big hill -- literally, a hill of dead bodies. AWESOME! So we are creeped out to the max. Then my man Fred made my crush on him expand tenfold because he told us that J.K. Rowling used to sit in Greyfriars and write, and there's a castle-like school visible from where she used to sit called Harriet's which was the inspiration for Hogwarts! THEN -- it gets better! -- there's a headstone that says THOMAS RIDDLE!!!!!!! That is the only disappointment I have about Scotland, that I didn't go to see that grave. But it was dark, and I wasn't about to leave the tour to go look at it, and afterward I was too shy to ask Fred to take us over there (haha).
So he takes us to this creepy tomb where there used to be the world's first documented concentration camp (the one end of the graveyard used to be a prison). The man that oversaw the prison was an awful, awful, awful person named MacKenzie, and apparently his poltergeist haunts the the kirkyard and is super active in this particular tomb. So there's like 25 people crammed in this freaking SCARY ASS TOMB and Fred is freaking the hell out of us. Then some girl in the corner kept moving around, and after we got out of there Fred asked her what was wrong, and she said she kept hearing something scratching the wall behind her. Fred said, "Oh yeah, that's the side I always feel something tugging on my coat pockets."
So after all this we went back to the Creepy Wee Shop (haha!) and looked through the book where all the injuries from the poltergeist are documented. Most of the pictures were taken right there in the shop so they are pretty legit. Fred and his friends kept talking about wanting to go get Jack Daniels, which I thought was really weird. I mean, you're in SCOTLAND, the land of WHISKY, and you want to drink janky Tennessee stuff?
On the way out, we witnessed some girl stumbling out of Bobby's Bar and she slammed into a parked car and fell on the ground. We laughed really hard, felt bad, tried to stop, but couldn't. We went back to the hotel and called it a night.
The next morning we set off for Hadrian's Wall, which was cool. An old Roman fort! We were just crawling around it like it was no big deal. Awesome awesome awesome!
In case you can't tell, I LOVE SCOTLAND! Ireland might take its place as my favorite country soon, but right now I'm all about Scotland.
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