Scotland!!

After sitting around the apartment for a few days over Christmas, we took a 3 day holiday to Scotland on December 27 to check out Edinburgh (our first international trip since being in Europe!). Our 6:30am flight was a bit rough, but after a quick hour flight we were in Scotland and didn't even have to pass through customs (which was actually a bad thing as we wanted to get stamps to activate our UK visas just in case we want them later, but our visas should still be ok without them); we still don't really understand how you can fly into another country without seeing a single airport official, but I suppose we're used to strict American security policies! We took a bus into Edinburgh and the sun was just starting to rise, which looked gorgeous over the cityscape. We walked to our hostel which was slightly south of the city centre, through a large park called the Meadows and dropped off our bags. The women at the front desk was not nice or accommodating in anyway, but the hostel was a cozy house and proved to be a pretty decent place to stay in the end.

We all needed a boost of energy and therefore went to the closest coffee shop, which happened to be Starbucks; Edinburgh has a surprisingly large amount of Starbucks considering that it's a small city. After looking over some brochures, we decided to start the day with a 3 hour FREE walking tour of the city. Tips are encouraged if you enjoy the tour, but essentially it's a free way to see the city and learn all about the history behind the landmarks. Our tour guide was an energetic, witty Canadian and we learned tons of interesting facts and stories, and it was a beautiful, nearly cloudless day with sunshine- a rare treat in Edinburgh! We went by Edinburgh Castle, famous pubs, museums, a graveyard, parks, and weaved our way in and out of the city centre along the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is a street actually a bit over a mile and is Edinburgh's main thoroughfare. It starts at Holyroodhouse, the Queen's official palace in Scotland and has served as the principal residence of the kings and queens of Scotland since the 15th century. From there the Royal Mile continues uphill, ending at Edinburgh Castle at the top of Castle Rock. One interesting stop in the middle of the Royal Mile is the Heart of Midlothian, a heart-shaped mosaic built into the sidewalk. It represents the position of the 15th Century tollbooth which was the administrative centre of the town, prison and one of several sites of public execution. Today it is the only place in Edinburgh where you are legally allowed to spit, so naturally we felt inclined to take pictures of ourselves spitting on the heart (see Picasa photos).

After a quick lunch at Subway (hey, it’s cheap!), we climbed up a huge hill on the edge of the city called Arthur’s Seat. It was a steep incline and made us all heavily pant, but took only about 20 minutes to get to the top. It had incredible views of the city, including the castle and all the way out to an estuary called Firth of Fort. The sun was still shining, causing all of us to overheat in our big jackets and winter gear, but soon began to set and cast a gorgeous golden light over the cityscape. After our slow descent down the slippery slope, it was nearly dark (at 3:45!) and we decided that we definitely needed some coffee. We went to the Elephant House, the café where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter!!!!!!! Of course we were all immensely excited about this. We sat next to the window overlooking a cemetery and enormous school which inspired Hogwarts!! Very very cool.

That night we went on a ghost tour called “City of the Dead” which took us through the huge underground vault system under the city. In the 1700s the city was getting too crowded but people didn’t want to move outside the city walls, so they decided to build underneath the city. The vaults often flooded and were disgusting, full of sickly people, poor families, thieves, and waste. Many people died down there and until fairly recently the vaults were actually forgotten about. Today they claim that something called “The Entity” haunts the maze of vaults. Our tour guide believes that there was so much negative energy leftover from the people who used to live there that it built up and now attaches to other people with negative energy (i.e. those who are scared, depressed, etc). They have some pretty scary stories about people who have been caught down there and then come out with scratches all over their bodies yet those people don't feel anything at the time. The scratches always come in a set of 3 and are perfectly spaced apart, as if people are reaching out for help and attempting to grab whatever they can... pretty spooky! She also claimed that the energy can attach to you and follow you home, but luckily the three of us came out scratch free and didn’t experience anything creepy that night!

We started off Sunday with a trip to the castle! The castle overlooks the city and has some amazing views (see youtube videos). It took us over two hours to explore all the nooks and crannies of the castle, and we also went on a guided tour of the outside which was really interesting. The castle’s chapel is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh dating from the 1100s! There is also a prison where American prisoners of war from the American Revolution were taken, and we even saw etchings on a door of an American flag from way back then! The castle also houses the crown jewels of Scotland dating from the 15th Century (the second oldest in Europe) which consists of the crown, the scepter, and the sword of state. These were right next to the Stone of Destiny, the traditional coronation stone of Scottish Kings and Queens which is still a powerful symbol of Scottish independence. It was very neat to see but of course we weren’t allowed to take any pictures of the historical artifacts.

For lunch we went to a famous pub called The Last Drop. Apparently back in the days of hanging by gallows they used to take the sentenced men/women to The Last Drop for their last drink before they were hung! It was pretty neat to eat there and we figured this would be a good place to try haggis! It’s sheep organs (heart, liver, kidneys) that are ground up and cooked in the stomach lining from the sheep- yum yum! It’s often served with tatties (mashed potatoes) and neeps (mashed turmips) and everything was surprisingly tasty. The consistency of haggis was a bit funky, but the flavor was nice.

After lunch we strolled around the city. We all really wanted to buy a kilt because they’re pretty cute but unfortunately none of us could find any that we liked for a reasonable price. We bought a couple small souvenirs, and then went on the 'Scottish Whisky Experience' tour. We learned all about how Scottish whisky is made, about the different types of whisky, and even got to taste test two different blends! None of us are big whisky drinkers, but it was still really interesting and fun, and we got free whisky glasses! Afterwards we got an afternoon snack: deep fried Mars bars! The Scotts deep fry pretty much anything you can think of, and though the bars looked pretty gross coming out of the fryer they were, of course, extremely delicious. That night we decided to do our own mini pub-crawl and hit the famous pubs in the city. We started out at Deacon Brodie's, named after the man who inspired the story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He was a locksmith who ran out of money so he began burglarizing all the rich people he made locks for. He was a reputable man so nobody ever considered him the culprit. Then he headed the search to find the 'thief' when really it was himself all along. The bartender was really nice (as were most people in Scotland) and let us sample 4 different Scottish beers, all pretty bland actually. After that we went to Maggie Dickson's. This story is crazy- essentially she was going to be hung for hiding the fact that she was pregnant. She was hung, put in the casket, and carried away. Suddenly noise started coming from the casket... she hadn’t died! But, she couldn’t be hung again because of double jeopardy, so she lived for another 40 years and opened a pub right next to The Last Drop. Brilliant! We really liked this pub because we could get mixed drinks for 1.95 pounds! That is waaay cheaper than Dublin. Actually, Edinburgh was a rather cheap city despite being on the pound (the exchange rate between the pound and euro right now is almost 1 to 1), which made us all very happy!

We decided to go on a tour of the Highlands in northern Scotland on our last day which lasted 12 hours. At the first stop on the trip we saw a highland cow! His name was Hamish and he was a very funny but cute looking animal. The whole Highland region was absolutely gorgeous, and it was actually sunny for most of it! The day was pretty perfect and we learned some interesting Scottish history as well. Around lunch time we went to Loch Ness! The lake has the largest volume of water in all of Scotland due to its great depths. It’s probably the most northern place any of us have ever been to, and my oh my was it cold! We took a one hour cruise on the lake and looked for the monster. Tales of Nessie have been around since the 6th century and were first recorded by a monk, but the frenzy didn’t really start until the 1930’s when the first photo of the alleged monster was published. Since then, Loch Ness has been a major site for tourism as people flock to try and catch a glimpse of the creature. Alas, Nessie eluded us, but we do believe! (At least, Erica and Sarah do; Erin is a little more hesitant). We decided to stay on the top part of the boat the whole time, so by the time we got off all three of us were numb.

On our drive back to the city we saw a magnificent sunset behind the tallest mountain in the UK called Ben Nevis! It was awesome. Because we had traveled pretty far north, it was going to take about 3 hours to drive back to the city. Our driver started playing Braveheart! We have wanted to watch that movie for a very long time because none of us have ever seen it so we were really excited. Halfway through, the movie stopped working! It was highly annoying because we still haven’t been able to find it at movie stores in Dublin and thus haven’t seen the end of the movie. Anyway, we got back to the city and then immediately headed off to the airport. It was a great trip and has made us all really exciting about traveling to other countries later this year!