SCOTLAND!

EDINBURGH!  WOW! What a place! This was my first trip away from London and I was so happy with the weekend!  There were 14 of us total, but it was more like 10 and 4 because it was two separate groups; but we had a great time!  We headed to the bus station around 9pm for our 11pm overnight bus ride.  We got to the station with about 30 minutes to spare before boarding, so we got some snacks and hung out.  The bus ride was around 8 hours and we had a couple stops along the way.  Unfortunately it was SCORCHING hot in there and the seats weren’t too comfortable so I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep.  But we got into Edinburgh at 8:15am and were on the lookout for some food! We headed towards our hostel and stopped at a place called Costa. England has Starbucks…but a Costa is like the US Starbucks. They are everywhere and reasonably priced so we stopped there to recuperate and get some energy from coffee!  After about an hour of veg’ing out—we were exhausted—we started our 20-minute walk to the hostel! Luckily Scott, one of two guys on the trip, knew exactly where to go because he had planned it all out, which was awesome!

Bus ride! whoo hoo

We arrived at the hostel and couldn’t check in quite yet, but we were able to put our luggage in some lockers for the day.  So we stored everything away and decided to go to the Edinburgh castle first (5 minute walk by the way, our hostel was in a perfect location!) The castle was huge and really neat.  It wasn’t what I expected but I’m glad we went.  We bought tickets and headed up the hill to meet a tour guide for a 30 min tour. The tour was informative but he just pointed out the buildings; we had to go in them ourselves so the tour was kind of pointless, but I’m glad we were able to explore! We went into the national war museum, the jail, St. Elizabeth Chapel (that holds only 20 people!) and a place with crown jewels.  Afterwards we went in the gift shop and I got a Celtic ring that was really neat. All of their jewelry is Celtic with twists and loops! But anyways, after the castle we headed to lunch! At this point everyone had been split up so Jordan and I started looking for restaurants and ran into four other Regent’s students.

Edinburgh Castle with Everyone!

We decided on a place called GreyFriars Bobby’s Bar because it was an authentic Scottish pub.  I really branched out this time so you all better be super proud of me! First of all, Jordan and I decided to order Haggis as an appetizer which is lamb, wheat, barley & spices cooked in a sheep’s stomach—which is put on top of turnips and mashed potatoes on the bottom. Apparently, they eat this crap all the time! It wasn’t too bad, but later on our stomachs were churning so I don’t think it settled very well.  For my lunch, I also branched out and got a chicken & portabella mushroom pie! I don’t like mushrooms but I wanted something hot and it sounded pretty good so I tried it! Aside from the mushrooms, it was really good! Everyone else was happy with their meals as well so it was a nice lunch.

Haggis! 

Once we finished we headed back to the hostel to try and check in.  This was around 3pm and we were able to get our keys and sheets. So we headed to our 12-person room, made our beds and unpacked a little bit.  Then…everyone was like we’ll just lay down for a few minutes and then go shopping and look around but…we all fell asleep! Oops! 

Fun- Retro Style Room

Sooo once we all woke up we were rejuvenated and decided to make a plan for the rest of the night.  Jordan, Larissa, Scott & I decided to grab dinner (no one else was hungry) and then we bought tickets online for a RUGBY GAME! Oh my gosh sooooo much fun!  They don’t play with any pads at all…it’s basically football & wrestling mixed together.  Also I thought it was really strange that if someone got hurt, there would be medics on each sideline that would run onto the field & check the guy out while the game was still going on!  I also liked that when the ball was out of bounds or had to be put back into play, one guy would throw it in and the team would pick up another player and raise them up to catch the ball!  It was just really neat and a great experience! I am so glad Scott knew about the game! 

Rugby Game

-- Oh & also side note at half time, Jordan and I went up to the concession area because there were heaters there.  We walked up to one and this huge group of guys out for a stag party (bachelor) started talking to us.  They were sitting across the aisle from as at the stadium but we didn’t talk to them until halftime. Well anyways they were from Wales, out for this guy’s stag party and happened to be staying at the same hostel as us…There were lots of other weird coincidences but I’ll get to those later.

So the game ended around 930 and we headed back to change before going out.  We started off at a bar called “Brew Dog” because it was a recommended Scottish bar, but it was packed with older men and really small.  We each got a beer called “Prototype 17.5” because it was the lightest Scottish beer there was…but it was disgusting. We all finished maybe half before heading out to find another bar to go to.  We ended up at a place called “The Three Sisters” which reminded me of mom, Cindy & Christy! The bar was huge, they played lots of good music and oh wait…we ran into the stag party! How out of all the bars around we ended up at the same one, I don’t know. But we all hung out with those guys and Jordan and I danced some until we headed back around 12:30.  We had a great day & night and were all so ready to get back to sleep.  We found out we had 2 other girls in our hostel that were really nice so we didn’t have creepy roommates which was good!  We all got ready for bed & fell asleep very quickly!  So that was the end of day one!

The next morning (Saturday) Jordan and I got up around 930-while everyone else was still sleeping-to grab breakfast.  She had a waffle with bananas on it and I got French toast with bacon! There bacon is really different over here, it’s almost like thick ham… but it was delicious! At breakfast we ran into Larissa so she ate with us. There was a free tour our hostel gave at 11 but the three of us wanted to look around at the stores to get an idea of where we wanted to buy souvenirs from.  The time passed quickly and we had to head back to meet the tour.  The first place the tour went was a graveyard…yes a graveyard.  He told us some weird stories about ghosts and what not and then showed us two graves that J.K Rowlings used the names for in her Harry Potter series! Tom Riddell and Professor Mcgonagoll were both people buried that she took their names—weird! Also our guide told us that the graveyard used to be a valley with flat land, but they ran out of ground space and started burying coffins on top of one another so now its all hilly because there are layers of coffins that anyone can walk on- it’s not sacred like in the US. It was weird.

So after the graveyard we walked downtown, walked to a garden and got a good view of the castle, National Monument (12 columns built in memory of the Scots who died during the Napoleonic wars), a view of the city and some other random things.  The tour lasted two hours and he took us to a pub called Biddy Mulligans afterwards because he was a young guy and said it was a great place to get a drink and lunch!  We walked in and who did we run into? The stag party! Crazyyy…but we didn’t stay for lunch because there was a Rugby game on the Tv’s and the pub was packed! So the group split up and I went to Beehive Inn.  I just got a Ham and English Mustard (on the side) sandwich!  After lunch we met back up with everyone to see what they were doing and ended up splitting up again.  Two girls had already left, everyone else was going on a whiskey tour, and Jordan & I started walking towards the Palace.  However, we stopped at a café called “Chocolate Soup.” Jonathan, the guy at Regent’s that sits at the desk told us we had to go there because they had the best hot chocolate! I’m not a big hot chocolate person so I just got a chocolate dessert but Jordan got some and said it was great! We also ran into the other girls that had left the group earlier so we joined up with them to go to the palace! Unfortunately, no one wanted to go in the palace, but we walked around the gate and got a good view of the area. 

National Monument

Chocolate Soup Cafe

Palace from the Back

After that it was around 4pm, so we headed back towards town to finish some last minute shopping before heading back to the hostel to shower & get cleaned up for dinner.  We went back to Biddy Mulligans and got a table this time! I had a club sandwich and some fries that was probably the best club I’ve ever had.  They have a lot of different sauces and flavoring over here and it was good! But anyways, after dinner everyone went back to change and to the bar in the hostel to get a drink.  I wasn’t feeling well, allergies have seriously caught up with me! So I didn’t drink but I decided to go out because a few girls went to this bar the night before after some of us had gone back, and they said it was awesome! I wish I had felt better because they were right! This place was 5 stories underground! It was like you were walking into a stone cave…they had flashing lights and fog machines, it was just a really hip bar with lots of people.  I sat down with a couple of people in our group while others danced. We left around 1am that night, went back to the hostel and went to bed.

We all were up bright and early Sunday morning for the bus ride home at 950.  We had to get breakfast, check out and walk all the way back to the station.  The bus ride home was a lot worse because we made more stops to pick people up on the way.  It was a total of 10 hours so we didn’t get home that night until 8… I slept a few hours but it’s a long day when you’re sitting on the bus for 10 hours. 

I had a great time but was definitely ready to get back to my bed at Regents, shower in a clean shower and wash my clothes!  So yeah, that was my trip! It was back to reality today with biology and working out! Tomorrow is Valentines Day and I’m so excited! I love Valentines Day and have already gotten lots of cards:) So that’s always fun.  It’s really funny because most people here like to call it “Single’s Awareness Day.”  The girls I’ve become friends with put a secret vday thing together and we drew names to buy each other Valentines.  I think we are also going out to dinner to the Metropolitan where we went for the Tamer’s birthday.  Afterwards I think we are headed to the student bar for a party. 

I’m not sure what we are doing this weekend yet, but there’s a masquerade party on Thursday night. Our school does things like this all the time and it’s so awesome! Everyone always goes to the parties and it’s always a lot of fun, so I think we are going to do that. I may go to Canterbury and Leeds Castle Saturday but I have to check to see if there is still room to go with the school.  So that’s all that’s going on here. Hope all is well with everyone J

In Valentines Day Spirits: 

“we’re all a little weird. & life is weird. & when we find someone
whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into
mutually satisfying weirdness—& call it love—true love.” -- dr seuss

Best Valentines day card! Love you girls :)

Y.O.L.O -- court :)