I'm back!
It's been a while since I posted, but that was only to spare you guys! Last week, I was working on school work and doing other non-eventful activities. But this weekend I took a trip to Edinburgh! I went with my American flatmate Stacy. Edinburgh is only an hour train ride away from Glasgow so it was the perfect weekend destination. We managed to score really cheap train tickets ($1.40 each way, but replace the dollar sign with a pound sign - I don't have a UK keyboard!). We got up early on Saturday morning and caught the 9am train to Edinburgh. Once we got there, we had some food and then checked out where our hostel was. If anyone goes to Edinburgh, I really recommend Princes St. East Backpackers Hostel (where we stayed). It was right across the street from the train station and within 15 minutes of everything touristy. The hostel itself was clearly run by hippies, which was absolutely fine with me. I never felt threatened or unsafe there. It was on the very top level of a building, so we had to climb a number of stairs. The climb didn't seem so bad because there were cartoons all over the walls with how many steps were left and encouraging messages:
Dizzying view of the spiral stairs
The inside of the hostel was decorated with brights walls and cartoons as well. The doors to the rooms were assigned by letters and had a corresponding picture on the door. Ours was S and had a giant sun on it. The TV room door was pretty entertaining:
We were in a four person locked dorm room. There were two other guys from Scotland staying in that room but we didn't see them until the next morning.
After this, we went to Edinburgh Castle. You could pretty much see the castle from anywhere downtown.
Castle in the distance
National Portrait Gallery
Monument for Sir Walter Scott
View at the base of the castle
Edinburgh Castle!
We took a guided tour through the castle with a funny little Scottish man. The little tidbits I remember from the tour are:
-Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to her son here
-The Queen of England has been here and they fired a bunch of cannons and fireworks at the castle for her
-The Scots pretty much invented everything, even the Canadian health care system (??)
-St. Margaret's Chapel, located on the castle grounds, is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh at 900 years old. It seats 20 people and only certain people are allowed to get married here (I can't remember who). However, we got to see a wedding take place at the chapel!
The bride is walking with the man. I'm assuming these are her family's tartan clan colors? She only had 2 bridesmaids and 2 flower girls. We never saw the groom.
St. Margaret's Chapel
The sweet car the wedding party rolled up in.
Here are some other pictures I took at the castle:
This lady was a character actor who told the story of Mary Queen of Scots. Did you know she was 6 feet tall?! Rock on.
Banquet Hall
Massive fireplace
Cemetery for soldiers' dogs
They used to keep prisoners on this island. The land beyond the island is Fife, Scotland.
View of Edinburgh
Where they kept soldier's who were sentenced to solitary confinement
Where they kept pirates and whatnot (some from Newfoundland!)
This isn't on the castle grounds, but just a nice church that we saw on the way back downtown.
After Edinburgh Castle, we found this little graveyard at the base of Carlton Hill, one of Edinburgh's parks.
After touring the graveyard for a bit, we climbed up Carlton Hill. It was a great view of the city and had a few interesting monuments:
This was built to honor soldiers who died in Rome....or something. I can't remember. It was just weird to see this Roman structure in Scotland. So of course I took a jumping picture:
Arthur's Seat (which I would conquer the next day!)
Witnessed another wedding. This time I got to see a kilted groom.
After that, we went and got a bite to eat at a backpacker pub. It was pretty decent and well priced. We toured the Grassmarket for a bit and I bought a scarf. That night, we hit a few pubs and went back to hostel. I was dead tired from all the walking and the whole getting up early to catch the train thing. The next morning, we got up, checked out and headed to Elephant House Coffeehouse for breakfast. This is where J.K. Rowling came to work on the first Harry Potter book, so that was pretty cool.
After breakfast, we toured the National Gallery where they had a robot exhibit on. There was tons of interactive stations and one robot spelt your name:
After touring the museum, we headed for Arthur's Seat. This was a challenge. It was very steep to hike, very muddy and only rocks to use at "stairs". Once you get up there, it's very pretty (and cold!).
There was this grassy area where people spelt out things with rocks. I jumped on that.
Oh yeah.
More jumping!
On the way down, there was the remains of an old chapel:
After climbing down, we had lunch at this little cafe and then browsed shops. I found a rare CD and record store where I got a Led Zeppelin CD and a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young CD for a total of 9 pounds. From there, we went to two art museums - National Portrait Gallery and the Modern Art Gallery. I was astounded by how huge the canvases were in the Portrait Gallery! There were a few Rembrandts in there, which was pretty cool. The impressionist wing was closed, which was disappointing. However, the Modern Art Gallery did not disappoint! I love modern art so it was great to see. After that, we caught the train home at 5:30pm.
The next day, I was sore from hiking up Arthur's Seat and from generally walking everywhere! It was a great trip though and I'll probably go back to see Holyrood Palace and this little town called Leith.
Now I'm back to working on essays. I'm making good progress; I've finished one of three and plan on knocking another one down tomorrow since I only have class from 10am-11am. This weekend, I'm going to Carbisdale Castle on an international student trip. I should have more pictures and stores to tell you then!
Hope everyone is well and I'll update you more when I do something other than essays!!
Great photos...interesting journal!
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