Losing £s - Scotland

The only picture I got of Glasgow from our hostel.

Cheers! I am currently sitting under a blanket in the living room of the Luther College Nottingham program flat and enjoying a more relaxed afternoon. Here is an update of all of my exploits in Scotland and a plethora of photographs.

St. Giles Cathedral - Edinburgh

Day 4 - Jan. 5:
As you know from previous posts, we had a 6~ hour delay for a 30 minute flight (We probably could have swam to Glasgow in that time). When we finally took off, I realized why Ryanair is so cheap. The entire flight they were peddling different goods and the seats felt like plastic (Leaving absolutely no room for my knees). However, flying into Scotland was gorgeous and the highlands were covered in pristine snow. Our train to Glasgow was about 20 minutes late, which was a bit stressful, but we eventually got to the city (The airport was actually 40~ minutes from the city).

Near Edinburgh Castle.

Our hostel was 3 blocks from the train station and was enormous (9 stories tall). It must have been an old hotel and only had 4 beds per room and its own bathroom/shower (Luxurious!). Hannah and I went to a grocery store a block away and got some frozen pizza and watched an almost artistically distorted version of "The Weakest Link." The TV split the image into blue, green, and red versions which were slightly offset.

Edinburgh had such beautiful buildings.

After cooking, we went up to my room to eat the pizza and found that I had another roommate who had checked in and was from London. He was about 30 or so and had just been hiking up in the highlands. We ended up chatting for about 2 hours about a wide variety of topics and ended up talking about politics and world events. It was really cool to have a British perspective on things (Such as his dislike for Mel Gibson and his movies critical of England like Braveheart/The Patriot). Afterwords we went down the bar that was in the ground level of our hostel and ended up meeting two Argentinean brothers who now live in Milan, Italy. We played darts with them for the rest of the night and it was great Spanish practice.

You could hear bagpipes almost everywhere (way too cold for kilts).

Day 5 - Jan 6:

The view of the North Atlantic from Sir Walter Scott Monument.

To save money on renting a towel (a pound or euro per hostel), I resorted to a cheat code (Thanks Ehler!) and used my sheets. Oddly enough, the Argentinean brothers were actually heading to Edinburgh as well and ended up staying in the same hostel. We walked with them to the train station and found out that the train we were supposed to ride had been cancelled. The snow in the UK has been causing tons of delays and there is supposed to be more this week (I'm hoping it doesn't interfere with getting to Spain). We asked the desk and found another station that had a train to Edinburgh and after 5 blocks of hurrying, we found it and were on our way.

Our hostel was in those buildings. Scenic.

Leaving the Edinburgh station, I looked up at the buildings and knew I would like the city. We walked up a curved hill (The first real elevation change in Europe, oddly enough) and quickly found our small cozy hostel. Our room in the hostel was called "the Fridge" and our beds were Guinness and Corona (All the other rooms had their own themes). We couldn't check in until 2pm, so we left our things in a luggage room and set off for the National Gallery which had some pretty cool arts (including spiral staircases surrounded by marble faces) and guards in kilts (hard to take them seriously).

Serene.

We walked around the city and explored for the next two hours. It is an awesome thing to enjoy photography and visit these places. Later, when we were about to climb a monument, we discovered that Hannah's billfold was not in her purse (including our train tickets to Nottingham). We headed back to a Starbucks we had stopped at and fortunately, someone had turned it in and not taken anything (good people exist). Then we went and checked into our rooms and enjoyed some free hot cocoa/coffee/tea and relaxation.

The coast was pretty swell.

We went to a pub from my guidebook for dinner and enjoyed a meal of a burger, chips, and a pint for only £3.50. It was a really cool place called The Tron and was primarily filled with university students. We hung out there for a while and watched British music videos (It is pretty expensive to do things at night and more difficult when you don't know the city that well yet). We ended up spending the rest of the night sitting by the fireplace in the hostel common room (soooo nice) and just chilling out.

I climbed down into the area by the boats and it was covered in seaweed and moss. Treacherous.

Day 6 - Jan 7:
To start out our second day in Edinburgh, we had a cheap hostel breakfast of croissants and then headed to the birthplace of Harry Potter for coffee. The Elephant house is where J.K. Rowling came up with the ideas of Harry Potter and Dumbledore on napkins. It was pretty wild to be in the place where one idea altered the path of her life so greatly. I tried to come up with some brilliant ideas while we were there, but I think she used up all the magic (rimshot).

Sunset with Edinburgh Castle on the right.

Next we headed to a photography exhibit of Craig Mackay in the National Museum. It was all portraits of famous Scots and people with Scottish heritage and was excellent. There was a video of interviews with the subjects and the photographer that showed a lot of Scottish flavour (UK spelling is great fun). Afterwords we headed back to the Sir Walter Scott Monument (The tallest in the world for a writer and 287 steps up). The top got super narrow and I had to turn my shoulders to get through the door at the top. The view was phenomenal and we got a greater grasp of where Edinburgh sits. It is right on an inlet of the North Atlantic with an extinct volcano and the Scottish highlands all around it. It was beautiful.

The views were pretty decent.

We decided to walk to the harbor after the monument and ate at a deli on the way (Amazingly delicious meatball sandwich). The walk was about 4 miles and it was nice to get into the smaller community feel of the area near the harbor.  It used to be a different town called Leith, but was absorbed into Edinburgh (Like Pac-man). There were sailboats abound and high snowy hills across the inlet (Photo-op-alicious). We took a bus back and walked up to Castle Hill in time to see the sunset (Glorious).

St. Giles Cathedral - I had never seen an open steeple before.

It was a great day filled with tons of photo taking and galavanting about town. We had dinner again at the Tron because it was close, cheap, and had good vibes. This time I had a bowl of chili and Hannah had a curry/chicken dish. We ended the night by returning to the hearth of the hostel to have some wine and relax and figure out our trains for the journey to Nottingham.

Don't worry, I was on a boulevard.

Cultural Fun Fact: English folks use the same words for different things. Por ejemplo, this sentence, "It is so cold out, I wish I was wearing pants." In the States, it might indicate that someone is wearing shorts or a skirt and the wind might be a bit brisk. However, in Great Britain, trousers = pants and pants = underwear. Imagine the unfortunate consequences and hilarity that comes from this difference. Today I was washing clothes in Nottingham and Hannah asked if I was cold (I was wearing shorts). I responded that I was a bit cold due to the fact that all my pants were in the washer, leading to laughter.

Edinburgh has a huge New Years Eve celebration and there were still lights and things up.

Pants… hahah.