‘You make kingdoms and castles on your own.’ -Stephan
Jenkins
Day 1: Good morning Edinburgh and hello spring break! Well
as of yesterday, I have officially started spring break and will be off on
grand adventures for the next two weeks! I struggled away the past couple of
days getting all of my midterms done (which included a 350 work essay all in
Norwegian- by the end of it I thought my brain was going to explode!) all so I
had the chance to leave a couple of days early and get my vacation started
without a worry. Over break I’m headed off to Edinburgh, Scotland, Barcelona
and Madrid, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal. Originally, to my mother’s dismay, I
was going to tackle these four great cities alone, but then a few weeks before
I left my friend Abbie decided to come along for the journey (which made my
momma very happy). Lots of flights, hostels and other paperwork to keep track
of, but I think we’ll be alright. Since we are flying a bunch of discount
airlines, which only allow one carryon bag, I will be living the next two week
all out of my little backpack. I have hands down become the greatest packer
ever.
We left early yesterday morning (Wednesday the 20th)
to catch the 5.15 train out to Oslo, made a quick transfer and were at Rygge
airport by 9 o’clock. Had a nice flight to London, a 4-hour layover, and
finally made it up to Scotland by 6 o’clock or so. After catching a bus into
the city center, we slowly wandered our way to the hostel we are staying at.
Its call Castle Rock Hostel and is literally located right at the base of the
castle. I can see it out of my window- so incredible! After dropping our things
off and getting settled in, we off in search of a pub and some food. By
suggestion of our hostel, we ended at ‘The Fiddler’s Arms’ with a nice pint and
a huge plate of fish and chips. Round that off with some live music and it was
a good night.
Because we booked separately, Abbie and I are staying in
different rooms in the beast of a hostel (over 70 rooms!) and due to an
unfortunate mixture of time-changes and loud roommates, I was up by 6.30 this
morning and ready to go by, when Abbie and I had agreed not to meet until 9.00-
so I had some time to kill. After a nice breakfast here at the hostel, we’ll be
off on a walking tour this morning and then this afternoon, we’ll be meeting up
with some of Abbie’s friends who study in Scotland.
Rest of Day 1- We left and went on our free walking tour put
on by Sandemans New Europe Tour Group. If you ever happen to be in a major city
and they offer one of these tours- take it! It’s a free tour but the guides
accept tips, so in other words to make sure they get some money, they work
really hard to make the tour good, so you will give them tips! Our tour guide
was really great and showed us around to many major spots in Edinburgh- like
St. Guile’s Cathedral, Greyfriar’s Bobby and churchyard (where JK Rowling got
many names for her characters) the Elephant House (where JK first started writing
Harry Potter on napkins), the Castle, and many other buildings and places in
between- including one a heart in the pavestone along the Royal Mile where you
should never walk through unless you want a shoe full of spit- because it’s a
tradition to spit there.
After the tour we joined some other people from the tour
group and went and got some haggis to eat. Haggis is a traditional Scottish
meal which is made by boiling a bunch of the unwanted cuts of sheep (heart,
liver, brain, etc.) in a sheep’s stomach with a bunch of herbs and spices. This
meat is then put over turnips and mashed potatoes. However since Scotland joined
the EU they have to abide by their standards for food preparation, aka they are
not legally allowed to make traditional haggis anymore. So now a days haggis is
still made from the lesser cuts of sheep (like liver) but it can’t be prepared
in the stomach. So that’s what we ate, and to be honest it didn’t taste half
bad.
Afterwards, we joined two of our new friends- Torben and
Sascha- two guys studying in England, but are originally from Germany- and
headed over to the Scottish National Library to look around. Coolest thing
there- Dolly the sheep and the first cloned mammal. Then we parted ways and
Abbie and I went to meet up with one of her friends who is studying in Scotland
for some coffee. It was a quick visit and then we headed back to the hostel to
relax for a while. We ended up hanging out in one of the lobbies with some
other people staying at the hostel and listen to records- like actual old
school records on a record player. Later that night we then met up with another
one of Abbie’s friends in Scotland for a drink and we listened to some nice
live music. After her friend left, we stayed for a while and talked with some
old Scottish men which was really funny, because although we were speaking
English, I could barely understand a word they were saying to us… Finally we
ended the night by meeting up with our two new German friends for some drinks
and dancing.
Day 2- After a quick breakfast, we headed out for a cold and
windy day around Edinburgh. We first headed up the castle, which gave a really
nice view over the city. Unfortunately, we’re just a couple of poor college
kids and 15 pounds was way too much to spend to tour inside the castle, so we
just looked around outside and warmed up in the gift shop! Next we made our way
down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace- the place where the Queen stays when
she comes to visit. Eventually we wandered our way over to Prince’s Street and
did some shopping. Probably the worst decision we made our entire trip so far,
seeing as our bags are already completely stuffed and we cannot have more than
one bag as a carry on for any of our flights, as in even our purses have to fit
in our bags. Thank-you Ryanair. Looks like my pockets will be stuffed with the
couple of new pair of jeans I got!
We then headed up to get tickets for the Scotch Whiskey
Experience- the tour started at 5.10, which gave us a little over an hour to
fill our empty stomachs (seeing as we skipped lunch to shop). So we made our
way out and found a nice pub real close with some cheap food. We found a spot
and then made our way up to the bar to order some food. But we were then asked
for some ID and as we happily got out our licenses (this is still a fun thing
to do, being newly legal and everything) but sadly we were turned away because
the bar only accepted passports and UK driver’s licenses. So we made our way to
the next pub we found- took a quick look at the menu and then headed in to
place our order. Again we were turned away- they stopped selling food at 3. So
once again we were out searching and finally came upon a diner. We headed
upstairs and were given a seat right away. By this time, it was about 4.20, so
we had about 45 minutes till we needed to leave for the tour. Upon seating we
had our choices picked out in 3 minutes, but… our order wasn’t taken for
another 10 minutes…and our food didn’t come for another 20 minutes… leaving us
10 minutes to eat and run to the tour. I have never scarfed down a burger that
fast- I think I could have made it into Guinness Book of World Records.
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to eat my fries, so I literally grabbed a hand
full and we sprinted out of the restaurant to our tour- just making it in time
and munching our fries in the process.
The Scotch Whiskey Experience tour started with a short
‘ride’ around which taught us whiskey is made. To be honest don’t asked me,
because I was lost from the start of it. However, I do know that the longer it
ages the darker the color it will be. In Scotland there are 4 major different
types of whiskey- the Highlands (which has a vanilla flavor), the Lowlands (a
citrus flavor), Speyside (a banana flavor) and Islays (a smoky flavor).
However, after a nice taste test- I can tell you they all taste the same. We
even got to see the biggest whiskey collection in the world- over 3,400 bottles
of it!
From there we dropped our afternoon purchases off at the
hostel and then headed down for another, slightly freezing, tour of the city.
This time it was a night tour explaining all of Edinburgh’s creepy history-
including stories of vampirism, cannibalism, body snatchers, among many others.
My personal favorite was a couple who couldn’t afford making a living in the
city during the 16th century, so decided to move into a cave and prey
off of people passing by on the road. Not only would they steal their things
but they would also then eat the people. They had a bunch of child, who then
had child among themselves- So basically it was a whole giant incestuous cult
of cannibals- slightly disturbing.
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