When i arrived in edinburgh i met the sweetest canadian girl at the passport check. She had been studying in edinburgh for a year and we started talking and she waited for me to exchange money and helpled me catch the shuttle. Then she walked me all the way to my hostel to make sure i found it ok... Canadians are awesome! She was so, so nice and said she would have offered to take me and Michael out that night but it was her exam week. So sweet. It definitely made the travelling much easier and more enjoyable to have some hellp and someone cool to talk to.
I met up with michael at the hostel around 3. It was a really nice hostel! I dropped off my stuff and we went out to walk around the city. Our first stop was castle rock take away for lunch where i had a deep fried cheeseburger and a deep friend mars bar (yes, i am still alive) apparently deep fried mars bars are huge there and the girl from the airport recommended it. It was AMAZING!
After lunch we walked around the city more.. Its really cool and old. It reminded me alot of harry potter because it had tons of small alleys and passage ways and really old, dark buildings.. So cool. For dinner we went to Worlds End pub and i got haggis, neeps and tatties... About as scottish as is gets. It was surprisingly not bad, but i wasnt that hungry so i couldnt finish it. I probably wouldnt get it again by choice, but it definitely wasnt as bad as i thought (if you dont know what haggis is, look it up... Unless you plan on ever trying it :)
After dinner we went to a pub crawl Michael had found the night before. There is a company in europe called Sandeman's Tours. They lead FREE walking tours of major european cities (not in spain, though) and the tour guides operate on tips. There motto is that everyone should be able to get the most out of each city they visit without having to go broke..Its the greatest company of ever! They also sponsor pub crawls every night of the week for 10 pounds. They take you to 5 bards and a club and you get a free shot at every bar and huge discounts on drinks. We met up with 2 british kids michael met the day before.. They were really cool and funny. I also met a girl from towson on the tour! Small world.
The pub crawl was great! We went to so many fun and different bars. Some had live music, and one was a bar called frankenstein that looks like the inside of frankensteins laboratory. every hour a giant mechanical frankenstein dummy comes out of the ceiling.. So ideal. At one bar they set up a huge line of 25 jager bombs and had someone tap the shot glass like dominos... Awesome. There was a huge variety of people on the pub crawl. Some solo travellers, some younger people, a few older people, and one guy nameds Gatsby. At the beginning of the night this guy started talking to us and introduced himself as Gatsby (like.. The great) from oklahoma. I figured he just had some really ecclectic hippie parents and got stuck with an unfortunate name. He was wearing a blazer, tight jeans, and a neck scarf. I figured he was about 35 and he talked so proper and refined. We talked to him on and off all night until he randomly let it slip that his name is acutally andrew but he just called himself gatsby... And he was only 27. He was so wierd and gave us all some good laughs the entire night. At the end of the pub crawl i went back and passed out from exhaustion,, it had been a long day of traveling!
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| michael and I and some of the pub crawl kids |
Wednesday we did somelaundry at the hostel and met up with to of my USAC friends Ryan and Bobby. They were in edinburgh the same time and booked the same hostel as us. We all signed up to do of the free tours in the afternoon. If you go to europe it is a MUST to do one of these tours! Our tour guide was awesome, knew so much about edinburgh. On the three hour tour (!!!) he took us around the whole city, including the coffee shop, Elephant House, where jk rowling wrote the first 2 harry potter books. It was so cool!
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| Ryan and I in front of Elephant house |
We also went to the graveyard where jk rowling got the names for 3 of the characters (voldemort, prof mcgonagal, and prof moodie) it was so cool! The graveyard was called 'Greyfriars' and it was probably my favorite part of the tour.
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| "professor moodie's" grave |
The tourguide told us this cute story about Greyfriars Bobby. Bobby was a little black dog whos owner died. After they buried his owner, bobby sat by his grave the entire nextday. Dogs werent allowed in the cemetary so the next day the graveyard keeper put him outside and shut the gate. The next day, bobby came back in and sat by the grave again, and did the same for 14 years. After a while the public took notice of bobby and began taking c are of him. After a few years, bobby was granted the key to the city, which meant the people of the city were obligated to take care up him - feed him when hungry, pet him , etc. Bobby finally died and they un-consecrated a special part of the cemetary so bobby could be buried there (to be buried on consecrated ground, you had to be baptised, and bobby wasnt... Obviously) Now he is refererd to as Greyfriars Bobby- he has a special headstone where people leave sticks and treats for him, a pub named after him outside of the cemetary, and his own statue. It was my favorite story!
On a less adorable note, the tour guide also told us how one of the walls in the cemetary was made partially out of dead people. People from edinburgh discovereed thwt ashes were good for making mortar and decided to start using ashes from when people were burned at the stake (for being accused or witchcraft, or other crimes). Part of the cemetary walls, as well as many walls of the city are held together by peoples ashes... Talk about creepy!
We ended the tour in princes street gardens... A beautiful park in the city. We had perfect weather.. Bright blue skies so it was gorgeous!
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| edinburgh castle |
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| me, ryan and bobby |
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| michael and i! |
After the tour me, ryan and bobby went out for thai food near the hostel (yum) then we went out with michael to a bar called tron. They had a pretty good strawberry beer on tap that someone had recommended to us so we tried that. Then i stuck to cider for the rest of the night ... I had no idea it was so good and so cheap! The bar was awesome i wish we could have gone there again. They also played an interesting selection of music from oldschool bbmak to the white british boy-band remake of 'crossroads' by bonethugs. It definitely kept us entertained. We ended the night pretty early since michael and i had to get up early to leave for ireland!
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