Edinburgh, Scotland!

I have been a terrible blogger! My life for the past few months have been crazy! My regular routine was work and class from 9am - 9pm Monday thru Wednesday then traveling Thursday-Sunday...that left very little time for blogging! Anyways, now I am done with most of my traveling so I will be catching up on my posts as frequently as I can, in between homework assignments that is. (Don´t worry Dad, I didn´t forget that I´m still at BU and I have sold my soul to its financial department =P).

Now where did I leave off?.....EDINBURGH!

That weekend was originally scheduled for me to go visit my friend Katie in Wales, where she is studying abroad. However, after some debate, we decided we would rather go someplace new and obscure...when in Europe right? I picked Prague so it was Katie´s turn to pick somewhere and her choice was Edinburgh Scotland!

Now I knew VERY little of Scotland or what there was to do so I worked a deal with Katie that I would organize Prague and she would organize Scotland. Thank-god for that!

We met each other later in the evening at the airport and took a double decker bus into the city center. This was my first time on this vacation being in a double decker vehicle and driving on the wrong side of the road! As we drive through the city I start to see castles everywhere! In case you didn´t know (just like me) Scotland is FILLED with castles.

From the bus we asked the driver for directions. One major hill and star buck later we found our hostel. As a fore note, everyone in Scotland is EXTREMELY nice! They are hilarious and so friendly. By far the nicest people I have encountered in Europe. At the hostel we were given a restaurant recommendation and offered a free tour of the city by a hostel employee in the morning.

The next morning we woke up early for the tour (after breakfast at Starbucks of course). Our tour guide was a 22 year old Canadian girl who decided to work in Europe for a while before going to college. She was very nice and showed us all the coolest places, like where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone, the cemetery that inspired most if the character´s names, the school that was the basis for Hogwarts, the heart on the sidewalk that was the old location for British tax collection that to this day no Scottish person steps on (we actually watched a Scottish man jump as he realized he was about to step on it the minute she finished telling us the story), as well as the reason Glasgow citizens say they can smell Edinburgh all the way up north. Her tour definitely provided me with a little intro to Scottish history.

After the tour we ate dinner and decided to hit up Edinburgh Castle. (We only walked by it on the tour) On our way there I spotted a store called "The Scottish Whiskey Experience". We stopped in and realized it was an informational tour and testing of Scottish Whiskey! Clearly we fit this into our schedule =) After two hours in the castle, including a free guided tour with our entrance fee (yes dad I know it´s not free if you pay for something, similar to Kohl´s discounts), we headed over for our whiskey! Our tour guide was cute and the bachelor party behind us was rather amusing to watch. Although I loved learning about how whiskey is made and how it varies from region to region, I did not like whiskey. In fact I hated it. I tried Oban and I honestly don´t know how people drink it. To each their own I guess. We did get to keep the glasses though and, unlike my companion, I managed to finish my sample. It was not easy.

That night we went and saw Alice in Wonderland during its opening weekend. I told Katie before we arrived that I needed to see the movie in English when I had the opportunity! I had been waiting to see it for months and refused to see it in Spanish when I might not understand it all! Before the show we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant, my first real pasta dinner since I left home in January. I was extremely excited! We walked across the street to the movie theatre after our meal only to find out that we had purchased tickets for a different location of the same movie theatre chain. Turns out our tickets were for a theatre in the Roxbury of Edinburgh...go figure. We rushed out of the theatre and hailed a cab. Shocked by our destination, the driver continued to joke with us the entire 15 minute ride there about the questionability of the city and how we could have possibly ended up there. Needless to say we called a cab for our ride home and waited inside the theatre until it arrived.

The next day Katie had scheduled us a daylong 8 am - 8pm tour of the Scottish Highlands. We drove through the beautiful countryside slowly making our way to Lochness. We made pit stops along the way where we met Hamish, the highlands cow, took millions of photos, and learned about the Lochness monster. At Lochness we were able to leave the bus and take a boat ride across the lake (Lochness = North Lake). Although it was a rather long day on a bus, the sights were beautiful and I felt as though I was able to see the real Scotland. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to visit Scotland!

That morning at 4 am I walked to the bus stop and rode to the airport for my flight back to Madrid. I was amazed by how many drunken people were still out and about at such an hour! There were cops everywhere luckily so I felt safe walking to the bus stop.

I am currently at school so I don´t have access to my photos, but I will edit the post with photos once I get back to my room =)