Edinburgh

Last weekend was my trip to Edinburgh and it was pretty fantastic. We left very early Friday morning and had a great train ride through the English country side made even more beautiful because the sun was just starting to come up. It reminded me quite a lot of Pride and Prejudice! I think traveling by train is really my favorite way to get from Point A to Point B.
Once Michelle and I arrived in Edinburgh we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do first. We were supposed to meet a friend of Michelle's there, but had difficulty getting in contact with her. Plus we were hungry, not having eaten breakfast, but for some reason, couldn't seem to find any place to eat! (The first breakfast place we did find, we couldn't find the door!) We did eventually settle and had some breakfast. I had a bacon sandwich (they seem to like those here) and probably the fanciest hot chocolate I've ever had in my life. It was hot milk and then you're given liquid chocolate separately to pour in and stir. It tastes as good as it sounds.

After our bellies were full, we wandered around a little and stopped in a Scottish Historical Society building to ask for directions to Edinburgh Castle. The old man who was sitting at the front desk was so excited to talk to us, he told us the entire history of Mary Queen of Scots as well as a dozen and a half other places we should check out while in Edinburgh.



After being given excellent directions, Michelle and I wandered over to Edinburgh castle though first we popped into The Writer's Museum which had displays for Robert Louis Stevenson and... two other writers whose names I didn't recognize! They had an old fashioned printing press on display which was very cool to see, but I'm very glad we've moved a bit beyond that now. The Writer's Museum also had these really funny stairs that were of different heights. Apparently back in the day people would have stairs installed that were of differing heights and sizes so that if someone broke into the house, but was unfamiliar with the layout they would stumble on the stairs and alert the people inside there was an intruder.



We did eventually make it to Edinburgh Castle. I've only seen two castles before (one in Osaka and the other right here in Lancaster) but had not yet been inside anyway, so this was a pretty new experience for me. The castle is set up on what was once a volcano and looks out over all of Edinburgh.



There were lots of little nooks and crannies inside to explore: the old prisons, the dog cemetery, the great hall, St. Margaret's chapel, etc. I also had my first ginger beer at the cafe there. It was possibly the strangest thing I've ever consumed. It was like drinking a liquid ginger snap cookie!

One thing I thought was really quite fascinating was one of the wooden prison doors that was saved. It was the door to where they kept the American prisoners of war during the Revolutionary War and I noticed that there was a carving of the American flag on the door:



We spent most of the afternoon in the castle, but left around 5pm to meet up with Michelle's friend outside of St. John's Church (which was very, very beautiful inside by the way). We hung out very briefly, because Michelle and I had to find out hostel and check in. Our hostel wasn't the greatest place ever (they didn't have toilet paper for some reason!), but at least the beds were comfortable and I slept very well.

The next day we were off in search of The Elephant Room, which is the restaurant where JK Rowling penned the first couple of Harry Potter books. (Yes, I'm that sort of nerd.) Happily, it didn't take us long to find it at all. We had lunch there and spent most of it gazing around the place and wondering which table Rowling sat at.



We planned to go see the palace as well that day, but unfortunately there was a big protest going on so the street to get to the palace was blocked. Watching the protest was a little nerve-wracking, because what (or rather who) was being spoken out against were immigrants and people from other countries. I saw signs that said things like 'No to Internationalism' and other not so comfortable slogans. It left a bad taste in my mouth, but happily there was another protest to protest the protesters and their signs said things like 'Say No to Xenophobia'. Even the statues got in on the action:



Right when things really seemed to start getting crazy, it was time to catch our train back to Lancaster. With all the policemen every where it felt like we were in one of those disaster or apocalypse movies where the protagonist has to try to escape the city even though everything's blocked off. After nearly missing our train and for some strange reason having to take two buses back as well, we finally made it back to Lancaster.



And that was Edinburgh! This weekend we're going to Stonehenge and Bath and I couldn't be more excited since I haven't gotten to see too much of England yet except for Lancaster.