Late Thursday night my journey to Scotland began. I boarded a coach with Bailey and Chelsea at 11PM and we started off for Edinburgh. For some reason I thought that taking an overnight coach would be a good idea. The truth is that I sleep extremely poorly on a coach and then I have to face the rest of the day when I arrive at my destination.
Part of the Castle
We called it Mini Big Ben.
Just before 8 AM we arrived at our final destination. We walked to our hostel, Castle Rock, to drop off our bags before hitting the town. We stopped into a little café for breakfast and to plan out our day.
I found out right away that my camera battery was five photos away from dying. This was a huge blow. Edinburgh is a beautiful city with a very distinct feel. There’s the city center at old Edinburgh, full of Victorian style buildings, and new Edinburgh, which is more modern and suburban. I was shocked to discover that Edinburgh is about the same size as Des Moines. It felt to regal to be comparable in anyway to my humble home.
We first walked down the Royal mile from Edinburgh castle towards Holyrood Palace, which is the official residence of her Majesty the Queen in Scotland. The palace is probably the smallest that I have seen so far, and it is situated across the road from the new Scottish Parliament building, which is rather ugly if you ask me.
The Mound we climbed.
Next to the palace there is Holyrood park and a huge mound. Having nothing better to do, we decided to climb it for some exercise and a view of the city. It was a steep and difficult climb but it felt good to make it to the top. We got an excellent view of the city from there. My picture camera was dead, but I did get some panoramic video shots that I will try and share.
View of the city. The castle is on the left, raised above everything else.
From the mound we walked back to have lunch and embark on a free walking tour of the city. It had been overcast all day, but for the first time it had begun to rain. Not heavily, but just enough to make the cold stick. Luckily we had a very attractive tour guide named Andy to entertain us in the dreadful weather. We learned a lot about the city. We saw the place where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, the inspiration for Hogwarts and heard the story of the Stone of Destiny. Though probably the best part of the tour came while we were in Greyfriar’s Kirk. We explored the cemetery and came to the most famous grave where we heard the story of Greyfriar’s Bobby. Bobby was a little dog who came and lay by his master’s grave everyday for 14 years after his death. To this day people come and leave gifts for the world’s most loyal dog. As Andy told us this story a black dog came up, sniffed the grave, picked up a goofy doll and began to play. A few moments later the dog’s master appeared and became very angry at his pup and yelled, “You don’t take Bobby’s teddy bear!” He was so serious it was just so ridiculous that we all had to laugh.
Here's Andy, even though his name tag says Russell. Gorgeous right?
The middle window is where JK Rowling sat as she began writing Harry Potter.
After the tour we checked into our hostel. It is apparently ranked as the number fifth best hostel in the whole world. That was comforting. After getting settled in we went for a tradition Scottish meal. I got Haggis, tatties and neeps; or in American English we would say Haggis, mash potatoes and mashed turnips. For those of you who don’t know anything about haggis, I will tell you. To make the original dish you take the unused meat of lamb (heart, brain, intestine, etc.), mincing it, adding spices, stuffing it into a sheep’s stomach and boiling it. Now it is not quite so crudely made and used good cuts of meat. I quite enjoyed it. It wasn’t incredibly flavorful, but salt helps that.
After dinner we headed back to the hostel and made an early night. We had a big day tour the next day and we wanted to be ready for it.
My next post will be of our day trip through Scotland.
Pip Pip Cheerio!
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