That's right. I've found it. I want to grow old in Edinburgh, Scotland. After spending 4 days I have realized a few things about Scotland.
1) The people are SO NICE. Honestly, just like Dublin everyone is extremely friendly. I only had a few encounters with creepers, but that's bound to happen anywhere. The majority of the people that I talked to were so nice, and just really easy to talk to.
2) It is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. Edinburgh is such a unique city in that it isn't overwhelming and huge like London, but it isn't so small where you have absolutely nothing to do. Honestly, it is the perfect size. You can walk everywhere, and take in the beautiful scenery. The city is split into the new town and old town..So you have the historic sights from the old town and then the residential new town.
3) Whiskey is gross. Jk (the girl that I traveled with) and I toured a Whiskey Distillery, and it was probably the nastiest thing I have ever tried. It honestly burned my throat, and we didn't enjoy it at all.
4) It is the birthplace of Harry Potter! in Edinburgh is a cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two books..and get this..THE NAME OF THE CAFE IS THE ELEPHANT HOUSE. Honestly, it's as if I was meant to go there. There were Elephants everywhere..all over the walls, it was stenciled in the bathrooms..it was just the perfect place for me. Also, there is a cemetery right next to it where J.K. would apparently go for walks to clear her head..what came from these walks? Various names for her book. We found Thomas Riddle's grave, as well as McGonagal. It was definitely a Harry Potter weekend.
5) The Edinburgh Castle, although gorgeous, is not worth the 13 pounds to go inside. If you're ever in Edinburgh, unless you don't have to pay for it I would not recommend going into the castle. It is not really worth the money, and you can see enough of it from the outside.
In case you couldn't tell, I absolutely loved Scotland. It was such a stress free weekend, and I think a large part of that was because I was only traveling with one other person, which meant that we could just kind of do whatever we wanted every day..We didn't have a set schedule so we just kind of did whatever we felt like. One funny thing about the city was that it kind of went dead after like..7 PM.. The streets were EMPTY until about 11 when all the pubs would start to get lively again, but even that was limited. The two times we went out we ended up having a lot of fun, but I think it was because we were able to meet a lot of locals. The hostel we stayed at was in a good location as well, because it wasn't in the middle of everything, but it was about a 10 minute walk from everything. Our roommates however, were not as ideal as our hostel. We were rooming with 4 people from Spain, and they decided that it would be a really good idea to have a full out conversation in Spanish at 8 AM!! It was AWESOME!!! We also did another free walking tour, and unlike our guide for Dublin, the one we had this time was really great. She was very energetic and informative, and put a lot of life into her stories. We learned about the "Stone of Destiny," which is a stone that is said to give a successful reign to wherever it lies. It went back and forth between Scotland and England, because the English stole it, and it was just recently in 1996 given back to Scotland because the guy who ran against Tony Blair was trying to get the Scot's votes..didn't work so much for the guy who ran, but Scotland now has the stone back, and it sits next to the crowned jewels, which are cool but not as cool as the ones in the Tower of London. We also did a day tour, which took us to Loch Lomond, Stirling Castle, Doune Castle (where Monthy Python and the Holy Grail was filmed) and other stops along the way. Loch Lomand is the biggest Loch in all of Scotland. We didn't go to Lochness to try and find Nessie, but rumor has it that it is just a huge tourist trap, and not really worth it..so we ended up doing the other tour instead, and although our tour guide talked wayyyy too much, it was worth it. We also saw Alice in Wonderland, which was really good. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it. I hadn't seen a movie since seeing Leap Year with the fam the day before I left, so it was definitely a great change of pace.
Needless to say, it was a great weekend, and we didn't get rained on (which apparently is rare for Scotland). It was gorgeous and sunny out, and absolutely incredible. If you haven't been there, you should go, but don't eat Haggis...it's gross..I did try it to keep up my end of a deal I made, but I really didn't enjoy it..It's a traditional Scottish dish, and here's the Wikipedia definition.."Haggis is a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours." Lets just say I was glad we didn't order it as our main meal, and had other food to eat.
Until next time, I'm curious to see what you guys think...Austria or Morocco??
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