Advertisement
Published: March 1st 2008
Edit Blog Post
I can't believe it's already March! But what a great way to start a new month! Nick, Kathy, Harriet, and I went into Edinburgh this morning around 11:00. My flatmate seems to have disappeared, so we didn't have our own personal tour guide, but we did a great job managing on our own.
The train was great- got us there in under and hour and was pretty cheap- £6.50 one way. When we got there, we looked around a little bit and bought a map. We figured out where we were starting from, marked it on the map, and then stuffed the map into a bag and just started walking around. As we walked around, we saw some impressive monuments, especially the Sir Walter Scott Monument which seemed to have a lot of Gothic influence. It was gorgeous. The four of us looked like quite the tourists as we all whipped out our cameras to take some pictures. We even found a bagpiper to take pictures with. He asked me where I was from, and when I told him Texas, he said, "Aye, one of the bigger states" and began to play Deep in the Heart of Texas. How many
Scots can you find that know that one?? I was really impressed!
We found some great side street restaurants too and ended up choosing an Italian one called Bar Valida (I think). Since we're students, the £5 three course lunch special looked especially appetizing. Nick got his veal parm he had been craving and the rest of us got lasagne. It was really good!
After that we walked around some more and tried to find our way to the castle. We got there without a problem, but we must have taken the steepest path with the most stairs possible. We saw some other tourists on our way down trying to get a stroller all the way up there, and the baby was essentially upside down in the thing.
On our way up we met a guy dressed as William Wallace from Braveheart. He actually looked quite a bit like Mel Gibson (which would probably bother a lot of Scots). He was a really friendly guy and took pictures with Nick and Harriet and even let them hold swords.
After that we headed up to the castle, and although we didn't go in, the view from the
royal british hotel
right outside the train station top was great. Everything looked like it belong on a postcard. It was beautiful! And we lucked out and had some great weather too for the majority of the day. After we'd taken in the scenery, we went to the Tartan Weaving Mill & Exhibit which is right down the hill from Edinburgh Castle. We got to see how they make wool, and they even had a place where you could dress up and take pictures in traditional Scottish stuff.
After that we stopped at a pub to take a little bit of a break. Not as good as the Wallace pub in Stirling, but still good. I had a Fia Lait (sp?). It was a pretty dark beer with a strong honey taste- not really my thing lol, but worth a shot. When we were rested up, we headed over to H&M to do a little perusing. Nick escaped to Starbucks while we were there. We met up with two other friends from Stirling and went to dinner.
While we were at dinner, we all tried haggis. I was really proud of all of us! After hearing all the horror stories about how it's made, we all
gave it a shot. Kathy even liked it! It kind of has a paste like quality to it, but other than that it just tastes like hamburger basically. We had haggis fritters though, so it was fried and may have changed the taste somewhat. I wouldn't order it for a meal unless I was starving myself, but it was decent enough.
After dinner, we were all pretty beat, so we headed to the train station. Slept on the train and am now ready to wake up and get some school work done tomorrow. I really had a great time and was reminded of why I've wanted to study abroad for so long today. There isn't anywhere in the US that I could be emmersed in such a culture with such beautiful surroundings. Nick said the other day that he knows he's changing as a person, but he just doesn't know how- it's true. We're all changing. Our eyes are so much brighter, our minds so much wider now. All of that talk about "studying abroad is a life changing experience"... well, it's true.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.186s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 52; dbt: 0.1473s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sheila
non-member comment
Super time you are having
Looks like you are having an awesome time and getting to see some of the country side. Europe is so beautiful and so much history over there. Enjoy your weekends looking around and of course do a little school work. We miss you a lot around here but nice to see you are enjoying your semester. I saw a bunch of Kathy's pictures also that she set up. Enjoy and can't wait to see both of you. Love Sheila