Jinou and I hopped on the train from London
Kings Cross Station to begin our wonderful adventure to Edinburgh Saturday
morning at around 7am. The train ride was quite long, but the 4.5 hours goes by
quickly when you get to see the views of the sea and cliffs! They were AMAZING!
When we arrived at the train station, we
were very lost and confused… Who knew that there would be 5+ exits and several
levels to this train station!? But the first stop on the agenda was going to
the High Street Hostel to put down our bags. The hostel was definitely
different. Each room had a theme (rivers, capitals, local pubs, etc.) we got
placed in the insect room…This began to trigger come memories of my
accommodation in Ireland! And of course my bed was labelled Earwigs! We then
decided to head over to the castle to meet up with Jen, Mollie, Macie, Yulia,
and Sean. We went on to see a few bridges, monuments, cemeteries, and GREAT
views of the city. Since the weather was good and the sun was shining we
decided to take a hike up the hill to see a few more monuments that overlook
the city! I have to admit, I think it might have been the first rays of
sunshine I had seen all week.
After basking in the sun and taking in the
spectacular views, we wandered back into the city get some cupcakes at BiBi’s a
cute little bakery in the centre of town. We then decided to hurry and try to
make it to ‘The Whiskey Experience’ before the last tour of the scotch whiskey
distillery and whiskey tasting was done for the night. However, we were about
10 minutes too late, and decided to skip the tour and go straight for the
whiskey tasting. GREAT choice!
After a few single malts, we decided to get
ready for dinner and night out on the town. We went to Fields for a nice sit
down Scottish dinner since it was Valentine’s Day weekend and we were all
traveling! We didn’t finish sinner until after 11:30! Since it was already late
and we were already out and about, we decided to hit up Frankenstein’s! It was
a bar that was decorated like Halloween and there was supposed to be a special
appearance at midnight. Since Frankenstein was a no show, we decided to hop onto
a pub crawl and see what the night had in store for us! Little did we know that
the next stop for the pub crawl was the club around the corner and that you had
to have the wristbands to get into that club. Since we didn’t have wristbands,
we decided to go to the Aussie bar next door and jam out to The Fresh Prince of
Bel-Air!
Saturday morning we went for breakfast…I
ordered the Traditional Scottish Breakfast. It was my first experience with
Haggis (look it up) and I do have to say it is actually not all that bad! After
‘Breakie’ (Breakfast) we took the bus to the Gilmerton Coves just outside the
city. The coves were really cool! They had several different rooms and alcoves,
and no one know when or why they were really created. In the 1700s, a man was
found living there and with his family, he claims that he built the coves for
his family over the last 5 years, but there is no way he would be able do all
of this work on his own in that time frame. There is also evidence that it was
built hundreds of years before it was discovered because the markings on the
walls from the tools used to create the coves pre-dates the family living
there.
We then made our way back to the city where
we decided to hike up to Arthur's Seat, an inactive volcano right in the middle
of the City of Edinburgh. It was muddy and gross from the earlier rain, but the
views were phenomenal with the sun shining!
Macie, Yulia, Jinou, and I stopped at a pub
called The White Horse and ordered traditional Scottish food for dinner before
heading to catch the train! We ordered several different meals and ate buffet
style! Haggis, Stovies(beef and potatoes), and lamb shank! It was all VERY
tasty! We learned that in Haiti they play a game called ‘Oslet’ or
‘Knucklebones’ where they throw a rock up in the air and try to pick up the
bones that were on the ground before the rock falls to the ground. As Macie,
Yulia, and I are laughing about how this is def. a third world country game,
Jinou looked it up, and it is the Haitian equivalent of Jacks that we played in
the States.
But the adventure REALLY began when we
started out trek home. Jinou and I got on the earlier train with the rest of
the group so that we wouldn’t have to wait at the station for another hour.
When the guy came around to check tickets he was being EXTRA thorough… and he
asked us for the tickets that had the train times on them…we pretended we
didn’t know we were on the wrong train and we quickly began to gather all of
our things and BOLTED off the train at the next
stop. I sure didn’t have the £150 pounds he was going to charge us for
being on the wrong train! =/ So we spent an hour waiting in the
Carrick-Upon-Tweed train station until our correct train arrived. We finally got back to London around 11:30.
We made the last train from Kings Cross to Bank, but missed the last DLR for
the night! So we had no other choice but to go outside and wait for the bus! We
thought we had lucked out since the bus was due to arrive at the stop in 5
minutes… little did we know that the bus was running late, and we ended up
waiting there for 45 minutes. At this point we just gave up and called a cab.
And with my luck the bus got there at the same time as our cab! Needless to
say, I was seriously exhausted by time I finally made it home!
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