Edinburgh Weekend

So last Friday I decided that before school started and I actually had a schedule I would get in at least one fun trip to Edinburgh.  I booked a cheap hostel really close to the train station and fairly close to the Royal mile that night.  Since I had never been in a hostel before, I was a little worried, especially since I was trying to do my trip on the cheap and my 10 pound a night room had 9 roommates to go with it, and it was in partnership with the bar below it named Belushi's (as in John Belushi).  The train station was no hassle thankfully, and a trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh is only 10 pounds and the ticket is good for anytime of the day since a train leaves every 15 minutes.  

After about a 50 minute train ride I was in Edinburgh, which is breathtaking as you exit the train station which divides old town and new town.  I saw my bar/hostel as I was walking up the street but couldn't check in till 3 so I had to lug my big backpack around for most of the day.  I decided to first look for the this French chocolate cafe that one of my guidebooks had mentioned, but since it was an older edition, the restaurant was no longer there :(.  I found another small cafe down on the lower part of the Royal Mile close to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is where the Queen stays when she comes to Edinburgh.  Next I wandered up the Royal Mile and found this tour that I had read about before coming to Scotland.  It's a tour of Mary King's Close, which is now partially underground because a few hundred years ago, instead of expanding outwards, the city destroyed the tops of the 9-12 story buildings of Edinburgh, which where separated by closes named after the richest people who lived there or the types of businesses that inhabited those spaces (Advocate's Close was where lawyers worked), and placed new buildings on top of those sturdy stone homes using them as foundations.  So this tour is lead by people in costumes representing the people who actually lived and worked in this particular close and they tell their history as well as have cheesy wooden manequins in some of the rooms where murders took place and the plague struck.  I thought it was really neat, especially the plague information since it wiped out like half of Edinburgh's population and was particularly gruesome.  It was also the origination of the word "quack" for a doctor, because one man who lived in the close and was a doctor and survived the plague for 14 years after the rest of his family was killed off wore this crazy duck billed type of mask and heavy rain gear when he treated his family so as not to take in the bad smells, and thus "quack" was born.  I also learned that people back then just threw their excrement out the windows, which ran along the closes into the Nor Loch that was where the Botanical Gardens now are in Edinburgh.  The people could only do this, though, 2 times a day, in the morning and at 10 at night, which was also when the bars closed up, so if you happened to be wandering home and you heard someone shout, "garde a l'eau" which was French for "throwing out the water" and you accidently looked up (as drunk people are want to do) then you would have a very nasty surprise and thus the term "shitfaced" was invented.

After my dark tour of the underground, I went up to the top of the mile and saw the castle in all its glory, but did not take the tour inside because I'm cheap and it was 12 pounds.  I also took a look around the Whisky Experience where they do a big tour and go through the process of making whisky and have a HUGE shop of pretty much every type of whisky made in Scotland.  I was pretty tired and sore by this point so I decided to head back to the hostel to check in.  It was about everything you could expect and was essentially a party hostel, but my room, though it had 10 people, was on the 4th floor so it was relatively quiet.  I was sharing it with a group of Australian guys who have been traveling the world for the past couple of months or so and they were pretty funny and had some great stories involving getting lost after a pub crawl in Madrid amid many other mishaps and adventures.  I went down to the bar later that night and was just hanging out since I got a discount for drinks since I was staying there.  I got to talking to a Swedish girl who was staying there and who had been traveling around Europe for a while.  We decided to head to a different bar and found one close by called Tron.  The place reminded me of somebody's den back home, because there was a downstairs that had worn, comfy couches and a pool table and I totally felt like I was at somebody's house party (where they happened to charge for drinks and had a fully stocked bar).  We met one very funny drunk Scottish guy who when we asked for his name, he held up his finger and went, "wait" and then proceeded to lift up the back of his shirt where he had the name Grant tattooed on his back.  We then asked where he was from and this time he lifted up his shirt sleeve where a map of Edinburgh was tattooed and we decided he was probably one of the best things we had seen of Edinburgh so far.

Saturday I heard about a free walking tour that started near the Starbucks on the Royal Mile so I decided I would go do that.  After getting my drink (which was increased by one size for free if you told them you were on the tour) I went outside and stood around with the super large group of people.  I started talking to another guy shivering in the really aggressive Edinburgh wind who had unfortunately not heard about the upgrade before ordering.  I found out his name was Paul and was from Toronto and after talking to him for a while decided that he was exactly like my friend Colin in pretty much every way, which was kind of spooky.  I had a really good time on the tour and learned a ton about Edinburgh (those Scots came up with a bunch of common phrases) and its sometimes bloody, irrational past (redheads got totally screwed, as most of them were thought to be witches-the Nor Loch where all the sewage went was part of their punishment, let me just say that much).  Paul and I mostly noted the odd stuff we had found in Edinburgh (there are tons of Australians there) and Scots in general since we both had a North American perspective.  As a sidenote, he also saw that there were inflatable sheep for sale in restroom bathrooms which I personally do not want to know the reason why they are there.  We learned that there was a pub crawl also hosted by the same company later that night and decided to do that as well.  We separated for dinner and I went back to the hostel to get some rest in because I was fairly exhausted.  At 8 we met for the pub crawl, which was a pretty good deal:10 pounds got us a free drink at the first pub, then discounts on drinks at the 4 next pubs the rest of the night, and free entry into a club at the end where we also did not have to wait in line.  Needless to say I had a very good time and got to see a group of different Edinburgh spots, which was cool because some had live music, some had DJs, and each place had its own unique character.  The leader was really energetic and fun and I had my first whisky (it was terrible by the way, though it was a blended Famous Grousse, so I don't know if it's just an acquired taste or if that was bad whisky or if it was a combination of both).  The next morning I had to check out by 10 so I had breakfast and then caught a train and got back safe and sound.  I took a nap and then had a dinner with the Prof whose leading the trip, her family, and the handful of people in my group who are now in Glasgow.  Sorry that was so long folks, but it was an eventful weekend.  

Here's the link to my Edinburgh pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/schoolgirlbyday/Edinburgh#

Buff Nights and Lazy Days

So I will try to remember the past couple of days, since I really should be writing these daily since I tend to forget stuff.  Let me see, Roxie and I decided to show Caitlin around the West End a little bit and take her to some museums and Dumbarton Street.  We got coffee and then went to the Kelvingrove museum, which is another hodgepodge sort of museum that has natural history stuff as well as art.  We made it to the natural history section that had a lot of random stuffed animals, including an elephant that had been at a Scottish zoo about 100 years ago that they shot because he maimed his caretaker when he was in heat.  He looks a little worse for wear now, and most of that section was just kind of depressing since most of the animals that were from Scotland are now extinct because so much of their natural habitats were destroyed.  Then we went to the Harry Benson exhibit.  He's a Glaswegian photographer that shot the Beatles as they were getting famous and then went on to to shoot lots of famous actors, politicians, and famous scenes around Glasgow.  I definitely recommend checking him out since he's now up there with Annie Leibovitz in terms of cool photographers in my opinion.

We decided to save the other wings of the museum for another day (since it's free) and wandered down Dumbarton and Ashton Lane.  We stopped for lunch and I finally had my first fish and chips here, which was quite delightful.  We decided to pretty much head back after that because we were weighed down with shopping bags.  Then last night Caitlin's friend Chris, a University of Glasgow student who studied at LC two years ago called her because he was in town and Caitlin and I joined him and his friend Karen for a night out.  We went to a bar first called the Bunker, which was aptly named because it was literally in the basement of a building, although it was very nice and posh, so not a basement like you're probably thinking.  After our drinks and lively discussion over the way each culture spells words wrong, we headed over to the Buff nightclub which was very cool because it had a cheap cover for students, yay!  There is a typical room upstairs with your basic crappy techno, but downstairs there was a great room that played cool 60's music like the Beatles and other various pop, Elvis, Johnny Cash, some soul, and some seriously old school twangy country.  We had a great time actually being able to dance and do the twist into the wee hours of the morning.

Today I've just been laying low.  I did laundry (for free! the machines for our complex are totally free!) and watching the Office while it rains outside.  We had a fajita making party tonight which was very enjoyable.  Not sure what plans are for tomorrow, but I will at least try to venture outside and stop slacking :)

Thrift Stores and Lebowski's

So today was a really good day folks. I met up with Roxie this afternoon and we ventured over to the University to see about our starter kits of cookware and perhaps getting Roxie into her room and out of the various hostels she's been staying at. Once we got that settled (she's now in the room next to mine so living is a little less lonely) we decided to go on a thrift store adventure. We found some amazing finds: she got a great pea coat for 5 pounds, we both got awesome clothes at the 99 pence thrift store, I got this kick ass sequinsy skirt, and we both got really cheap hangers. We then had lunch at a little cafe and headed back to the dorms. We then went grocery shopping and through our collective budgeting skills managed to get a few cheap dinner options for the next few days and enough sandwich material to last a long while.
After dinner, Caitlin arrived. She's been in London for a while and is now moved into the dorm next to ours. We decided that since she was hungry and we were ready to finally hit the pub scene we would go out. We ended up at Lebowski's, which the best way to describe is simply epic. Roxie and I of course had white russians and as it turns out, there are about 10 different white russian varieties at the bar, with names like "the Dude," "the Walter," and "the Saddam." Since I love the movie and of course am a patriotic American, it is my goal to try every white russian variation while I am here (not in one night mom and dad). We then finished off with Guinness and Tennets and have plans to hit up the museums and clubs tomorrow. With a few more people here now, I think the next week or so will be an amazing whirlwind of Scottish life.