Part 2: Edinburgh, Scotland

Continuing our story...

Friday, September 19, 2008

The view of city centre from the hill that leads to the castle

The cannons in the castle

This day started off at 3:05 AM, when we woke up in order to have time to get ready and eat before we walked to the bus stop for the Air Coach bus that left at 4:30 (our flight was at 6:30... never again, never again will I do this). Mary had brought bread, peanut butter, and apples so that's what we ate (interesting eating that at 3:30 AM...). We walked down O'Connell Street to the bus stop and said goodbye to Dublin... I was sad that we were leaving because it was such a great time... I could have totally spent more time in the museums and libraries and also would have just loved to stay in Ireland to travel out to the country. But anyhow, we got to our bus stop about half an hour early - talk about time padding! About 5-10 minutes later, a taxi van pulled up and the driver asked if we wanted to get a ride with him for the same price as the bus. So we decided to do it because there seemed to be no reason not to. Oh man. This bald, earringed taxi driver was wild. He drove so fast and I think he almost ran red lights at least three times and almost rear-ended other vehicles, one of them being a bus, twice. It was really scary and I kind of thought we might die (meanwhile David is enjoying it as if it were a roller coaster)... but alas; we made it to the airport. We checked in, went to our gate, and just waited until we got to board. One funny thing about these Ryanair flights is that you have to get on and off the planes with a staircase, so it makes you feel Presidential. The flight was only about 50 minutes long, but for some reason we sat on the runway for half an hour before we took off. I slept for the whole flight. When we got to the airport in Edinburgh, Scotland, we needed to find a way to the city centre so that we could have something to do before we were allowed to check in at the hostel at 2. We were all so tired and crabby that this experience felt long and difficult. We couldn't seem to make sense of the bus routes because there wasn't one labeled "City Centre." So after much confusion, argumentativeness, map consultation, and bad ideas, we finally settled on an open return for this one coach that stopped right in the city centre. It took a little over half an hour to get to the city. The first thing we did when we got off the bus was walk up these hilly streets towards Edinburgh Castle. It was a tough walk, having had little sleep, but it was also quite refreshing. We got our first glimpse of downtown from a higher vantage point. It seemed very developed and bigger than Dublin, or at least, with bigger buildings... Or maybe they were just more numerous. This castle is a huge, stone building, or actually, several buildings surrounded and atop a wall. There were cannon replicas and a couple museums (we went into one). There were signs along the way that told about each spot. Really there was so much to see and we were running on so little sleep that I wonder how much of it we actually took in - or at least, how much I took in. The view of the city from up there was amazing. There was this monument with columns off in the distance that looked interesting and we decided we'd go see it the next day. There was a tall, spindly, slightly creepy black pointy tower that we were unsure of. Anyway, the castle was pretty cool, but I would have liked all the history and reading more if I had had more than 3 and a half hours of sleep. We saw the crown jewels which was pretty neat. Of course, nothing compared to any of the old manuscripts we saw at Chester Beatty, but it was still a neat experience.

Mmm... HAGGIS

At the bottom of the castle there was this cafe that gave free samples of haggis - it was called the Haggis Cafe. We tried it and it was SO good. It tasted familiar but I couldn't quite place it. We decided to eat there and I ordered the haggis neeps and tatties lunch. Neeps ended up being these cantaloupe-looking chunks of something that I later discovered were turnips. The tatties were like mashed potatoes and gravy, only different (okay, so that's not very helpful of a description, but I really don't know how else to describe it). Those were both just "okay" - not really good or really bad. The haggis was delicious, although admittedly overwhelming due to the fact that when we sampled it, it was a small portion spread over a small chunk of bread, and the meal was just a large amount of it piled on the plate next to the neeps and tatties. So, after lunch we walked around town trying to find the right bus stop to get to the hostel, according to their directions. The city bus was supposed to leave from Hanover Street but we couldn't figure out where or something (it seems like a dumb reason now), so we just chose the other of the three optional methods of transport - the shuttle. The Globetrotter Inn (our hostel) has its own shuttle that runs between the city and the hostel. We had to wait for almost 40 minutes because it only arrives and leaves on the hour. This hostel was big... And far from the city centre, about half an hour northwest. It was right by the river (not sure which one). Our room was a lot nicer than the one in Dublin... There were little lights inside each bunk and curtains that went in front of the opening for more privacy. Mary and I took a shower (which was a better move compared to taking on at the Dublin hostel - which we didn't do - because that one only had two showers on the floor we were on and the doors were nearly clear.) and the rest of our group started their nap. We took a much-needed nap as well. We were only planning on sleeping until 5:30 but ended up resting for an extra hour because we were so tired. We needed this for sure. Hahaha.

Waiting for the shuttle to our hostel

Stealth shot of the dad teaching his daughter to ride a bike by the river

The river behind our hostel

We walked down behind the hostel to the river. It was so pretty with the clouds and everything. These 5 young girls, probably in middle school, said hi to us as we went down the back steps and said they loved Americans, and they came down to the river with us for a few minutes. We just chatted about where we were from. It was funny how they'd heard of Alaska (David), Texas (Mary), and California (me), but not Colorado (Holly) or North Carolina (Chris) (and it was also funny that I just realized then that each of us was from a different state). They said that Edinburgh was boring and we just laughed and figured that they were just so used to it that they took it for granted. We walked along the pathway along the river for about half an hour. There were a lot people with their dogs. There was even one man with his dog in the shallows. We saw this person with a whole group of dogs up on the hill. We also saw this man and a girl we assumed was his daughter teaching her to ride a bike with training wheels. We thought she might have been adopted from another country because of how he was talking to her; she seemed a little old for the tone of loving simple instruction he gave her. We were walking down to this little village of Cramond where the desk worker at the hostel said there was a good pub. We got there and checked the prices, but it was like £9 and that was quite a bit more than were willing to spend for a meal. So we kept walking until we got to a bus stop at the beginning of the street we were on and asked a woman where the nearest restaurants were. She told us a mile either way, so we kept going to the left. We walked and walked and walked... We were getting nowhere and it was dark and we didn't know where we were (fortunately we knew how to get back to where we were... But we needed food for dinner). We kept going, sometimes with the aid of the street lights and sometimes not... Because there were portions of the road without them. We passed this field with sheep. It was funny because they stared at us as we passed. Some even stood up attentively at our sudden appearance. We walked more after this until we got to this little town. We found the only open eater, a take-away fast food place with fish, chips, pasta, pizza, and savory pies and decided to get food from there. We ate it on a bench across the street from a random Blockbuster... The bench surprisingly fit all 5 of us on it. We ate and talked about stuff like the teenagers that began to pop out of nowhere and this was like 9:30 PM already. They're intimidating! I think it's because of how snobby they seem, and also the reputation the UK has with underage drinking... Plus, they usually seem a bit obnoxious. Anyway, we knew there had to be a faster way to get back to the hostel rather than to retrace our hour-long journey, but we didn't know how. We figured that since we basically did a huge sideways U-turn to get to that town, we could just cut through the U on a street. David and Holly went into the Blockbuster to ask if they knew and they didn't really and just told us to go basically the same way we'd come. We looked for the 42 bus that we know goes to the hostel but it didn't have a stop near us. So... We walked back the way we came! Yup, it took about an hour again. Actually, the first time it might have taken a little longer than an hour because we were walking slower. We just went to bed when we got back to the hostel. We were pretty excited that our hostel was a little bit in the more nature-y side of Edinburgh, even though it was inconveniently far from the city centre. But it kind of eliminated a journey out into the country that we wanted to make, which was good, financially.

The sheep that stared us down as we walked by their field

So... I'll post the end of the journey either tonight or tomorrow before we leave for Spain...
:)