Whoa so, I have so much to say about scotland and I don't really know where to begin. I suppose the beginning would be a good a place as any. We took a 9.5 hour bus ride on megabus, which is not just a bus, bus a budjet bus. the seats were uncomfortable even when you weren't trying to sleep. they didn't recline or have footrests, and the headrests seemed more like head antirests. also, the driver was a total jerk. but the scenery saved it, as usual. the UK is really such a beautiful place. there are wildflowers blooming right now, lots of lambs, and entire quadrangle fields of the brightest possible yellow, which I found out is rape seed, not mustard. The bus stopped in sheffield and newcastle. in sheffield all I saw was a shopping mall, but we went right into the city center of newcastle and I got a small glimpse of life in the north, which seems pretty similar to life in the south, only with a lot of questionable fashion choices and bad teeth. they really do seem to be a bit less... refined, shall we say? But maybe I am biased now. anyway I saw it as a good thing, and felt at ease there. Sometimes it's nice not to be constantly surrounded by ambitious, attractive, rich people. As we drove further north the landscape got a little bit wilder and more jagged, and the ocean appeared on our right side. we passed a pub with a sign advertising it as "the first and last public house in england," and a few minutes later we crossed the border into scotland, which is like a border between two states--just a sign, with no barriers or ID checks of any kind.
After being in Edinburgh for about 5 minutes I had decided it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. The afternoon sun was reflecting on the buildings, making them look all golden and sparkly, you could see the ocean off in the distance, and every single building in sight was medieval and spiky looking, including, sure enough, the castle that sits on top of a huge volcanic rock, bang in the middle of the city. we found our hostel within ten minutes, feshened up, and went in search of cheap indian food. We soon found out that wandering edinburgh is quite tiring, as the city is built on a couple of really steep hills. We walked up and down several "closes," which are tiny little alleyway/staircase things that take you from one street to the parallel one. after a while we had seen a lot of edinburgh but no cheap curry, and so we settled for expensive. The rogan josh was mediocre but the naan bread was epic, and a Bollywood musical was playing on the TV. After dinner we killed time in a pub, waiting for it to get dark so that we wouldn't feel like total losers going to bed before sunset. For the record, the sun sets even later up there than it does here, so that it's not fully dark until about 11.
The next day we took a free walking tour (same company that runs the free tours in berlin, amsterdam, and munich--love those guys!) of the city center. We learned that pretty much every meeting place or square in the city was once a place where they executed people. The guide told us a lot of really good stories and legends about the city, my favorite of which is definitely the story of Greyfriars Bobby (see my picture captions). There was also a story about a very well-respected locksmith who was secretly making copies of people's keys and breaking into their homes, whose two-facedness supposedly inspired the story of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde, a story about a woman who was hanged for concealing her pregnancy and then came back to life, and one about some people going to Westminster Abbey to steal back the Stone of Destiny, accidentally breaking it in half on the way to the car, and finally getting it back to Scotland only to have someone turn it in to the authorities and send it right back to London. Are you still with me? Didn't think so. After the walking tour we lazed in the park for a while eating ice cream, had a look inside the writer's museum (robert burns, sir walter scott, and robert louis stevenson were all from edinburgh--yaaaawn) and went and had a coffee/tea in the aforementioned harry potter cafe (edit: oh crap I guess I deleted the sentence whre I mentioned that we saw the cafe where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book during our walking tour). Then we went back to the hostel to rest and enjoy a cheap meal from sainbury's. That night we went to a couple of pubs in Cowgate, which is the nightlife area of Edinburgh, so named because it used to be a market place for, surprise surprise, cattle.
On Friday we took a bus trip up through the highlands. It went in a big circle all the way up to Loch Ness and back down. We saw lots of beautiful lochs, mountains, sheep, cows, flowers, grass, trees, and frankly it all blends together in my memory. The best part by far was hanging out with Hamish, the token highland bull who just so happens to live right next to a rest stop where all the tourist buses park for their morning coffee break. He is 15 years old, which in itself is a huge privilege, since most of them are slaughtered by the age of 3, and he is the cutest cow ever. I even fed him some grass through the fence, though he was a bit scary, to be honest. Speaking of scary, I was also kind of frightened to learn that Loch Ness is deep enough to fit three of Big Ben's clock tower, and the visibility is so low that you can't even see your hand in front of your face. furthermore, the sides of the lake are incredibly steep so it's basically shaped like a U, dropping off hundreds of feet immediately once you leave the shore. also, the bottom is constantly shifting and changing because of all the deep volcanic fissures in the earth. oh yeah, and there is possibly a monster in there. why anybody would even consider getting on a boat on that lake is beyond me, especially when it costs nine pounds for a silly 10 minute cruise! needless to say, I did not take part in the cruise. The bus tour took 12 hours total, and we got back to Edinburgh in the evening carsick and exhausted, ready for bed. That is, until our stupid/creepy Kiwi roommate bugged us so much that we decided we had to escape him. So, we were forced to go to the pub once again. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because we somehow ended up at a table with about 6 incredibly attractive Scottish boys. For some reason they thought we were really cool because (a) we were from california (b) we were drinking pints and (c) jessie knew that "ken" means "know" in the scottish dialect because she is currently reading Trainspotting. Oh yeah and (d) because "we ken what snogging is." Needless to say it was a good night, and Jessie and I spent the next 2 days giggling and reliving every moment of the conversation.
Oh my gosh, this is soooo long.....
Saturday we went inside the castle, which took a few hours. Then we ate subway in a place called George Square and observed the local teenagers, an activity that has proven to be entertaining in every country I've visisted. These ones were mainly goths and therefore even more entertaining. Then we walked down the Royal Mile to the palace where the royal family stays whenever theyre in Scotland. We spent another long period of time in a park at the foot of a cool mountain (tired of writing--look at pictures), sunbathing and taking silly photos. Finally we made our way back to the city center and sat ourselves down in a pub for a couple hours to drink pints, eat bangers and mash, and watch the eurocup (portugal vs. turkey) until it was time to go get our bags and head over to the bus station.
I don't even want to talk about the bus ride home. It was too painful, and I mean that literally. But the fields were misty and gorgeous both at dusk (11 PM) and dawn (3 AM). And now I am back in London trying to suck as much as I can out of it in these last few days.
Germany on Wednesday and home on the 17th. Don't expect too many updates; if I have time to blog a lot during my last week here I will be severely disappointed in myself.
