Friday morning we left for Edinburgh and the scenery from the train was beautiful- lots of rolling green hills and sheep. As soon as we stepped foot into the city, we were greeted with a man dressed in a kilt and playing the bagpipes. We soon found out that this is quite common, and saw several others doing the same. It's neat to hear the traditional music every once in a while rather than the typical acoustic guitars being played on the streets. We immediately headed to the flat where we were staying to drop off our luggage, and after first attempting to open a door on the wrong street and wondering why the keys didn't work, we found the flat. It was gorgeous! It had 2 huge bedrooms and a large living room (with cable TV which I haven't seen in years), a large shower room, and a good sized kitchen too. We were so delighted! Maddi and Lauren then found their way to the flat, and we were definitely in our glory being all together. It was as if we were still back in the states.. except not really. We headed off for our free walking tour, and was it ever freezing! Some of the highlights of our tour were seeing the cafe where JK Rowling began to write Harry Potter, the school that people say is the inspiration for Hogwarts, the view of the castle, learning the origin of the term "shitfaced", and tasting the most fabulous hot chocolate ever-- it had honey and cinnamon in it! Allow me to elaborate on how the drunkard word "shitfaced" came about: When there was no plumbing systems, the city of Edinburgh decided to designate 2 specific times when you could throw out your "waste". The times were at 7am and 10pm, with the latter being the time that bars were closing and drunks were walking home. Well when the people would be stumbling back to their beds it was really dark and they could barely see anything so they would grip their way along the walls. The buildings where people lived were so close together and when someone dumped out their waste from the windows above, they would call out something like "watch out!", and the drunks would look up and literally get shitfaced.
We decided we would do a pub crawl with the same touring company to end our night. And that was really fun! We went to 5 different bars where we heard a live band, witnessed another [mini] jager train (but with real shot glasses this time, and Lauren got to start it off!), and we met people from all over- Ireland, Germany, and Australia to name a few.
We decided we would do a pub crawl with the same touring company to end our night. And that was really fun! We went to 5 different bars where we heard a live band, witnessed another [mini] jager train (but with real shot glasses this time, and Lauren got to start it off!), and we met people from all over- Ireland, Germany, and Australia to name a few.
Saturday we ended up having a lazy morning, which was absolutely perfect. I have not had the luxury to sleep in, be with some of my best friends, watch tv, and just dillydally in forever! We finally got a move on in the late afternoon and went to the National Museum of Scotland to see Dolly, the cloned sheep. Her story is so crazy! She was cloned from another sheep's DNA, her egg was put inside the sheep in order for her to be born, and then she even had her own baby sheep a few years later! I also forgot to mention that Friday Jason ordered the traditional Scottish dish- haggis (a mixture of a sheep's stomach, liver, heart, and lungs in meatloaf form), tatties (potatoes), and neeps (mashed up swede or turnip) and so we all took a wee bite. It's actually not bad so long as you don't think of the ingredients!
Sunday we did the Scotch Whisky Experience. It's a tour of the whisky-making process. Did you know that the color of whisky and some of its flavor comes from the oak wood that is used to make the barrels (casks) in which it ages? Also, the different regions where Scotch Whisky is made in Scotland has a distinct smell to it due to what it's made with, so we were each given a scratch & sniff in order to decide what kind we wanted to taste-test. All 4 of us girls chose one that smelled like bananas. Jason chose the "manly" one that smelled to me like a campfire. And it was so weird, because once you finished the sip, the after-smell left in the glass exactly resembled the scratch & sniff. There are 5 steps for taste-testing whisky, although I forget what they are... something to do with if it sticks to the side of the glass when you swirl it around rather than rapidly running down the sides means that it will linger on your palate longer.. anyway we saw the world's largest Scotch whisky collection. The man who started the collection, Claive Vidiz, began with 6 bottles... now there are 3,384! The oldest one is from 1897, and the most expensive one that Vidiz paid for was $1000 in NYC. They don't know what it is worth today, however. Afterwards, we visited a church where an angel with bagpipes exists. Apparently, there are only 3 known statues in the world that are of an angel playing the bagpipes. We literally had a scavenger hunt trying to find it-- Lauren won.
We finally went our separate ways, and headed back to Lancaster. The train was accidentally double booked so it was packed! Luckily I grabbed a seat before it resorted to standing. Kristen and Jason managed to sit up in first class! I'd say our mini holiday (they call vacations/trips "holiday" over here) was simply perfect :)
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