Lovely (and bloody cold) Edinburgh

Having been to Edinburgh, I now know why Scots have so much pride. The town is absolutely GORGEOUS, the views from the hills are stunning, and the old town character is so much better preserved than London. It was also bloody cold while we were there, but it was worth enduring the cold wind and blowing snow to see all the sights.

Saturday morning started off with a hitch, in that I was running a little late for our train. Luckily with our 4-day BritRail passes we could take the next train in half an hour, and it turned out that throughout the whole trip we didn't need reservations. This was very helpful, because our plans were ever-changing.

From this trip I've learned a valuable lesson: Make a plan, then rip that plan to shreds and make sure you have enough backup plans to make your time worthwhile. Our original plan was to arrive at Edinburgh around 1, tour the city and stay overnight, then take a daytrip to Newcastle and Durham (in northern England) and head back to Edinburgh that night to sort of sample the nightlife. When we got to Edinburgh, we realized there were too many things to do there and all the touristy things seemed to shut down around 5.

Once we made it to our hotel, we knew we had to go to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the Queen stays when she visits Scotland, because that wouldn't be open the next day. By the time we were finished there, it was too late to make any worthwhile visits of any other tourist attraction, and so we decided we'd visit Edinburgh Castle the next day along with some other sites. We walked around the city quite a bit, snapping photos and taking in the beauty of the area. I had my first hand-drawn Scotch Ale at a pub, and then we walked around some more. The "High Street" or "Royal Mile" that stretches between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse is one long pedestrian street of quirky shops, tourist attractions and pubs that would put State Street to shame. I was amazed at how many of the shops were independently owned, except of course for Starbucks. The Old Town used to be the lower-class area of the city, but it's gained new life as a tourist spot and luckily a lot of small businesses seem to thrive from that.

After eating at a little greasy-spoon cafe, Kristin and I were dead tired and ended up going to sleep around 8. It didn't help that we each had gotten one hour of sleep from our clubbing experience the night before.

Sunday morning awoke with a blizzard, and after a hearty free breakfast from our hotel, we set about to tour Edinburgh Castle, only to find that it was closed for the day because of the weather. Luckily there were enough things to do nearby, including a visit to the Camera Obscura and Optical Illusions museum and a tour of the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre. At the whisky centre we each got a free glass and a sample of whisky while learning about the history and making of both single malt and blended whisky. I even learned the traditional scotch whisky toast, which spelled phoenetically is "Sul-ahn-je-var"

Our next stop was the Real Mary King's Close, which was a close (long, narrow stairway that leads from the bottom of the hill to the top and had shops and people living in flats) that was built over by the City Chambers. The entire tour was underground, taking us back to the time of the plague and teaching a lot about everyday Scottish history in the 17th and 18th century. Our guide was really good, and one of the things I learned was that every night at 10 pm people would shout "gardy loo" (bad French for "Look out for the water") and throw their waste from a bucket out the window, which would trickle down to the lake at the bottom of the close. Sounds fun, eh?

We decided we wanted to see Durham Castle that day, and so after the close tour we hopped on a train to Durham. By the time we got there, it was 4:30 and the castle closed at 5pm. The lady at the information desk said that we probably wouldn't make it in time if we walked. "Unless we ran," I said, and we trekked the slippery hills and narrow streets to get to the cathedral about 12 minutes before closing.

The cathedral is HUGE, and I'd never seen a church dominate a city's skyline like that before. There's also a castle nearby, which is now home to a university. Once we were done in the cathedral, there really wasn't much else to do in Durham because everything had closed, and most of the other things to do there are more summer-y. So we took the train back to Edinburgh, sore feet and all.

We finally made it inside the castle the next day, and though it was cold again the sun did manage to peek through. Our tour guide was great, and at one moment pointed at a strip of land with a little tower on it just beyond a body of water and said, "No this is not France, and that is not the Eiffel Tower, as someone asked me before. People have also asked me if that's Ireland, and I said, 'No, you're getting closer but that's on the other side of Great Britain.' And one person actually asked me if that was North America." He then made some funny comment that I can't repeat here because I can't remember, but you'll have to trust me it was good.

As we made our way to see the Scottish crown jewels, I got a phone call from a few friends visiting in France saying they were in London for the day. Wanting to meet up with them before they took off that night, Kristin and I hurried our castle tour and rushed to get to the next train back to London. Unfortunately we didn't get back in time to meet up, but from what they told me they had a good time in London and I can say the same thing about Edinburgh.

Kristin and I completed the night with a dinner at a nice Indian restaurant, and we said our goodbyes (I won't get into any mushy details) as she had to fly back the next morning.

All I have to say is this weekend trip made me appreciate what I have here and what I have access to in Britain, and I look forward to exploring more of the country and hopefully more of the continent.