Even the New Town looks Old

Who’s done a horrible job of keeping up this blog? THIS GUY. I STILL haven’t written about Oxford, oy. Dunno if I’ll get to that, to be honest. Blargh. Not gonna lie, been having too awesome of a time to actually write anything. That and utter laziness. But I digress. Look! A real entry!

Anyway, roughly a week and a half ago, myself and Saiya embarked on a whirlwind tour of Scotland in two days. We took a night bus on Thursday night, from 11 p.m. until 8:30 ish a.m., and arrived on a cloudy morning in Edinburgh, toting our backpacks of stuff. We got a little bit lost but eventually found our way to the hostel, the Castle Rock Hostel in Old Town, Edinburgh. It’s a small, cute little building that’s right across the road from Edinburgh Castle. Legitimately directly across.

This photo was taken from next to the hostel. Yep.

Since we couldn’t get into our rooms for a while yet, we stashed our things and went exploring. We met Sir Walter Scot, up in his little Gothic tower, looked at a LOT of cashmere and wool, and climbed a mountain-hill. Yes, I said mountain-hill. It took some time and effort but the views were absolutely breath-taking. At first we just hung out around the bizarro Greek arch thing that was on top of the mountain and ogled New Town from up above.

Then we climbed to the other side... and were greeted by mountains.

It was beautiful. Just beautiful. We literally just sat there and stared for a while, and I think, for me, it finally sunk in—we’re in Scotland.

Scotland, by the way, is magnificent. I’ve never been in a place with such an infectious joy for heritage. Everywhere you go there are stores selling Scottish things, hundreds of St. Andrew saltires hanging from every window, bagpipers on every other corner—

and just... so much friendship between everyone. The town is extremely walkable, we figured it out in about half a day and we knew exactly where we were going. We wandered the Royal Mile, looking at scarves and pretending to be Scottish. Well, in my case, anyway.

As if you wouldn't buy whiskey with your name on it.

 The museums are all gorgeous and free, filled to the brim with Scottish history that I didn’t realize I didn’t know. Scotland is just kind of glossed over in history (albeit not nearly as much as Wales) and even though I’ve taken three English history courses, I learned more about Scotland in those two days than I have up until that point. In addition to the beautiful museums, we also had beautiful churches and a gorgeous castle on top of a hill, looking out over all of Edinburgh, in all its Gothic glory.

Although the nightlife was something to be desired, it was a really awesome trip. Also, I had haggis. Haggis is quite delicious. And yes, I am aware of what it is. Still delicious. They don’t serve it to you looking like that, and even if they did, well... probably still would eat it.

Haggis, neeps and tatties.

Maybe if I had actually written this after I went, I would have been able to talk more about it. It was beautiful, everything was delicious, the nightlife was... eh but the hostel was nice, at least? But the bus ride was awful. Awful but worth it.