Brian's London Blog: Scotland (well, really just Edinburgh)

It seems fitting that, sixteen years following my "graduation" from Lads and Lassies Preschool (no joke) and two years following my graduation from the Home of the Highlanders (note Angus, the mascot), coupled with my love for all things plaid, I ended up making it to beautiful Scotland. And let me tell you, it surpassed all of my expectations.

Day 1/King's Cross to Waverley; New Town, Old Town and The Royal Mile-
There are six of us Marquette students studying abroad here at City, and we decided to spend our first full weekend together in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. **Just as an aside, Wikipedia has a great entry on Edinburgh with tons of photos. It's definitely worth checking out** Anyway, we left King's Cross Station in downtown London around 10:00am, and we spent about four hours on the National Express train as it cut through the heart of the English and Scottish countrysides. The trip took about four hours, and we arrived at Edinburgh's Waverley Station. This was the set of views that awaited us in one direction--the part of Edinburgh known as "New Town"--at the top of the steps leading out of Waverley...

Left: The Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh's finest. Right: The Sir Walter Scott Memorial, dedicated to the author of Ivanhoe, Rob Roy and other famous Scottish-themed works.

...Then, looking over the station to the other side of town was "Old Town," which I'll talk about in a bit. I think I froze when I saw this view. Unfortunately, there wasn't any way to snap a picture that could possibly do the view justice, so I found one that is close from trekearth.com...

Honestly, I fell in love right away. The city of Edinburgh, geographically, is quite unique. Essentially, it's split in two, with a ravine in which Waverley Station rests, running right down the middle. On the northern end is New Town. "New" is a relative term here, though, because it was designed for the wealthy elite of Edinburgh way back in the 1700s. Yes, their "New" Town is older than our country. Meanwhile, Old Town, sitting about five stories higher across the ravine, is what's really special. Centuries-old row houses, churches, apartments, administrative buildings and shops sit perched atop a steep drop. From the edge of New Town, Old Town looked as if it were floating on air. At the far southwestern edge of the core of Old Town, the road begins to rise dramatically and the 875-year old Edinburgh Castle rests even more precariously atop the apex of Old Town. Here, I must apologize because for my lack of photography skills, as I couldn't fully capture the Castle in relation to its surroundings...

FYI: that hill continues down about 100 more feet before leveling off.

Take my word for it, the sight of Edinburgh Castle is impressive. Here are some better pictures, courtesy of trusty ol' Google Image Search.

But that's enough about the view. We caught a shuttle from Princes Street (Main Street in New Town) to our hostel, the Globetrotter Inn of Edinburgh. This place is owned by the same nice people who run the Globetrotter Inn of London, where Abby and I stayed our first night and were very satisfied. Somehow, the Edinburgh Globetrotter was significantly nicer than the London one, but now I'm actually beginning to worry that my view of European hostels has been distorted by the Globetrotters and my future lodgings in other countries will resemble something along these lines. But yeah, here it is...

Globetrotter Inn of Edinburgh: great hostel.

After dropping off our things, we got a ride back into the city and ate typical pub food in a typical Scottish pub. We were fortunate enough to be joined by a Scottish-born friend of Kate (one of my Marquette friends here), who became our tour guide for the rest of the evening. We walked into Old Town and explored the Royal Mile, a mile-long stretch of cobbled road that runs between Edinburgh Castle on one end and Scottish Parliament on the other. The Royal Mile is home to some of the nicest and most authentic Edinburgh flats.

Looking down a street that feeds into Royal Mile from just outside Edinburgh Castle.

Alan, Kate's Scottish friend, brought us to a pub at the end of the Royal Mile, and we spent the night hanging out, meeting his friends and having him dispel a few myths about Scottish culture. First of all, he assured us, haggis is pretty tasty. "It's just some spices, onions, meat and some other stuff." "Other stuff," I learned later, equals sheep's heart, liver, and lungs all wrapped up and boiled in sheep stomach. Ummmm, no thanks. I slowly learned how to imitate a Scottish accent pretty well (Edinburgh, by the way, is pronounced "Eddin-brah," and you kind of roll the Rs). Also, to my sheer disappointment, he informed us that what I refer to as plaid is really called "checkered" by the Scots. Nobody calls it plaid. And "tartan" is the bona fide stuff that's specially patterned for members of a clan or special group. I was excited when I returned to London to find out that even Wisconsin has its own official state tartan.

Day 2/Edinburgh Castle, Old Town by Day, and Scottish Bachelor(ette) Parties.

We hopped on a tour bus the next morning and had a nice tour of the city. We got off at Edinburgh Castle and spent most of the morning there. The Castle, which has fantastic views of the entire city, was built around 1130 AD, although all that remains of the original structure is the tiny Saint Margaret's Chapel (I've got to be honest, Saint Joan of Arc Chapel at Marquette is cooler). Everything else on the grounds is the result of one king or another's desires to make changes and additions over the course of the next nine centuries. Edinburgh Castle was long prized for its obvious defensive assets: sitting atop a sheer cliff covered in slippery moss and partially surrounded for centuries by a moat, the ruler of the Castle could stave off the vast majority of attacks by simply crossing his fingers for extra rain to make the enemy's hopes of trekking upwards even more unlikely. Today, the Castle holds the Honours of Scotland--Scotland's version of the Crown Jewels--as well as the Stone of Destiny, the Scottish War Veterans' Memorial, various mini-museums and boasts the second-best 360-degree view of the city (I'll tell you about the best in a minute). I'd go into more detail, but I think pictures work better than words...

Left: Almost there! Just inside the gates and walking up to the main square. Right: Pretty great view.

Left: Scottish War Veterans' Memorial Building. Right: Small houses and "offices" now converted into exhibits.

After seeing the Castle, we got a late lunch and visited the Tartan Weaving Mill. Natalie (MU student, too) discovered that she was in fact Scottish and part of the Mitchell clan. Pretty exciting. She spent the rest of the day making up hilarious stories about the exploits of the ancient clan...something about being traitors to Scotland. After we got our tartan fix, we proceeded to walk around the city and stop in shops until after sunset. Here are some nice pictures I took while walking...

Left: There were essentially two levels of buildings in places near and on the Royal Mile. The neatest part is how there's a walkway atop the roofs of the first-level buildings, and from the street, the second-level buildings seemed to be stacked on top of the lower ones. Right: A statue of David Hume, considered by some as the foremost Scottish intellectual in history, being altered slightly by a traffic cone thanks to some locals. There has to be a good pun here, but I've got nothing.

Left: Street view of the two-level layout described above. Right: Typical Edinburgh architecture on Candlemaker's Row.

We had to search along the Royal Mile for a place to eat that either was less than $30/person or didn't have an hour-long wait. Ironically, we ended up in a restaurant called "The Filling Station," that bore a strange resemblance to Fuddruckers but was just a bit nicer. Honestly, I was pretty excited to eat an American-style cheeseburger. We sat down in a booth next to a table filled with women in their mid-twenties that all seemed to be dressed up like it was Halloween. The night before, we had seen a similar sight: grown men all curiously dressed up as Toy Story characters walking around the city. It turns out that it is customary for members of a bachelor or bachelorette party to not only go around all night, restaurant- and bar-hopping (among other things, wink wink nudge nudge) like they do in America, but also to be dressed up in ridiculous costumes the entire time. The six of us--especially me for some weird reason--seemed fascinated. Here's proof...

I'm just not sure who should be most embarrassed in this picture.

Day 3/Arthur's Seat-

On Sunday morning, we checked out of the Globetrotter Inn and hopped back on the same tour bus thanks to our 24-hour tickets. It dropped us off next to Arthur's Seat, a 900-foot hill across the street from Scottish Parliament. From most points in Edinburgh, you can see Arthur's Seat looming high above everything, even Edinburgh Castle. We decided that this would be our final stop in Edinburgh before catching our train back to London, so the six of us took a deep breath, and hiked to the top. It wasn't as tiring as we had expected, and we were definitely treated to the best view in Scotland...