Edinburgh: A Quite Nice Weekend

After a crazy week of working hard on papers for archeology and art history classes, I got ready to leave for Scotland with everyone!  Due to an unfortuante website malfunction, Sam had booked his train ticket to Edinburgh on Thursday and the rest of us were stuck taking a 9-hour overnight MegaBus.  If you learn anything from reading my blog (very doubtful), please please please learn this:  Do not take an overnight MegaBus.  They are cramped, bumpy, and nauseating.  I was able to get around 3 hours of sleep total (45 minutes here and there), with random late night paper and pencil games with Olga.  She taught me how to play Cows and Bulls which is basically a Russian number version of the boardgame Mastermind.  I reccomend this game to everyone on a long trip except for Jenny Janovitz (it involves logc).  Anyways, this is what everyone had to say upon arrival the next morning:

Me: “I feel like I just woke up from surgery, and my doctor was Edward Scissorhands.”

Olga: “I feel like I just got continuously punched in the face for 9 hours.”

Mark: He actually didn’t say anything.  He just had a look on his face that usually indicated complete and utter disgust.  A rare Mark-face, but a priceless one.

Bernacchi: “I don’t feel horrible, but I also don’t feel like I slept at all.”

But seeing Edinburgh as we got off was lovely!  Our hostel reminded me of a hut in the White Mountains that I used to stay at with a fun staff and a good community.  I slept on a high bunk bed with no barriers on the side, but managed to stay on both nights!

Sam came down from his normal night of sleep in a bed, and the 5 of us set off on our first Scottish adventure.  The adventure turned out to be a free 3-hour walking tour of the city with Grace, a punky half-Brit, half-Scot who had destroyed her face with piercings and dyed her hair bright green like a Tomba! character.  Upon making this observation, Bernacchi and I discovered that we were each the only people we knew who loved the old Playstation game, Tomba!  Its actually really rare now and worth over 100 bucks on ebay, but I refuse to sell!  Grace led us to all of the beautiful sites of Edinburgh, taught us some awesome Scotish catch-phrases (lovely/quite nice/brilliant = something good, wee = smallish, ay = Desmond), and gave us reccommendations for trying Scottish food (the disgusting meaty bits of Haggis), Scottish soda (the disgusting neon orange Irn Bru), Scottish whisky (I didn’t go there), and Scottish dessert (surely my Mom’s favorite: fried Mars Bars).

After the tour we were already pretty exhausted (it tends to happen when you don’t sleep) so we relaxed in the hostel and walked around the university and a neat park.  That night we went to dinner at a pub where Sam, Olga, and I got pasta, Bernacchi got Haggis, and Mark got hit on by a drunk, older woman.  Before going to sleep for an early night, we played a few rounds of Presidents and Assholes, the card game.  Sam was president most of the night, and our gracious leader even created rules to try to give others opportunities.  By the end, he was the asshole.  We had fun and it certainly will not be our last time playing during our travels.

The next morning was the highlight of the trip.  We woke up relatively early and ate breakfast at the same place J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter.  Then we made our way through town until we got to a summit of the beautiful landscape surrounding the city.  We hiked around the Edinburgh hills/mountains for a couple hours, finally settling on the highest peak of Arthur’s Seat – named after King Arthur.  We had a great time trekking through the Scottish wilderness, with lots of grassy areas and beautiful stone walls (yes, it did remind me of Lost a wee bit).  The sights of the city below us was amazing, and everyone was happy to make it to the top.  So happy in fact that I made this video:

The rest of the day we spent mostly walking around the city.  We checked out Castle, the fabric museum where they make kilts, and had some great meals: delicious chicken shwarma for lunch and an Italian dinner with generous portions.  Along the way we saw this guy playing traditional Scottish music on his bagpipes:

That night we decided to have a fun time out.  We picked up some items at the grocery store and played cards for a while in the hostel.  There, we met some new friends from Newcastle who we trekked over to a bar with.  Mark was as hilarious as ever, and his presence was a noticeable and wonderful contrast to our night out in Belgium…  One more video!  Why not?

The next day we explored some other neighborhoods in Edinburgh that we had missed the first time around.  We had lunch, played some pool in the hostel, and headed over to the train for a much more manageable ride home.  All in all good fun!  By the way, yes, we did steal a glass.  I was hoping to get a Belhaven for my brother, but I never had a good opportunity.  Instead I settled for “Tennents Ice Cold” which I found just sitting on a window sill early Saturday morning.

Last night in London we saw Ricky Gervais peform.  He was hilarious and brought up some interesting debatable questions! Next up is Italy: Venice and Rome with Sam!  I won’t be back until a week from today (the 24th) so I guess MTG is going on a brief hiatus.  Feel free to comment with suggestions and feedback!  Thanks everyone!