This weekend I went to Scotland!! I figured as long as I was only a few hours away, I ought to try to go up and reconnect with my heritage or something. So a group of five of us decided to take advantage of our long weekend and go up to Edinburgh (that's edin-burrow, not edin-burg).
We left Thursday afternoon out of King's Cross Station. And of course, while we were there, we had to stop by Platform 9 3/4, of Harry Potter fame. They've set up a whole little thing for tourists with a trolley going through the wall. It's not actually between platforms 9 and 10 though, it's next to them. In fact, it's not actually even inside the station. It's conveniently outside the station so tourists can come by with out crowding the station. Don't I look like a wizard?
We're about to leave for Scotland! Yay!!
Here we are on the train. The ride wasn't too bad. They now have WiFi and outlets on the train. But due to "gale force winds and debris," the train lines were closed in both directions, and we were delayed for two hours (which conveniently means we should get a full refund on our train tickets!). So then we decided to read Hamlet while we were waiting. Out loud. With different accents for every character. I think we probably annoyed some of the people around us, but it was priceless.
We got in pretty late, so we just decided to take a cab to the place we were staying. But split between 5 people, it wasn't expensive at all.
One of the girls knew a senior missionary couple in Edinburgh from her home ward in Santa Barbara, and they let us stay with them in their flat, which was so incredibly nicer than staying in a hostel. It's the homiest place I've been in two months.The next morning bright and early we headed off to Edinburgh Castle. Unlike some of the places we've been, this one actually looks like a castle.
The view from the castle.
The city of Edinburgh.
My first deep fried Mars bar! It was heavenly. The batter they dip it in is actually really thin, so basically it's just a warm, gooey, candy bar.
The weather in Edinburgh was crazy. I have seriously never seen clouds move so fast in my life. It went from cloudless sky, to overcast and rainy in under half an hour, and then back to sunny again. It was always a surprise coming out of the stores whether it would be rainy or sunny. It was also ridiculously windy. As someone noted, it's really the most unlikely place in the world for the development of the kilt. Most people were smart enough not to try umbrellas, but we laughed at the ones who did.
Despite the weather, we decided to climb Arthur's Seat. I'm assuming this is in reference to King Arthur, but I'm not sure what it's doing in Scotland. It's also the place where Parley Pratt went to dedicate the land when he was on one of the early missions of the church. That's the hill up behind us, looking very huge.
The views were pretty awesome. We also saw like 5 or 6 rainbows that day.
We made it to the top! I'm a bit wet.
Scotland is soooo beautiful!
It was really wet and slippery on the way back down, and we were supposed to meet with our hosts for dinner, so we were trying to hurry, and we kept slipping all over the place and half of us fell over in the mud. Including me :)
Saturday we decided to explore the city a little more. We stopped by the Elephant House for some hot choclate. This cafe touts itself as "the birthplace of Harry Potter" because J.K. Rowling used to come and sit here while writing Harry Potter.
Apparently, she sometimes wrote on napkins, because napkin writing is now all the rage. The table we sat at had a drawer on it, and it was filled with napkins from people who'd been there. We had fun writing on napkins too!
It was one of my favorite things, just sitting having a cup of chocolate and enjoying being in Scotland. Basically, Scotland was amazing and I loved it, and it's beautiful, and despite the crazy wind and rain, I think I would enjoy living there, at least for awhile. I think the crazy weather actually makes it that much better.
