Scotland

at the Elephant House

After a four and a half hour train ride, complete with seven extremely loud women celebrating a friend's 40th birthday, we finally arrived in Edinburgh.

Our hostel was right next to the train station, and never staying in a hostel before I was expecting the worst. To my great surprise, it was actually not bad at all. The hostel was called St. Christopher's complete with a restaurant and bar on the first floor. The bar had 2 for 1 beer specials, so all of us were very pleased we wouldn't be draining our wallets during our two day excursion.

I stayed in a room with 14 other girls, yes that's 14 girls showering, drying their hair, getting ready, and sleeping in a room about the size of my living room back home. It ended up working out fine, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried in the beginning.

We arrived in Edinburgh at about 3:30 and because it was getting dark and too late to sight see, we decided it was a good idea to start at the bar. We all made fools of ourselves at the bar, being loud and playing American drinking games until about 8 pm when we decided to go on a Ghost Tour.

The Ghost Tour advertises itself as a "phenomenon" and even has a warning for people who are pregnant, have high blood pressure, etc. I am definitely a scaredy cat but I enjoy being frightened so I was ready to see what the tour had in store. Unfortunately, it was not very scary at all and just basically a tour through an old cemetary where our tour guide told us ghost stories.

On the walk home from the Ghost Tour we passed the Elephant House, which I was dying to see. The Elephant House is where J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter on napkins, so essentially it is where my good pal Harry James Potter was born!

On Saturday, we went on the Edinburgh Bus Tour and got to see all of the things you would expect to see in Scotland....bagpipes and castles. The castle really blew me away, the sheer size of it is mindblowing and it stands on a huge rocky hill. The grass surrounding the castle is unbelievably green....my dad would probably ask for the secret fertilizing and gardening methods they use because we all know how he loves his Jupiter Drive yard.

After the tour we did some shopping, and then went to the cutest Italian place for dinner. I know I need to step out of my comfort zone and start trying the local food, but in our handy pop up Edinburgh guide book they only pointed us to Thai and Indian places.

Dinner was fabulous, complete with the waiter telling me I had a "sexy deep voice" which I guess is a nice way of saying I sounded like a man. Following dinner we went out on the town in Scotland to a club which we later found out was a gay bar....we aren't the most observant of groups I guess.

All in all, Edinburgh was unbelievably beautiful but I missed London and couldn't wait to get...dare I say it...home.