Edinburgh > Dublin (sorry Dublin...)

Completely exhausted (and completely relieved that our rickety, 1970s, mustard-colored-seats Ryan Air flight didn't crash) we landed in beautiful Edinburgh on Thursday morning. It was nearing 10 o'clock and pitch black outside, but we could still see the bright lights of the Episcopal church, the Parliament building, and the great Edinburgh castle from our hostel. Caledonian backpackers was a very young, very bohemian kinda place. I suppose most hostels are. But this one seemed like the kind you'd see in the movies--dreadlocks all over the place, murals and neon colors on every wall, creepy Italian men telling you it's their birthday, a bunch of Spanish kids playing drunk jenga.  They had a huge bar area (one or two pounds for basically any drink you like), a computer room with free wifi, breakfast in the AM...it all seemed great. Then we walked into our bedroom and remembered that it's a hostel. Which means 8 people sleeping in one room. Which means three Italian men walking around in their underwear. It also means a 40 year old African man with horrible BO. Ok, enough about the hostel. Let's just say Caroline and I took great care to lock up all of our belongings every night.

Outside of the hostel was the magnificent city of Edinburgh. I've never seen anything like it. It's got to be the most magical city in the world. One moment you're walking on urban, Dublin-like streets (though Edinburgh seems much cleaner, much less crowded), and the next, you've entered a medieval city: the Old Town.

The Old Town essentially consists of the Royal Mile and countless "closes" (little alleyways/courtyards that run downhill away from city center). Spectacular Cathedrals, the Parliament building, law courts, City Chambers (originally the Royal Exchange building), the 2,500 year old Edinburgh castle, and the Palace where the queen of Scotland currently sits--all of it is smack dab in the middle of a modern city. I felt like I was in a time machine when I climbed up the hill from New Town to Old Town.

Edinburgh Castle

Maisie, Caroline, and I went on a "NewEurope" walking tour of the Royal mile. Tips-only, 4 hours, hit all the important places. Our tour-guide was a man named Alan. Alan was born and raised in a little town on the coast of Southwest England. Which means he looks, and sounds, like a pirate. He was delightfully entertaining--we weren't at all surprised when he told us he had been a drama major in college. Whenever possible, he would "act out" legends and historical anecdotes. 

In addition to all the Royal Mile shenanigans, we visited all the places in the city where J.K. Rowling took inspiration for Harry Potter. Greyfriars graveyard (supposedly the most haunted graveyard in the world) was peppered with Harry Potter names like "Moodie" and "McGonagall." Right next to the graveyard was George Heriot's School, where J.K. Rowling's kids go. It really is Hogwarts! It's got all the turrets she describes in the books, as well as four HUGE turrets (the four houses...). So beautiful, especially at night. I was SUPER creepy and leaned over the gate to take a picture of the school. The 1700 school children playing in the courtyard must be used to it I guess.

I couldn't get a picture that did it justice, so I had to steal one online. 

After a big delicious lunch (Maisie tried the Haggis) and some Irn Bru (Scotland's national hangover drink?) Maisie headed off on a train to St. Andrews to visit some friends, and Caroline and I checked out the interior of St. Giles Cathedral. 

Beautiful St. Giles

For dinner we met up with my old friend Jane! It was wonderful to see her. After experiencing Edinburgh in person, I couldn't help but be jealous of her decision to go abroad for all four years of college. She walked around the castles and cathedrals like it was nothing. She didn't stop to gaze at the beautiful shops or cafes along the way. When (IF!!) she ever returns home to Michigan, she is going to be sorely disappointed. Jane seemed so adjusted, mature, artsy, EUROPEAN. Caroline and I kept whispering "she's what I aspire to be...." Her sophisticated apartment inspired me to fix up my little Trinity flat. Kind of. As I'm typing this, there are crumbs on the kitchen table and 10 shirts thrown on the carpet in my room (sorry mom).

Janie!

The three of us went out with some of Jane's fellow jewelry majors and had a swell time. Caroline and I kept pulling out our cameras to take pictures of Edinburgh at night, but as the night went on the pictures became more and more out of focus..... The best part of the night, though, was the club we ended up at.  I figured it would be the typical sweaty club that played the same top 40 pop songs on repeat. But NO! They had a Motown night. So much fun. I'm determined to host a Motown party (yes Pat, I'm shamelessly copying off the Motown Get-Down party you and your friends had), because Motown is so much more fun to dance to!

The next morning (or I should say, 4 hours later...) we weren't feeling so good. It was 7am, we were exhausted, we were hungover, and we had to rush off to the Royal Mile to catch a tour of the highlands. A BUS tour of the highlands. Hangover+no sleep+sugary coffee+a TINY, shaky, bright orange bus=an uncomfortable Clare. Caroline and I had to laugh at how miserable the two of us looked whenever the bus hit a little bump in the road. But at least we still kept our sense of humor, right? 

Honk if you're Horny

The day was still wonderful though. Whenever we got OUT of the bus and hit the cool air, we were wide awake and ready to welcome the spectacular sights before us. Whenever we were ON the bus, we conked out. We took a couple beautiful hikes, saw the castle where Monty Python was filmed (I laughed at a couple people who were awkwardly banging coconuts together) and searched the beautiful highlands for "Hairy Coos." The Hairy Coo, besides being the name of the "Alternative Tours" company we were traveling with, is Scotland's favorite animal. I don't really get it. But they are pretty cute.

Beautiful Caroline, Beautiful Highlands

sup

The tour was wonderful, but a little too long. NINE hours in total. (Driving there, stopping to see things on the way, lunch, highlands, hairy coos, stopping on the way back, etc). However, our tour-guide driver dude had the best accent, played hilarious music, and....was wearing kilt. So it was all worth it. When we finally got back to Edinburgh, Caroline and I power-walked to our hostel, got dressed, ate some surprisingly delicious Mexican food, and went to the first stop on our evening pub crawl.

There are SO many australians in Edinburgh. In all of Europe, really. Tons of college grads just living it up and traveling Europe for a couple months--such a different way of life than I'm used to.  Very different from the go-go-go get a job-money-career mindset the U.S. promotes. We made friends with a couple Canadian guys that go to Nicole's school, and will probably meet up with them this weekend when they come to Dublin. We also met two guys dressed as Mario and Luigi...apparently they've been touring Europe for a month, and have been wearing the same clothes every night for...a month. Badass. 

Everyone on the pub crawl was so friendly, which made for a great night. Money very well spent. My favorite place was, surprisingly, a horror themed bar called Frankenstein. Edinburgh really takes pride in being the most haunted city in the world...

The last day in Edinburgh was slower than the first two. We visited the National Gallery for an hour, met Jane for coffee at the most wonderful little place called Forrest Cafe, and window shopped and explored the streets of the Royal Mile. Before dinner, we checked out the infamous Mary King's Close.  Mary King's Close consists of four closes (narrow streets separating tenements) that were partially destroyed and sealed up to make way for the Royal Exchange building in 1753. The tenements in the close had been 7 stories high, built along the side of the huge hill leading up to what is now the Royal Mile. Basically, the city knocked down the buildings near the top of the hill, sliced off a couple stories in the middle, and kept the tenements near the bottom of the hill perfectly preserved. Then they used the houses for a foundation and built the Royal Exchange building (now the City Chambers) on top of the tenements. Now, living in a spooky, underground city with minimal daylight, poor air circulation, and hundreds of people quarantined with the plague was not the best living situation. So slowly but surely, all the inhabitants moved out. We're left with a perfectly preserved, horribly spooky, underground city. HOW COOL. Unfortunately, it cost 10 euro. It would have been worth it...except for the fact that 3 Italian girls and their mother kept speaking, very loudly, throughout the entire tour.  Kind of took away from whole spooky, we're exploring an underground city where hundreds of people have lived and died of the plague kinda thing. 

Mary King's Close.

To end the trip, Caroline and I reunited with Maisie and had a bite to eat at the Elephant House Cafe, where JK Rowling first scribbled her thoughts for Harry Potter on a napkin. The cafe has a spectacular view of the castle--it was very fun to look out of the window and imagine JK Rowling doing the same. HOWEVER, the food was mediocre. If anyone goes, just stop in to get a coffee and a millionaire's shortbread (oh my GOSH, it was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted). 

Going back to Dublin was surreal. Maybe it's just because I saw Jane, so I felt like I was getting a little piece of home, but I when I was on the plane, I really felt like I was heading home to Michigan to see my family. I forgot that Dublin is my "home" for the moment. It's nice to be back....but I sure miss having a castle right in my backyard. 

Cheerio,

Clare Mairead 

p.s. Scottish girls say "hiya!" for hello and "cheerio" for goodbye. How cute.

p.p.s. You can check out all my pictures of Edinburgh and the Highlands here.

p.p.s. I learned SO MUCH history on this trip. For those who are interested....

HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS: 

-One of the mausoleums in the graveyard holds the body of Bloody William Mackenzie.  He not only hung 100 covenanters at random, but he imprisoned the other thousand or so covenanters unless they agreed to convert. They were put in an outdoor prison. No roof, no floors, forced to endure the brutal Scotland winter. And it was right next to the graveyard, so as each man died, they simply buried him right there.  The worse part, however, was that each man was not allowed to move while he slept. If he twitched, rolled over, changed positions, or even breathed too heavily, then the guards would kill the prisoner NEXT to him. So the man that moved would have to live with the guilt of killing another man for the rest of his life.

--There was this little Scottie who was so devoted to his owner that, when the man died, the Scottie sat by his owner’s grave for 14 years. The people in the city brought the dog food and water and he came to be known as Greyfriar’s Bobby.  

SO CUTE.  I hoping Ollie does the same for me, but somehow I doubt it…

-There is a huge stone heart in the middle of town where the prison/taxpayers area used to be. Everyone spits on it to this day to show disrespect for authority. Pretty cool. Except that it’s constantly covered in saliva. Apparently, some romantic idiot, ignorant of the history behind it, proposed to his girlfriend right on the heart. When he stood up, I bet his knee was a little damp.

-Doctor’s are called “quacks” because the plague doctors wore a beak shaped mask.  Terrifying.

-Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded not one, not two, but three times.  When her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, sentenced her to death (harsh…) they wanted to make it quick and clean and painless.  But the executioner…missed.  He sliced off the very tip of the top of her head. She was still alive.  Then he actually hit the mark, but…it didn’t go through all the way. Then he tried a third time and sliced AT HER SHOULDERS.  If that wasn’t enough, when he grabbed her head by the hair to hold it up and show the city, she was wearing a WIG.  So, he raised her wig up in the air, and her head and shoulders rolled down the steps towards the people. How awful!! 

-Maggie Dickson was married to a horrible man. Apparently, during their marriage, she had an affair with an innkeeper and became pregnant. Terrified of what might happen if she was found out, she kept the baby a secret. The stress of concealing her pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. So she went to the banks of the North Lake and buried it (side note: North lake was the most DISGUSTING lake ever...it was located at the bottom of the hill, so everyone's, um, waste was washed into the lake by the rain. They drained the lake and it is now the most fertile park in the country--Princes Street Gardens).  Somehow the baby was found and traced back to her, and she was found guilty of "Concealment of Pregnancy" (what kind of law is that??) and hanged in Grassmarket. She was completely dead, examined carefully, etc. But when they were driving down the road to take her to the graveyard, they heard a noise coming from the coffin in the back. She was aliiiiiveee!! Some people suspect that the cobblestone streets they were driving on acted as some sort of defibrillator. I'm not sure if that's possible, but it's a pretty cool concept. Anyways, they didn't hang her again because she had been "Hung by the neck until dead." She just had come back to life after! So she had served her "punishment" and was free. She ALSO, was divorced!..."Until death do us part." So she married the innkeeper, had children, and lived another 40 years. Pretty nifty, huh?