So.. Today was a free day, and I decided to go to Edinburgh, Scotland! It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Yesterday Beccah and Mallory had told us that they were going to Scotland, and they kind of told us what they were doing. Julia and I were both a little worried about going because we didn't want to miss out on anything in London, and we weren't sure if our funds could cover a trip to Scotland. We soon learned that our Brit Rail passes that we have been using to take the trains would get us all the way to Edinburgh. So knowing that we decided to go to at 12:00 at night. Ha not the greatest idea because we didn't have a place to stay yet. We jumped on the internet and started looking up hostels. Not a single place was empty. It was festival weekend in Scotland so everything was really packed. I was getting a little frustrated because we couldn't find a place to stay and I wanted to go really bad! Luckily we had Kylee coming along and she jumped on the internet and found a hotel for 99 pounds and sense there were four of us it would cost us about 25 pounds each the same price that Beccah and Mallory were paying for their hostel. We decided to take the hotel and we were off to Scotland the next morning.
We woke up at 6:30 am in order to make the 8:00 am train. It ended up being Beccah, Mallory, Kylee, Michelle, Julia, and I that all went. It was such a party! Our first stop was Almouth, which is a hour outside of Edinburgh. This is the location of the Alnwick castle, which was used for the exterior filming of Hogwarts for Harry Potter. I love all of the Harry Potter sites so I was super stoked to see the castle! It took us four hours by train to get to Alnwick. When we got there it was really windy and wet outside. You will be able to tell by my hair in my pictures ha ha. We took a bus from the train station to the castle. It was so big and so cool. The castle looked just like Hogwarts. The whole time I was whistling the Harry Potter theme song out loud. It added to the scene. Outside of the castle they had a huge zoo of owls. They had one of the smallest owls I have ever seen. It was just the cutest thing. The employee held the owl and he let us pet it. It was scary, but really cute ha ha. There was also an owl that looked just like Hedwig! It was very exciting.
We went inside the castle grounds and walked around the towers and the canyons. It was mostly a fortress castle so there weren't any furnishings in any of the rooms. The countryside around the castle was to die for. It was some of the prettiest I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of spectacular views. We took some pictures around the castle and of the view. Inside part of the castle was the place of the first flying lesson from the first Harry Potter movie! It was so fun. We took some sweet jumping pictures and are planning to photoshop some brooms in there. It will be pretty cool. After touring the castle, we stopped and ate some lunch and then jumped back on the bus to head back to the train station.
The train ride to Edinburgh was about another hour and a half. I don't even notice how long it takes to travel somewhere anymore because I've done it so much! Anyway, we got to Scotland around 5:00pm. We had to try to fit as much as we could in that night because Kylee and Michelle were heading to Liverpool in the morning and Julia and I were headed back to London Sunday night. We went and checked into our hotel. It was called the Thistle hotel. Surprisingly it was so so nice! I couldn't believe it. We were stoked. The room had a giant king size bed in it and I was glad it was big because it had to fit all four of us in it. After checking into the hotel we went and got on a bus that gave a tour of the entire city. We wanted to see as much as we could even though we didn't have a lot of time, and this was the best way we could think of! It was so cool. We sat on the top of the doble decker bus so that we could see everything. They gave you head phones and had you listen to a Scottish man explain the history of the city. It was really interesting. I had no idea how old Edinburgh was! The bus drove us all the way up Calton Hill and we got some really pretty photos of the skyline of the city.
After the bus tour we headed up to the Royal Mile to grab a spot on the Ghost Tour. This was one of the coolest/scariest/funnest (not a word)/amazing things I have ever done. Along time ago Edinburgh had been surrounded by a huge wall to keep the English out. At the time they had millions of people living in the city and they no longer had enough room for everyone. They couldn't extend the city outward because of the wall so they tried to extend it upward. The Scottish couldn't build the buildings and homes out of wood because they have fires in the structures almost year round because the weather is so cold, so they had to build it with stone. The problem with stone is it can't go very high. They go as high as they could with the stone, but they still didn't have enough room for everyone, so they decided to go underground. They built these places called vaults. They were just large open spaces that people actually lived in. They are supposedly supposed to be 'haunted'. So our Ghost Tour was a tour of these underground vaults. It was so sweet. Our tour guide was so animated and really into it. Ha it was so funny. She really did actually scare me though. The vaults were really creepy and dingy. I couldn't believe people actually lived down there.
We finished up the Ghost Tour around 9:30 and headed to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. I know not very Scotlandish, but it was the only thing that sounded good at the time and it's open really late! Julia and I shared a smoothie and some delicious fajitas. It's always so nice to eat American food! and it tasted delicious. Also from our bus tour ticked there was a coupon for a free chocolate ice cream sundae, so we made sure to all get one of those. We left Hard Rock at about 12:30 and just walked back to our hotel. Beccah and Mallory booked their hostel a few days before us so they didn't stay anywhere close to where we were. We parted ways at the half way meeting point and discussed what we were going to do the next day. At the hotel we got ready for bed and we all slept like rocks. Surprisingly too because we were fitting four people in a king size bed. It was so nice though to sleep in a comfortable bed and on normal pillows. The morning came way too fast.
Today was one of the greatest days of the trip. Scotland really is such a great place. I loved every second of it.
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