7 June 2010 - Day 7

Well that was an adventure. We ended up leaving the hostel later than we were supposed to. We caught the tube, but it was only running every 5/10 minutes instead of every 1 or 2 minutes. On top of that? There was some sort of concert and the trains were PACKED. And I do mean packed. We smooshed onto the Jubilee line and when we hit our connection I bolted up 2 flights of stairs carrying all my luggage. We still missed that tube and had to wait for the next one. The next train that came along however, was also super full. I ended up having to literally push JoHanna onto the train whilst the people on the train tried to shove her out. We made it on the train but only had 5 minutes to catch the bus once we hit Victoria Station. We ran through the station and down the street to the bus stop where the driver was literally about to start driving. We hopped on all sweaty, out of breath, and relieved. Neither of us slept well on the bus, but we made it to Edinburgh before 8 the next day.

On arrival, we had several people help us out, including a security guard that kept flirting with us. We made it successfully to the hostel and after a quick trip to the bank were all set to start adventuring. We began with a delicious lunch at a place called The Mosque Kitchen. Very cheap, very good food that was literally out of the back of a mosque. We then decided to go on a walking tour but after being told that it would take more than 3 hours we went to the Edinburgh Castle instead where we ended up spending 4 hours walking around. It was really interesting in some parts and again I tried to take pictures of some of the interesting things written about the castle. Next, we hurried down the hill and took a scotch whisky tour. I learned all about how malt whisky is made and then learned about the different kinds from the different regions of Scotland. We had a taste test and well, whisky is pretty strong. But we did get to keep our tasting glass, so that was really cool. Afterwards we headed back down to the hostel and stopped in several shops. Yay cashmere! We grabbed some dinner and did the underground walking tour of the Real Mary Close where we explored homes/streets of the Edinburgh of the 1500s. It was really cool, but we weren’t allowed to take any photos so I might go back and grab the guide book.

After this we were really tired but I wanted to do some research on the day tours offered around here. I still haven’t made up my mind but I was really tired and just ended up going to bed. I’ll upload the photos soon. Much love!