12 June 2010 - Day 12

Today was a day-long tour around the island. We started out by heading towards the Old Man of Stor – supposedly a part of the giant that instead of protecting his people made a deal with the devil to control the minds of mortal men. The other giants, the good ones, came and killed him with the help of men, and Satan came to claim his soul and the Old Man of Stor rock formation is what remains of the giant Stor. We could have done an extended hike up the hill, but a bunch of the girls didn’t wear appropriate footwear and Ewan said that it wouldn’t be safe. I was super pissed at the girls wearing fashion boots and heeled wedges to a day when we were supposed to be hiking all over the island.

Anyways, we took some lovely pictures, the waterfall was supposed to be a fairy waterfall, and then moved on to another river. This river is said to be in the same mountains where the Scottish warrior queen Scáthach trained heroes. There are a great many legends and such about the area and the queen, but after our guide told us the story, he said that the river was supposedly renown for keeping people looking young and beautiful if they put their faces in. And because he wouldn’t ask us to do anything he wouldn’t do, he stuck his head in the river for 7 seconds. And yes, I stuck my head in the river for 7 seconds. Hopefully I’ll be beautiful! I was one of only 4 people (all the rest guys) who actually stuck their heads in the water. When I asked one of the Australian girls why she didn’t she replied that she would have, except she spent half an hour blow-drying her hair that morning. Really people. Who is it exactly that you’re trying to impress. We’re in the highlands of Scotland here people. So anyway.

Our next stop was in the little town of Portree (Scot’s Gaelic for “King’s Port” – where Charles I (?) came ashore to make the highlanders pledge allegiance) where I did some shopping. I bought myself something called a Heather Gem. Heather gems are made by collecting the stalks of the heather plant, cleaning them, dying them, and then using 80 tons of pressure to cement them into a stone-like block. The block is then cut, rounded, laquered, and placed into jewelry as a heather gem. So I’ll always have a little piece of Scotland with me.

Our next stop was at a place called kilt rock. It was by the sea and some very lovely cliffs and there was a rock that looked a lot like a kilt. The rock was formed by cooling lava, as a lot of Scotland used to be volcanic. We were then given and awesome demonstration of kilt folding and wearing. The long kilts, the ones we were shown, had pleats in the back (like the more commonly worn short kilts) to keep things warm in winter and cool in summer (air pockets in the pleats) and a lot of extra fabric that was pinned over the shoulders. This could be pulled over the head and the back greased with animal fat therefore providing camoflage and a rain slicker. Additionally, the extra would be fashioned into various pockets to hold things or a back-pack like device to carry children or large game. The little bag worn in front would be used to carry oats, which if they didn’t get wet would last forever. Back in the day, the oats would be pressed into shape under the armpit of the man about to eat them. Not only did this provide a convenient shape to eat the oats, but the man’s sweat would add salt that he had lost during his time in the wild. Yum yum. If the man needed more fuel and couldn’t afford to kill his cow, he would take a knife and cut the cow enough to make it bleed, mix the blood and oats, cook it up, and eat the blood pudding, thereby getting the same nutrients as he would from a steak. I tried blood pudding. It didn’t agree with me. But all in all, a very education and fun experience. Additionally, the Scots could remove their kilts by untying just one knot. Very handy, according to our guide.

From kilt rock we drove up a huge mountain to take some pictures and grab some coffee. I found a lamb and he seemed to be kind of hurt – he was limping – so we took pictures of and with him. We got back to the bus and there was a border collie on it scaring the Chinese girls up front. So I took a picture of that too. Then it was back down the mountain to a castle at the northern-most point of the island.

The castle had belonged to the MacDonald clan, but a particularily nasty chief came to power and through a series of terrible happenings, his only son was thrown out the window of the castle by a maid and killed on the rocks below. The clan chief had killed her child so that she would only nurse his. Apparently she didn’t like this plan. It’s said that because he abused love (of a MacCloud woman), beat her so badly she lost an eye, and sent her back as ‘damaged goods’, every generation there is a MacDonald born with only one eye. My camera ran out of batteries at this point which was a huge shame because our next stop (after a bathroom break at a curiosity exhibit) was the fairie glen.

This was probably my favorite stop of the day. The fairie glen is surrounded by exceptionally strange hills with lots of little mounds all over them in concentric circles. The largest and rockiest hill is said to be the fairie castle. A local man, hundreds of years ago, was said to believe in them so much that he went to play the bagpipes in front of the castle all the time, hoping they would invite him in. He was such an extraordinary piper, the fairies did come out and invite him to play. They asked him if he knew the rules and he said yes, yes, I want to come in. But after 6 solid days of playing, he simply couldn’t play anymore and asked the fairies to leave. He noticed on his walk home that things looked a little different. He had twice as many animals, things were slightly shabbier, and the door was a different color. When he knocked on his door, an exceptionally old woman opened it. She was his great-great granddaughter. While it had only been 6 days in the fairie world, 200 years had passed in the world outside.

Our guide showed us the spiral circle that if you wanted to make a wish you walked the spiral to the center, left a gift for the fairies, and then walked out backwards. Awesomely enough, my camera revived for about 5 seconds and I took some photos blindly (the display wouldn’t turn on – not enough juice), which I was very happy about. Just about everyone made a wish and we ended up getting back to the bus very late. Ewan wasn’t too worried about it, as long as no one took anything from the glen. The things there belong to the fairies and they get very upset when things are taken. A couple years back an American girl took a rock from the glen and awhile after her tour the company received a letter containing the rock, begging them to put it back for her. She’d had nothing but absolutely terrible luck since taking it. Two weeks later they received an email thanking them for putting it back. They hadn’t let her know that they returned it, her luck had just changed overnight.

After the glen we headed back to the hostel. I made a little dinner for myself and did some reading and charged my electronics. I stopped off at the pub to say hi to everyone but didn’t feel like staying. Andy and I ended up walking down by the shore trying to find the seals and otters that supposedly beach there. We didn’t see any but I collected some great shells. Afterwards, fleeing from the midgee death, we headed back to the hostel. I took a quick shower and turned in for the night, as the next day had an early start as we headed back to Edinburgh.

11 June 2010 - Day 11

Today was an early morning to make the tour bus. There turned out to be 29 people on the bus! It was crazy full. I ended up sitting next to Andy, from D.C. and Stacey and Robin from Toronto. I know that maybe I should have made some more international friends, but it was really nice to talk with people who have similar cultural experiences and accents.

The tours here are a lot different than the tours at home. The tours I’m used to are you ride there in a bus, nothing really going on, and when you get there the guide tells you about everything and takes you around and then you get back on the bus and rest until you get to the next stop. Here, the tour guides talked and tell you about what you’re seeing or they tell you about the history or lore so Scotland while you’re on the bus and then when you get off the bus it’s like ‘Ok, go take pictures, see you back here in 30 minutes!’ And while they’re talking on the bus you’re expected to pay attention and not talk. A couple of girls really got in trouble for talking. It was pretty rude of them as other people were trying to listen.

We learned a ton, a lot of which I don’t remember, but we started on the bridge. We didn’t talk too much about the actual bridge we crossed, but rather about a bridge to the north. Created by a Mr. Botch in the 1800s, he built the pylons under water by dropping big copper tubs to the bottom of the river, used pumps to push out all the water and crate a vacuum, and then pumped in air so that men could go down and build the bases of the bridges. It was a really good bridge, but unfortunately it was hit by a storm (the scale of which hasn’t been seen since) and additionally, a train was traveling across it. The second car had no passengers and lifted off the tracks in the massive winds. This caused the destruction of both bridge and train, on which his own daughter-in-law was travelling. The public was outraged with him (even though it wasn’t really his fault) and he died a month later (some say from a broken heart).

We stopped in the town of Dunkeld for a quick look at the cathedral and some coffee (there are lots of pictures of the historical stuff) before we pushed on. We passed through a lot of beautiful scenery and I did my best to capture it through the bus windows and at our frequent photo stops at scenic pull-overs and sometimes just when we’d stop at the side of the road and our guide, Ewan, would say something like ‘take ten minutes and clamber about an get some pictures’. Ewan MacCloud was our guide and he was hilarious. He’d be in the middle of telling us history or folk -ore or what have you and all of a sudden he’d start off in a tangent about the guy walking down the street with his coffee or the pretty girls riding by on bikes or something equally random and crazy. Dirty old Scot for sure! But completely adorable. He had a bit of help from our guide in training, Craig, too. Our next prolonged stop was Loch (means lake) Ness! We didn’t see any monsters and I forgot to splash in the water, but it was really beautiful. It’s 24 miles long and almost a mile wide in some parts. Very pretty. I also tried Irn Bru – Scotland’s highest selling soft drink. It kind of tastes like a melted creamsicle and cough syrup mixed together. Not my favorite, but it was interesting.

Our next stop was at the roadside monument to Robert MacKenzie, the man who with his dying breath fooled the British soldiers into thinking he was Bonnie Prince Charlie and thus confusing them enough to take his head back to Edinburgh for identification. They discovered it wasn’t Prince Charlie but it took long enough for the Prince to make good his escape. I also took some pictures of bluebells, the Scot’s national flower and tried to avoid the midges. We call these may flies or ‘noseeums’. Here, they’re called midges (pronounced mid-geeeeees) and a cloud of them (as we frequently walked into) was referred to as ‘midge-death’. The sneaky little bastards that weren’t a part of a cloud but snuck up on you and bit you unawares were referred to as ‘ninja-midges’ and I met my fair share of those too. Yuck.

The last stop before we got to Skye was the castle Eileen Donnan. Back in the 1300s the castle had been built on the ruins of an Abbey. By the 1700s it had been burnt down and the ruins just left. There were no plans that survived of the castle’s original layout. Then, in the early 1900s, the clan chief had a dream that he took a golden crucifix and saw a plan to rebuild the castle. Not having any money, he married a rich American woman and used her money to build the castle he had seen in his dream. They started in 1912 and finished in 1932, using techniques that would have been used in the 14^th century. Well, in the late 20^th century, a fire broke out in Edinburgh Castle that burnt down a previously hidden room, blocked by a wooden door. Inside the room in a trunk, they discovered several blue prints, including one of Eileen Donnan Castle. It turns out that the chief had re-built the castle to almost the exact specifications on the blue print. So neat! The family still owns the castle and the owners don’t allow photos inside, but it’s very neat! They still use it for clan gatherings and weekend visits. Most recently, the castle was used in the filming of the movie “Made of Honor.”

We made a quick stop at a grocery before we crossed Skye Bridge and went to our hostel. It was a guest house and we filled all of it. It was like a big family reunion kind of thing. Not wanting to cook, a lot of us went out to the pub where I tried Haggis, Fruit Pudding, and Blood Pudding. It didn’t really agree with me, but they all tasted pretty good. We had some drinks and then sang a lot of karaoke before heading home at 11:30 (it was still light!) and to bed. All in all, a grand first day.

10 June 2010 - Day 10

*****Editor's Note*****

Hey guys! I just finished uploading my website! Please check it out and see if you can find any parts that don't work. I've checked it but obviously I could have missed something. So go look at my work and tell me what you think and please let me know if any links are broken! The address is www.elizabethswenson.com. Catchy, huh? Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Much love!

**********************

Today was another one of those late start/don’t do much in the touristy way. But I’m starting to be ok with that. It’s a paradigm shift between doing absolutely everything there is to do, versus doing the big things I want to do and balancing that with the mundane and unexciting things I also want to do. So. Today.

If you read yesterday’s blog you know that I was outside walking and hiking for 6 plus hours. What you didn’t know is that I wasn’t wearing sunscreen. I discovered in London when I was having major allergy issues that my sunscreen was burning my eyelids when I put it on. So I did the very smart thing and stopped putting it on. I did the very unsmart thing by forgetting to get a different kind. So when I was getting ready for bed late last night I looked in the mirror under fluorescent lighting. There is a trick to sunburns – they can be difficult to spot on skin that is burned/exposed a lot (like your face) in incandescent lighting. Look at it under fluorescents, however, and boy does it show up. So I had walked forever, been dehydrated, and was now sunburned. Any one of these would have ensured a sound sleep, but imagine my surprise when I slept through almost the whole night including the 7 other girls in the room getting up and leaving (and they’re loud). So I got up late.

In addition to getting up late I took a long shower, attempting to help my poor, weather abused hair. By the time I got downstairs they had closed the kitchen to clean it. Deprived of my coffee, I sat down and read a tabloidy paper and started uploading my website to my domain (elizabethswenson.com, for anyone who’s curious). I also gathered up all my dirty clothes and dropped them at the front desk. This may seem strange, but here and apparently at other hostels around here, they don’t have machines available to the public but they will take your clothes and wash them for you for a fee of 2 pound 50. This is quite reasonable as they not only washed and dried my clothes, they did not dry the mesh bag I asked not to be dried, they folded my dry clothes, and then they delivered them to my room. Once I got over the whole ‘other people touching my underwear’ thing, I realized what a fantastic deal it was. I could get used to this. It was like being 15 and having mom do my laundry again. Sweet!

Eventually I decided to get going and hit the post office. I got a bag and a box to ship things to people and packed them up at the hostel. I was told to go to a different post office than the one I planned on because the one I had purchased the packaging from was a family run business that packages sometimes disappeared from. So I trekked across the bridge and successfully sent off postcards and packages. I realized coming back two things. The first of which was that I had not explored very much of Edinburgh at all, but that I was alright with that because the trade off was the knowledge and familiarity I felt with the streets close to where I am staying. The second thing I realized was that I was going to miss being able to tour Holyrood House if I didn’t hurry.

I made it just in time and took a quick tour of the palace and gardens. No photography was allowed inside and I think the part we saw was used more often for tour/museum purposes than functional purposes although several rooms were certainly still used when the Queen visits. I think I was very surprised by some of the ‘wornness’ of the rooms. They had kept some of the tapestries and furniture (and possibly rugs) from the 16-19^th centuries and you could see where people walking or prolonged exposure to sun had damaged or worn down the textiles. I was very surprised to see how prolonged exposure to sun had wrecked the damask in the King’s bedchamber. It had in spots faded from a beautiful fuchsia/crimson color to a sickly orange-yellow. The paintings were still in marvelous condition (despite some of them being slashed a couple hundred years ago) and when I went up to Mary Queen of Scots chambers her things and others collected from the Stewart family had been excellently preserved.

I ended my tour with a walk through the ruins of Holyrood Abbey (a very important historical spot in Scotland’s history but when the entire roof collapsed in the 1800s, they decided to let it be) and a walk through the gardens at Holyrood. These were lovely and I’m sure the annual garden party (8,000 guests!) must be spectacular.

I finished my tour at 6 and realized that I did not, unfortunately, have time to make it to the Royal Botanical Gardens. I might try and see them when I get back to Edinburgh after my trip to Skye. I came back to the hostel for dinner and ran into Rudy again who has informed me that in a few weeks he will be gathering up some elderberries, honey, raisins, and yeast and making his own wine. They get some survival training in the Army over here! Apparently last week his friend brought him a rabbit and he skinned and cooked it in the kitchen. Half the hostel was grossed out (they changed their mind after a taste) and half were intrigued. Ah, Scotland. Back to the wine. So Rudy is making wine in a few weeks and needs bottles with the screw on tops. I still have to plan my exit from Edinburgh to Ireland but later I might run over to the supermarket and pick up a bottle of the cheap stuff to share with everyone. Maybe he’ll send me a bottle when it’s finished!

That’s about it for today. Some more planning, some packing, maybe some wine and then bed. Tomorrow I leave for the Isle of Skye tour and won’t get back until Sunday evening. Then on Monday I head to Ireland. I think I’m going to fly into Dublin and then take the late train and push on through to Killarney. I’ll spend the night at a hostel before checking into a hotel on Tuesday. It’ll be nice to have a room to myself again! But for now, packing! Much love!

9 June 2010 - Day 9

What a day! I woke up somewhat early today because I knew I had so much more to do before leaving on Friday. I started with a trip to a local vintage shop – it was absolutely crazy full of all sorts of things. I ended up buying myself a cashmere sweater for a quarter of what it would have cost on the Royal Mile and a pair of denim leggings – I really needed another pair of jeans. My next stop was actually the Royal Mile to buy some souvenirs for the family and I learned all about how to get the tax I spent back. Yay! Stopped back at the hostel for some lunch and it was no longer rainy and even looked like it might get sunny later so I took that 3 hour walking tour. It was loads of fun and I learned a ton! Like how when thieves were caught stealing in the market they were nailed to the central announcement thing by their ear. Then they had the choice of being stuck there by the ear for a full day while people threw things like rotten food and chamber pot contents at them or they could rip their ear off. It they did that though, they’d leave an awful scar and employers wouldn’t hire them because not only were they thieves but also cowards. This is where the expression “ripping someone off” comes from. The expression ‘poop’-faced also comes from Edinburgh from the time when there was no indoor plumbing. The city had thousands of inhabitants that would empty their chamber pots onto the street. They were only allowed to dump, however, at 7am and 10pm so that people knew not to be on the streets at this time. Unfortunately for the drunks in the town, the bars also closed at 10pm. So they would stumble home and hear the cries of the people about to dump the pots ‘guard ey loo’ (garbled French for ‘Regardez-l'eau’) and drunk, wondering why they were hearing French in their city they would look up, and well, you get the idea. I also heard the story of the “Stone of Destiny” but I have a book on it and if you want to read more about it and the group of students that stole it back from the English in 1950, you can borrow it sometime. Our guide also explained the history of the statue next to St. Giles Cathedral.

Apparently, Charles the IIV of Scotland and the II of England wanted to be more well liked than his father (who was in fact beheaded), commissioned a statue to be placed in front of Edinburgh’s House of Parliament. When the lead statue was revealed however, the Scots started laughing. The King was dressed in the costume of the Roman gladiators (who had never made it this far north) and riding a disproportionately small horse. The Scots thought it looked like their king was going to a fancy dress party riding a donkey. To promote better feeling among the people, the Parliament decided to hold a parade once a year and let the boys from a local school ‘crown the king’ with an iron crown. Every year one boy would get to clamber up the statue and crown the king. Sadly, the iron crown, wielded by an enthusiastic little boy, set on a lead statue, eventually put holes in the top of the King’s head and the statue started to fill with water. The soft, thin, lead legs of the horse couldn’t support all of this weight and the horse started to tip, which only made people laugh harder because now it looked like their King was going to a fancy dress party, riding a donkey, who was drunk.

Parliament was pulling its hair out by this point, watching from the windows as people laughed at the King. So they hired an engineer to fix the problem. The engineer figured the easiest way to get the water out and keep it draining out was to put a hole in the bottom. The spot he chose to place the hole was most unfortunately located in the back of the horse. You can guess what happened. Every time it rained people would come from miles and miles away to see the statue of their King going to a fancy dress party, riding a donkey, who happened to be drunk, and relieving itself. At this point, Parliament had had enough. They put up privacy boards all around the statue so that you could only see the head of the king and people could no longer laugh. Since this time the statue has been repaired and no longer leans or pees.

After the tour I walked for a bit around the Prince’s Street Gardens and saw the floral clock (the oldest floral clock and it actually does work and tells the time). I then popped back into the hostel to grab my dinner before walking to the post office to make sure I could find it the next day. I ran into that same bus security officer and he walked me down the hill and pointed me in the right direction of Arthur’s Seat. I figured that because it was the first time I had seen sun here, I should take advantage and climb the hill. The first thing I saw that I thought was Arthur’s Seat was in fact, only Salisbury Craig. Arthur’s Seat was taller and behind it. And my, was it taller. It took me a bit to climb it and it was so windy I was occasionally concerned that I would be knocked over the side. It was very very cold and windy up at the top, but such stunning views! Coming back down was just as much an adventure, as it was so very steep that you couldn’t see much more than 3 feet in front of you at points. This made it very difficult to find the path and you often had to start down a path and if it was wrong, go back and start a different way. I went down a different direction than I came up and made it all the way down to the almost completely flat part before I didn’t see a little gopher (or whatever little burrowing animal they have here) hole and promptly fell and rolled my ankle. It wasn’t too bad a sprain and I made it back to the hostel around 9:30.

I poured myself a bit of hot chocolate and was about to come upstairs when I saw an older guy (probably mid-forties or so) working on a model plane. I learned his name was Paul and he actually lives at the hostel. The hostel has about 150 beds and about 60 of them are for full time residents. Paul’s friend Scott came over and it was strange because he was another blue-eyed ginger from the States – he lives in Texas. He’s finishing his post-grad work here in film studies and for the next hour and a half or so the three of us had a lovely chat. I have to admit, I have met some really nice people during my stays at the hostels. I have also learned that if there is a free tour available, take it as close to the first day as you can as the tour guides will often point out all the free stuff there is to do in town. Also, make good use of the people at the hostels. The lovely folks at the front desk have told me which tours are good, hooked me up with reservations for extended tours (even though they say they’re full up online – always check by phone), told me where to find the best shopping and cheapest food, and told me where to find things like the local grocery, laundry, and post. Make friends with the reception staff! Also, if you happen to be traveling, look for places with 24-hour reception. They are super convenient.

The vintage shop I visited

The statue of King Charles the IIV of Scotland and II of England

The view from Arthur's Seat

8 June 2010 - Day 8

Today got off to a late start as I didn’t wake up until 11:30. JoHanna woke me before she left so I could say goodbye, but I went back to sleep until a hostel worker came in and threw open the windows (no exaggeration) and started vacuuming. I thought it was a little rude but I did need to get up. I showered for the first time in two days (overnight busses aren’t equipped with showers, believe it or not) and went downstairs. I did some work and some research looking for trips to the Isle of Skye and Loch Ness, but was unable to find day trips to both. There was a 3 day trip that left on Friday – the day I checked out – but it was full. Deciding that I would go do some exploring I stopped to ask the front desk some questions. The girl replied that you should always ring the tour company or hostel that says they’re booked online because they usually reserve a few spots/beds because they fear overbooking. Handy little travel tip!

The tour company said they’d need a little to check, so I went off to see the Diane Arbus (pronounced dee-an) exhibit across town. The girl at the desk looked at the way I planned on going and said ‘no no no’ and directed me another way that she said was shorter and much prettier. It would have been a lot shorter had a not gotten lost 3 times, but oh well. I found my way with some (ok, a lot) of help from Google maps and people on the street. It really was prettier, too.

I made it to the gallery with about an hour to spare and the exhibit was amazing! I love her work and this was a very large collection – two large rooms and a smaller adjoining room. I checked out the gift shop and bought her biography. Books here are rather expensive (I bought one the other day from the castle) but I did really want to read it. It’s been very good so far.

After the gallery closed I headed back into the city center (didn’t get lost this time) and stopped for some dinner. I made up my mind to no longer eat out as much (dinner was 10 pound – about 15 bucks) and then did some window shopping. Things here are very expensive, but the wonderful person at the front desk (I may start a fan club for her) told me where a vintage shop is and I plan on checking that out tomorrow. There is also, believe it or not, a Salvation Army just down the street and a second-hand shop across the road. I’ll look into those too.

I wandered the streets a bit before coming back to the hostel and found some promising shops to visit tomorrow.

When I arrived back at the hostel, they informed me that they had been able to book my tour! It was pretty expensive and didn’t include rooms (they’re reserved but I still have to pay for them) but it’s a 3 day tour that includes the Isle of Skye and Loch Ness plus a couple of other places. It means that I need to move some dates around, but that’s ok. I will visit Dublin after I visit Killarney which will probably make it easier to fly to Italy anyways. The plan now is to move my dates in Dublin to the 21^st of June and then fly out. I get back from my tour on Sunday and will probably have to spend Sunday night here, but I’ll research that in a little while and see what I come up with.

After I found out I’d booked the tour I went back out to the grocery and bought some supplies for breakfast and sandwich lunch/dinners. It was half as expensive as dinner tonight and this should feed me for about 3 days! And I love sandwiches. I have 2 more days in Edinburgh and I still need to visit Holyrood, go shopping, and possibly hit the Royal Botanical Gardens, the National Museum, and see a showing of Peter Pan. I also really want to head up to Arthur’s Seat and take that walking tour but it’s been misting and rainy since I arrived. The weather is supposed to clear up on Thursday so I will probably save those and maybe the garden’s until then. It’s very strange, but almost all the shops and things close at 6 or 6:30, not like at home where the clothes shops and everything are open later. It’s also strange because this far north it doesn’t get dark until well after 10 pm. And I go further north on Friday I think I’m going to need some warmer clothes!

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!

06 June 2010 - Day 6

Today was my last morning at the hostel in London so I woke up, had breakfast, showered, packed, and checked out. I decided to leave my bags in the luggage storage but as that isn't really Fort Knox, I carried my computer, camera, and iPhone/Pod stuff with me all day.

I had a couple hours before lunch with Wendii so I set up some stuff so I could apply for a job online. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I made it to lunch without incident and we ate at a healthy-chinese-y place. I had fried sweet potato in a mild curry with sticky rice and it was so good! The sweet-potato was sliced thin and long, it looked a lot like breaded chicken, but tasted way better. For dessert I had coconut ice cream with a mango sauce and shaved coconut on top with a coffee. Turns out, the English don't use cream except on dessert (like pudding) and the waitress thought I wanted "spray cream" - what they call whipped cream. Also, if you do want coffee with milk, you ask for white coffee, instead of black coffee. Additionally, you don't say 'bless you' to strangers. Only the people you know. Also, don't get in a minicab without calling - you can only hail the black cabs, otherwise call so you're not abducted. Something really strange happened right before dessert, which was that the woman next to us said 'excuse me' and asked us to watch her 2 children (probably 5 and 7) while she went to the bathroom. I just looked at Wendii with my mouth hanging open and said 'This would never happen back home". Guess I'm not in Kansas anymore.

After lunch we took a walk down the South Bank to the tube stop and saw a ton of street performers. I've posted the pictures on Picassa. Loads of fun and very crazy! Speaking of Picassa, here's the link. Sorry it took so long.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Beth.Swenson

Now I'm back at the hostel hanging out with JoHanna. We'll probably stay here until around 10 when we'll head to Victoria Station to catch the bus. I bought a bag of apples from the fruit stand outside of the tube station for the bus later. I've got a couple of movies on my laptop and I'm set. Look out Scotland!