edinburgh i had to catch a night bus from manchester to edinburgh, so i tried to sleep while i could. of course sleeping on a bus is never easy, though, so i was wide awake by 5 am. watching the sun come up over the scottish countryside was magical, and the grass was just so green. i could tell i was going to love scotland.
i stayed in edinburgh from monday morning to wednesday morning, which seems too short a time for such a gorgeous city. when i arrived at 7am, i was feeling quite awake. i checked into my hostel which was cute, colourful, (ya like that 'u' in there?) and extremely nice given that it was only £10/night. i wasn't allowed to move into my room until noon, so i dumped my bag in the luggage room and went off to check out the city. first stop was the high kirk of st. giles followed by the tron kirk and the canongate kirk, since the kirks (churches) opened earlier than everything else in the city. at 10am i went to the museum of edinburgh (a bit boring since all the major pieces of history are in the museum of scotland) followed by the people's story museum, and found out all about the lives of the people of edinburgh over the past couple of centuries. at this point, the national art gallery was open, so i went over there to check out paintings by the likes of degas, van gogh, and titian. by the time i was through, i was pretty tired of walking around so i went back to my hostel to properly check in and take a nap. i intended to wake up an hour or so later, but of course i slept in until i barely had enough time for a shower and a deep fried meat pie before the hostel's nightly pub crawl. as you might expect, i met lots of other interesting travelers and had a wonderful time. i also tried a snake bite for the first time.
tuesday i rolled out of bed pretty late, but still had time to check out the national museum. i was really into all the old celtic stuff from the 8th and 9th centuries, but the medieval stuff was all pretty played. the museum was huge, so after spending around 2 hours on the first floor, i decided to take a break before moving on to the other 6. i went to the elephant house, which is where j.k. rowling wrote harry potter and the sorcerer's stone. it was a pretty cool place, but i merely read a book instead of writing one. when i finished my cappuccino, i went back to the museum and did my best to view as much as possible before it closed at 5pm. can't say i got all that far, although i did get to see the remains of dolly the cloned sheep, revolving in a glass case in a children's amusements area. what a way to spend eternity. for dinner i decided to attempt healthy/cheap eating by going to a grocery store to find food. asking for directions seemed unnecessary since there are little groceries all over most of the cities here, so i just wandered off looking for one. an hour and a half later, i finally found my hostel - only now i had provisions. canned stewed steak and a bag of veggies... glorious. not really, but it was reasonably healthy and only cost £2. while i was making dinner, a spanish guy walked in and we started to chat. i found out he was staying in my dorm, and he asked me if i'd like to go out for a drink or two later with some friends of his. i knew i couldn't stay out late since i had a train to catch in the morning, but i agreed to go for a little while. anyway, long story short, everyone dropped out but this guy and me. the first bar we went to was alright, but by the second bar/club, my friend was pretty drunk and coming on pretty strong. after a couple of awkward dances, i announced that i needed to go to bed so we headed back to the hostel. on the way he asked for a kiss - which i refused - and then told me that he loved me. so silly! but at least i was able to escape early in the morning, before there was any more opportunity for ridiculousness.
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