SB'2013 UK LIVING (PART 2)

It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged! The month of March has just been crazy- traveling every weekend + actually having to start homework= no time for anything else! I actually just got back from a weekend trip to Prague this morning buuuuut I'm going to play catch up now and finish my recap of spring break. K? k.

I'll start off by saying that Edinburgh, Scotland is by far my favorite city in Europe(except for Venice). It was one of those unexpected surprises; we kind of just decided to go there on a whim since we wanted to be in Ireland for St.Paddy's Day & Scotland was in the area. I should have known it was something special though because my Uncle Mike has gone several times & has just raved about it. 

We flew into Edinburgh around midday on Wednesday, the 13th, and caught a 30 minute long bus from the airport to the center of the town. I'm not going to lie, we hadn't eaten since early that morning and the traffic was a nightmare so my first impressions of Edinburgh were skewered by my horrible mood. I remember sitting on the bus and saying angry things under my breath the entire ride. No need to worry though, the second we got off the bus we 1) found a bank to exchange euros for pounds (and the bank worked with my bank of america card!) and 2) discovered that they had bakeries there full of CHEAP FOOD! it was a miracle. Coming from Switzerland, we had begun to accept our fate that a meal would cost no less than 20-40 Swiss Francs. Walking into the glorious country of Scotland and discovering that food was Bonn, Germany cheap and that everyone spoke english was a serious pick-me-up. I'm pretty sure I got a sandwich for like 2 pounds and did a little dance on the street. Teaghan & I walked into the bakery and freaked out so the lady working there probably thought we were insane. I'd like to think just delusional from lack of food :)

We ended up checking into this AMAZING apartment on Princes Street(one of the two biggest streets in Edinburgh) and just explored the city until Kathy & Josh got there. We were all sharing the room together & shout out to Josh Nutter for finding it. It was a gem- it had tv's in every room, a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom with a bath tub(you don't find those in Europe often) and cool little "americanized" things like iPod docking stations and straighteners. All for the price it would cost to book a hostel! holllaaaaaa. 

Here's a quick pic I took of a bridge connecting the old part of Edinburgh to the new. The city is split up into two separate parts and the area in the middle of them is filled with just green everything- trees, gardens, etc. It was beautiful then so I can't even imagine how it looks when actual spring time hits. It's pretty neat because the city has ordained that no buildings can be constructed that would block the view from either side. 

Teaghan wasn't feeling that great(waddup allergies) so we found this drug store on the main street. I think part of the reason I was so happy in Edinburgh was because it had this really awesome historical vibe mixed with new. It almost felt like home in some parts of it just because they had things like drug stores(not your typical apothecary you find everywhere else). It was a nice change of pace. When we were checking out I remember dumping all my pounds out on the counter and the guy working gave me a quick lesson on what was what(I currently have coins from like 5 different countries in my wallet- it gets confusing!) He asked me what brought me here & I explained to him that I was studying abroad and originally from Texas. Quick lesson: if you tell anyone you're from Texas, they automatically freak out and want to become your best friend. I like to compare it to having a British person be in the same proximity as us back home. You just want to tackle them and force them in your pocket. Right? Or did I just take that too far? Hah. 

After that, we found a super cool clothing store called Primark that was amazingly cheap & filled with stuff you can't really find in the states. I'm pretty sure we both spent like 20 pounds and got way too much stuff. Clearly the recipe to me being happy is beautiful scenery, cheap food, & good clothing stores. Scotland, you got this on lock. We ended up meeting up with Kathy & Josh for dinner at this italian restaurant and then all passed out early because we had a loooooong tour of Scotland the following morning! Here's another picture of the area.

The structure on the left is the only thing standing in-between the old and new parts of Edinburgh. There's a valley type area between them and this is right on the outskirts. It's a statue commemorating a poet/auther(can't remember his name) who played a major role in bringing publicity to Scotland. On the right, you can see some of the buildings on Prince's Street. All the buildings in this town were a deep stone brown with ornamental workings and gave off this powerful vibe. I was digging it.

The next morning, we woke up around 7 to go on a tour of Scotland. My uncle recommended the company giving the tour so I knew it was worth the money. The tour was called "Scotland in a Day"...and it was literally Scotland in a day. As in they took us up to the highlands and we circled around the country. The tour literally lasted about 12 hours(it's the longest tour offered in Scotland-we were informed this after we had gotten on the bus/Teaghan's face looked like death at the thought of being on a bus all day...oops). The tour was awesome though! We got to see parts of Scotland very few people do. It's such a neat country. It's beautiful in it's own way. On the tour, we stopped thru several small towns, saw castles up on hills(it literally seems like there's a castle every 40 minutes down the road there-the country is full of so much history), saw places where Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were filmed, &went to the Loch Ness monster lake. I remember driving past a castle that was home of Mary, Queen of Scots and realized how much history truly was in this place. It just blew my mind. I mentioned HP above...here is the mountain's where Hagrid's cabin was. A particular scene filmed here was when Buckbeak escaped.

I really just wanted a hippogriff to fly out from behind the mountain. Nerd status, no shame. 

We eventually made our way down to see Nessie(we all ended up refusing to pay 13 euros to go on a boat tour to "scan the lake for her" because we're poor starving college students who'd rather spend money on a meal than a tourist trap, haha. But while at a restaurant, we discovered these orange drinks that taste like Big Red but apparently are like one of the most caffeinated drinks in the world. (I'll bring one home for you dad!)

Here's the famous lake! It was pretty! The town it's by(Fort Augustus) is super quaint as well. It was all very peaceful and I'm going to go on another tangent about how much I love Scotland right now. It calms my soul :)

Here's a view of the precious town of Fort Augustus

We ended up heading thru a couple more cities and stopping at more sights along the way before getting back into Edinburgh around 8 that night. The day was exhausting but rewarding! At dinner that night, we went to a restaurant and were seated by some girls on vacation from TCU. I heard one of them say "Fort Worth" and I freaked out and started talking to them. Once they found out we were from Texas/A&M, it was chaos and we were all temporarily best friends, hahah (for an hour). The following day, Teaghan and I woke up(let's be real, I obnoxiously made him wake up) to go look at the sights of Edinburgh since we were leaving that night for Dublin. We went to Edinburgh castle, walked the Royal Mile(the other famous street in old town), went into some souvenir shops, explored some alleyways(a lot of the streets were constructed way back in the 1200s), and went and hiked Arthur's Seat! Arthur's Seat is this huge mountain/hill overlooking the town. It takes about an hour and a half to hike up, but the panoramic views are worth it!

This is Edinburgh Castle. It's on a giant volcanic hill overlooking the city and above is Arthur's Seat, which is overlooking the city from the opposite side. 

Oh! We also went and saw The Elephant House. It's the famous coffee shop that JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in. It's this little shop in the middle of a street with views of the castle in the back. I remember thinking that everyone in Edinburgh reminded me of people from a HP book & now I understand why! The author herself got inspiration from the town and people. It all makes sense!

I was sad to leave, but excited to see Dublin! So off to Ireland we went. That night, we went Temple Bar area to grab some food and to explore the town. It was only Friday and the major holiday was Sunday, but the atmosphere was already crazy! The one regret I had about going to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day was that you didn't really get a feel of what authentic Ireland was all about-it was like a giant spring break on a beach buuuut instead of a beach, it was in a major city filled with visitors from ALL over the world. Super cool though. The following day we took a tour of the Guinness factory(I was determined to get a new appreciation for beer- my ring dunk ruined it for me!). The factory was pretty cool. Not really my thing, but I'm glad I went to see it! Cause I mean going to the Guinness factory in Dublin, Ireland is pretttttty cool.

We later just walked around the city some more and went shopping of course. Oh and we found a really cool mexican restaurant. It was the closest thing I've found to my beloved tex-mex yet. <3

Sunday was St. Patrick's Day! We woke up and managed to catch the parade as it went thru the city.

It was a lot bigger than it looks in this photograph! Later that night was when the real craziness started though. Everyone basically just decked out in green and hit the bars. And when the pubs were full, they hit the streets. I don't really have a picture to do the insanity justice but just know that it was CRAZY.  Our flight was at 7am the following morning so we didn't get to stay out as long as we wanted to but we got to experience a good amount of it. Dublin was fun, Edinburgh was something special, and Switzerland is the definition of beautiful. Not really sure I'll ever be able to outdo this SB but I'll try!

....Australia next year? ;)