Scottish Pride

This weekend we went to Edinburgh, Scotland. In my opinion, it's been the best weekend of the trip. I love Edinburgh (pronounced: Ed-In-Bur-Oh not Ed-In-Burg) probably more than I love London. The people were very friendly, the scenery was gorgeous and I sort of met Sean Connery!

What was great was the fact that I came into the trip not expecting anything. We left early Friday morning and took the train from Kings Cross. The ride was about four hours and relatively uneventful until we started getting closer. We rode past the first waterfront I've seen since I've been here and it was beautiful. Slightly delirious, Elizabeth mixed up the words defecation and desecration and, surprisingly, that changed her sentence significantly. However, I think our crazed state cleared up instantly when we arrived in this gorgeous town. I know this sounds stupid, but they actually play the bagpipes here! I always thought it was a big stereotype that they liked to include at Busch Gardens and Epcot, but it's definitely real. After we settled into our hotel, we had a group outing to Scottish Parliament.

The tour was pretty boring and worthless (kind of like Scottish government), but our tour guide lived in my hometown of Richmond, VA for two summers and worked at Kings Dominion! Also, I have now gone to the bathroom in both the Scottish and British Parliament buildings for those of you who were wondering.

Shortly after this I purchased my first cup of Starbucks coffee since I've been overseas. Now, this may sound like a small event, but it was probably what made my day so fantastic. You see, I drink an average of three cups of coffee per day when I'm home, and I haven't had ANY coffee since being here. Basically, coffee makes me the dazzling creature I am, so here I've been a little lack luster. While in the Starbucks line getting that delicious cup of coffee, I began talking to a Scottish native who was in line with me. He asked me to visit his shop across the street. I promised too, but I'll get to that later. After getting coffee, the group went on a freezing yet fun bus tour. We sat on the top of an open air, double decker and got to see some really interesting sites. I'm not sure if we liked this tour more because we didn't want to walk or because Scotland is so beautiful, but it was a good time. We saw the home of Robert Lewis Stevenson and Alexander Graham Bell.

That night I attempted to go out and do some more exploring, but everything closes down around 6 p.m. so I headed back to the pub where some friends were watching the World Cup. England tied the game and it kicked them out of the running so that was a bit of a downer. Outside these two women, who were very dressed up, seemed to be having an intense cat fight so being the obnoxious Americans we were we watched intently. I considered taking a photo of it, but I thought that would be a bit much. I occasionally have class. We moved to this bar called The Outhouse which was just around the corner from our hotel, and it was a pretty good time. There's only about four hours of darkness in Edinburgh during the summer so it didn't even get dark until around eleven.

The next day (yesterday) was without a doubt the best day of the trip thus far. We got up early for breakfast and then went as a group to Edinburgh Castle. It was located at one end of the Royal Mile, high up on a hill. The view was very picturesque and we took tons of pictures. After the castle we stopped for lunch then proceeded to hike up to King Arthur's Seat. It was definitely the best thing I've done since I've been here. The view was breathtaking. I took a ton of pictures, but there's no way to capture it. I love the fact that Edinburgh has gorgeous architecture AND a beautiful landscape. The green rolling hills that you see in commercials are REAL! I was really impressed that almost everyone in our group of 28 hiked to the top and back. It was nice to see everyone in the group want to take part in something to physically taxing.

We climbed back down and rewarded ourselves with ice-cream cones and flake. Then a group of us went to buy Scottish rugby shirts and other gifts at the shop of the man I met at Starbucks. He was really excited to have us all in the shop and gave us free key chains. He and I exchanged e-mail addresses, and then he gave me some free shortbread cookies.

After that I rushed back to the hotel to shower and met up with Judson and Mary for the Edinburgh Film Festival. On the way to the theater I discovered that Judson went to my high school, Godwin, and was in the class above mine! It's crazy how often stuff like that happens. We went to see Toy Story 3, which was fantastic (to read my blog visit: http://racheldozier.blogspot.com/).

When we arrived at the theater there was a red carpet, and we were informed that Sean Connery would be pulling up any minute. We waited and he got out of his car right next to us! However, no amount of obnoxious American screaming (from me) could bring him over to take a picture with us. He ended up being in our theatre, which was the first group of people in the UK to view the film!

Two of the men who worked on the animation for the movie came down and talked to the audience in advance and told us about some other projects they're working on. After the movie let out, I rushed to get close to Sean Connery. While exiting the theater our hands brushed. For you environmental-friendly folks out there, you'll be happy to know that he recycled his 3D glasses. I then followed him and the people with him into the hallway.

I tried to act discrete and to build up the courage to ask for his photograph. I ended up failing. However, here is my reasoning: 1) No one was asking for his autograph or photograph or acting like it was a big deal. 2) I didn't want to be the American tourist. 3) He was surrounded by some of "his people" talking about the movie (his accent is real!). 4) The thought of rejection was too much to handle.

Still reeling from my failure, I left the theater a broken woman. I quickly perked up when the three of us went to Illegal Jacks for dinner. It was this fantastic Mexican place (like Chipotle but better) where I attempted to consume a burrito which was about half my body wait. Once again I failed, but this time it was probably for the best. We called it an early night, exhausted from hiking and from being in the presence of Sean.

Today a group of us went on a whiskey tour where they show you how whiskey is made and have a tasting at the end. It was actually really interesting, but the whiskey was disgusting. Whiskey is a big part of Scottish culture here. I've heard it mentioned on every single tour I took. Our tour guide at the whiskey place said she wouldn't be drinking any because she was still pretty rough from the night before. I guess I'm just not woman enough to drink it.

After the tour, we went to the Elephant House Cafe where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. I liked the fact that it was an actual cafe and not a Harry Potter tourist trap. It made the feel more authentic. Then in my last hour I went on my own and visited Mary King's Close, which are a serious of secret streets located under the Royal Mile. This was recommended by my mom (who has been to Edinburgh several times), and was a great tour! Our guide was dressed up in period clothes and was very funny. It was probably the most interesting tour I've taken thus far. Directly after I rushed to the hotel, grabbed my bags and headed to the train station. Our train was cancelled so now I'm sitting in first class of a different train. First class equals WiFi so here we are. If you got through this entire thing, I'm either impressed or feel a little sorry for you, but thanks for reading!