I spent the weekend roaming the ancient streets of Edinburgh, and from the moment I arrived I was greeted with 85 degree sunshine, the melody of bagpipes, and friendly smiles from all the local kilt-wearers.
I had 48 hours to dive into the culture and explore every bit of the city I could. So I went from walking tour to walking tour seeing the sights and sampling the local cuisine. I did not partake in Haggis-eating or Whiskey-drinking, but I did try many of the other local Scottish specialties - like Scottish Smoked Salmon, Scottish Shortbread, "Chips", and my personal favorite - tablet.
What is tablet, you ask?
Well - in the words of the Scottie who explained it to me when I asked, "It's basically a wee bit of heaven."
Tablet's a ridiculously sugary confection. It's like toffee, but not chewy, and it's like fudge, but more grainy. When I tasted it, it reminded me of when I was little and would eat sugar cubes straight from that bowl that accompanied the tea my ordered in fancy restaurants. And that's not actually far off - since tablet has three ingredients - butter, sugar, milk. It looks like this -
After discovering tablet I knew I was going to like Scotland.
Aside from Scottish food, my second favorite thing about Scotland are the Scottish Cows, known by the locals as "coo." This gave me the brilliant beyond brilliant idea to start using the expression "holy coo!"
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| Cute Coo! |
Sadly, I did not get to go to the Highlands so I did not get to see one up close, but if you take Highlands tour you can actually pet and feed a coo! As you can imagine, I will be planning a trip back to Scotland to do this before I leave. I actually wish I could move to Scotland for the remainder of my UK life and get a pet coo. I would name him something very Scottish like Farquar McDougal and feed him a diet of tablet.
I love things that sound stereotypical to wherever they are. This is probably why I decided to stay at The Haggis Hostel. It was also the only place in the city centre I could find under £300/night on such late notice. I was really worried about staying in a hostel after the diasterous night I spent, terrified, in one in Florence after my blue-haired roomate yelled at me for turning the lights on when I came in.
I was not nearly as nervous as my mother was about it all though. When I told her I was staying in a hostel she mildly freaked out. I thought I had done a good job of ensuring her it was safe and normal and looked relatively clean online but I think her worry level only increased as the day went on because I received a call later that day....
"Ann - I was thinking. You have to keep your money hidden when you're in that hostel in case someone steals everything from you while you are sleeping. You should keep it hidden on your person actually - like, in your underwear! Oh wait... you don't wear underwear. You'll have to think of somewhere else"
.......?!
Why my mothers thinks I don't wear underwear, and furthermore - why she is okay with it, I have no idea. I assured her that were lockers in the hostel that I could lock everything up in before going to bed so the only thing someone could steal from me is my pajamas. I also assured her that I do, in fact, where underwear, but I thought that using underwear as a storage facility was slightly un-hygienic.
Any coo, I made it through the night alive and un-robbed. I think it's a right of passage these days to travel Europe alone and stay in a hostel - and I'm proud to say I've done it now successfully.
Since I was alone and in a new place, I decided to take a few walking tours to learn about the city.
One was a Harry Potter themed tour of Edinburgh visiting all the sights that inspired JK and places she sat writing and sipping coffee. My guide was a grown Englishmen wearing wizard robes. He had a wand of course, and he gave us all wands to collectively point at traffic lights at the crosswalks and shout "Lumos!" while we waited for the walk sign.
The second was a historical guided tour of the city with a local Scottie dressed in normal clothes that covered the history of Scotland and it's most famous and infamous residents.
Guess which I liked better?
I'm just kidding - the historical tour was awesome and fascinating. I just had a hard time understanding what in the world the guide was saying sometimes. Like,
"Guid mornin, nice tae meit ye! Whaur ar ye fae?"
Which is, "good morning, nice to meet you. Where are you from?"
But you really need a translator to figure it out. I worry that my version of the history of Edinburgh and it's residence is not entirely correct due to words I may have misunderstood.
I did learn one thing for sure. If you were around in the olden days of Scotland - your life ended one of two ways..
1 - Do something great for the country, declared famous and have a pub named after you.
2 - Do something bad for the country, declared a traitor, and be publicly hung, drawn, and quartered.
You could also be prisoner of war. They got to live in the castle and were fed bread, cheese, and beer to drink because the water wasn't safe. They had to be kept safe and healthy to trade with other POWs, so I think a POW could actually have been the best option for most.
My tours took me through every corner and crevice of the city, and after walking around the entire day, I finally sat down in the Elephant House, the famous cafe where JK penned Harry Potter, and had some dinner while I did a little writing of my own. It was a completely glorious day and by the time I got back to the scary hostel I was so tired that I passed out before I could have an internal panic attack.
Sunday I headed straight to the castle to see the views, the crown jewels, and the stone of destiny.
My highlight of the castle was being led around on a guiding tour by a man wearing a kilt, and getting Shortbread for breakfast.
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| Scottish Shortbread is soooo guid! |
From the castle, I walked down the Royal Mile to Hollyrood Palace and park, where I decided to hike to the top of Arthur's Seat, a 251m tall inactive volcano hill. I decided to do this despite the fact that I was wearing jeggings and patent leather oxfords, while all the other hikers were in full on hiking gear - but I wasn't going to let that stop me.
I wish I'd known about his dumb seat beforehand so I could have brought tennis shoes. But I was trying to pack light so I only brought 1 pair of shoes on a trip for the first time in my personal history. Lesson learned.
It definitely made things more interesting - but the payoff was worth it when I got the most incredible view of beautiful Edinburgh. I also burned off my shortbread breakfast.
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| Holy coo! |
After my hike, I passed out in the hills for a few hours and soaked up the Edinburgh sunshine before I had to head back to the train station to return to London. I was joined by early everyone in the city. Apparently it was some of the nicest weather on record ever for Scotland - so everyone was out picnicking and laying out, which meant the city was full of Scots that were white as ghosts from the back, and bright pink from the front. The poor things do not tan, they just turn into scottish smoked salmon.
It was the perfect weekend escape. There honestly wasn't a thing about Scotland I didn't like, and my old regret is not buying a kilt.
My lovely weekend really made me determined to see the rest of the United Kingdom - so Wales and Northern Ireland are up next. Afterall, I can't leave here without trying Welsh cakes and Baileys Cream Pie!
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