Taylor and Alex take on Edinburgh! AKA "Edin-Burg, Scat-Land"

It's 8AM. 
Taylor rolls out of bed to get ready for the adventure waiting ahead. She wonders why Alex texted AND facebook messaged at 4AM when we were getting up at 8...
Fast forward to 8:40 where Taylor and Alex meet outside in the res courtyard and walk about 5 minutes to the bus station - purchasing round trip tickets to Edinburgh for ₤10.40. (Btw, they make you pay 30p to use the public bathrooms in bus stations...)
9AM loaded up on a coach bus headed for Edinburgh!

I'll stop narrating 3rd person now. It sounds really dramatic in my head but its getting drawn out pretty quickly.

So we were off to Edinburgh today - there wasn't a ton to see on the way there, Scotland is scenic but not really when you're just driving on the motorway AKA highway. Driving on the wrong side of the road is interesting too, more so in the city because you feel like the front end of the bus is going to hit what seems like an oncoming car every time you make a turn.

Alex! + Coffee!

So we got to Edinburgh and decided to walk up to the main street and do some sight seeing (as every tourist does in Edinburgh). We walked along and got some coffee in the base of the Scottish National Gallery - which is free for admission but is highly recommended that you 'donate' ₤5 for your entrance.

We didn't end up going in - since we had just gotten coffee and you can't take food/drink inside. Instead we hiked it up 'the Mound' as the Scots call it and made our way towards Edinburgh Castle - which is pretty visible from most of the city.
The cobblestone roads leading up the castle entrance are chalked full of little souvenir shops and pubs which are so cute and probably where I will find most of my christmas gifts ;)
So we get to the castle entrance and fine a nice queue (line) that we have to wait in for about an hour. Alex and Myself ended up talking to the couple in front of us because they were from New Jersey and recognised the accent. Then it was just him so his wifey could sit down and wait and he would pay for the tickets.

Heading Towards the Castle Entrance.

Well as nice as this man was... he didn't really understand what our major (Media communications) was and was asking all sort of random questions that we couldn't answer... ie. How do reporters talk and not make mistakes at all). Then we got onto Canadians, he thought all Canadians were bilingual in french and was surprised when we told him that not everyone is. He then proceeded to ask and then TELL us about the ever-present and growing spanish influence in Canada.  When I told him we don't really deal with too much spanish everywhere he replied with "Sure! Sure! Sure! Sure! But you do, through kitchen staff and your gardeners..." We finally gave up and let him think what he wanted about Spanish Canada. He also asked if we were pleasantly surprised but how polite UK people are...we agreed - thinking it was kind of a weird question - and he then proceeded to yell at the box office people to 'Quit the acclamation and get people through the line faster' . Yep, that happened.

So onward through the castle. It was actually really cool, you could pay to rent audio tours where you listened to the stories as you went throughout, we did not do this though. But there was sooo much to see, we definitely got our money's worth. Lots of places to go and read about and some of spots were in there absolute original condition, like one of the prison rooms but you could only see it - not go in, but we did go into a pretty small cell that was used to house 100 or so soldiers for 3 months and explained how lots of them died from starvation and disease and stuff.

The view from the battery walls was incredible and a picture - no matter how hard you try will never do it justice.
On our way out we hit the gift shop (obviously)! Where I purchased my first Scottish souvenir/item - a pink tartan scarf :) Don't worry, it looks just lovely on me!

Yes, I know my ginger is
 showing.

Santa's Posh Entrance.

We spent about 3 hours wandering the castle before we left and headed
back down the mound. At the bottom we met up with Adam who lives in Edinburgh - he is my sister-in-law's cousin whom I met when he came to Canada for the wedding. We ended walking back up the mound (it's a lot of stairs and hills) to a pub we passed on the way down from the castle to grab something to eat. I ended up getting calamari, Alex got traditional fish n' chips and Adam got a starter of Haggis so we could try it and because he wasn't really hungry. The haggis does not look particularly appealing (see image)... but we each had a bite anyways without over thinking it and it turned out to be not too bad! Very garlic-y and meatloaf tasting with a weird oatmeal-meets-meatloaf type texture, and it came with neeps and tatties AKA turnip and potatoes.

Haggis! + Neeps & Tatties

So that was pretty good, a nice visit and some food and all that jazz.
After that we walked back down to the main drag and around a little bit trying to find this humungous cathedral we saw on our way in but ended up not being able to find it.
At that point we decided to pack it in and head back to home-not-so-sweet-home GCU rez. Adam kindly showed us to the bus station where we grabbed a drink before boarding. At that point the seafood was not sitting so well and we were getting on a bus... the ride wasn't too bad back and seemed shorter than the way there.
I'm still not loving the unsettled feeling in my stomach but I'm just waiting it out at this point.
All in all it was a good day, we shall definitely be back to Edinburgh at some point, especially since our friend Brittany goes to school there and we didn't get a chance to see her today.
But as far as tomorrow goes I think we might explore the rest of Glasgow seeings how we haven't made it past the city centre.


So I'm sure there will be a post tomorrow at some point when I am sitting in my room mildly bored and anti-social during the night time here.

Oh! The AKA "Edin-Burg, Scat-Land" is because we were laughing with Adam about the bad mispronunciations of Edinburgh which is actually suppose to sound like "Edin-brah" but people say "Edin-burrow" or "Edin-Burg" and when he was in the states he heard people pronounce Scotland as "Scat-Land" so we had a good laugh about being in "Edinburg, Scatland" for the day.    ... You probably had to be there for it to be actually funny. But I'm laughing so that's all that matters.

I love Souvenir Shops. 

Alroity then, chip chip cheerio, See you layta!

T