New Thing #81 - L/S/I, Day 7 - Edinburgh

Friday, May 17, 2013

4:30am. Wide. Awake.

This wouldn't be so bad had we not gotten to bed only two hours earlier. It also didn't help that the sun rises freakishly early over there, AND there are no curtains on the windows. The UK apparently doesn't like lazy sleepers. (It was also freaking me out a bit that it was still kind of light out at 9:45-10pm every night.) I was able to toss and turn and sleep some more until about 8 when we all showered and prepped for the day. We also had to pack our bags because we would be leaving for Glasgow later that afternoon. Geez, we JUST got here, and now we have to leave?

Like yesterday, I'm feeling pretty damn terrible. Congested, runny nose, cough. You name it. I honestly thought it was a cold brought on by our soggy evening sojourn around London a few nights earlier. All of the symptoms I had were the same types of ones I have when I have a cold. I planned on hitting up a pharmacy later to try to get some Scottish drugs.

Since our train didn't leave until way after our check out time, we had to go ahead and leave our luggage in the storage room while we ate breakfast and finished our sightseeing. No sausage roll and danish for me today. Hostel breakfasts include cereal, juice and some rolls with pbj. This hostel charged us a pound and a half for one bowl of cereal, one glass of juice and one roll. At least it was better than nothing. We also washed our own dishes, and then headed out to do some more shopping/touring.

Before we left, I took photos of some of the rooms on our floor. Loved them.

Kind of like a dorm floor.

More photos through our room window! Such a gorgeous morning.

The kitchen/living area.

Groovy loungers only. Just good vibes man.

Damn, I was really wanting to bring some riff-raff into this room. :(

Posh lounge, indeed.

While out and about, we ran into Naomi and watched a military parade. We were pretty enthralled by their outfits and the pomp and circumstance. I enjoyed it more than our time at Buckingham. Probably because it wasn't raining and we had front row seats!

Brenda had a bit of a rough morning.

I wasn't doing too much better. Thank God for that step.

Trying to make the best of it and not let my allergies get me down!

Powering through!

Fancy military parade.

Interesting stance.

Pretty bows!

I liked how they moved over at the end.

Eventually, we moved on to lunch at Molly Dickinson's where I had some not-so-tasty mac 'n cheese, and then made our way to Edinburgh Castle to finish up our sightseeing. I think it was overpriced for what we got to see. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool and beautiful, but for 16 pounds (roughly $25), I expected much more. We missed the cannon too. :(

Mostly just noodles with melted shredded cheese on top. Not the best mac n cheese I've ever had.

I donated a pound for this photo!

Edinburgh Castle!

Changing of the guard.

Nikki was pretty stoked to be able to take her coat off!

Pretty ladies on a gorgeous day in beautiful Edinburgh. Life doesn't get much better.

I love the coastline in the background.

Brenda found a friend!

So did Flat Nate.

This area was a cemetery for soldiers' dogs.

I was pretty excited to not be wearing my coat!

An underground area of the Castle. I like the lighting effect.

Another guard inside the Castle.

We're not sure if these people were getting married here, or were just trying to get some after-wedding photos. Everyone was treating them like royalty though!

Nikki's purse broke early in the trip and at this point it had stabbed her in the hand. And my allergies were trying to kill me. We were both having some technical difficulties.

I absolutely love the streets of Edinburgh.

These buildings were so beautiful.

We still hadn't had tea yet, so we stopped at a cute little shop and each one of us had tea and a pastry. I opted for green tea since I've had Lipton's green tea drink once or twice, plus it's super healthy. I hoped maybe it would help knock my body back into shape.

Dear lord in heaven, it was quite possibly the grossest thing I've ever had to drink. I could barely get it down even with half of my taste buds on the fritz. At least the chocolate cake I also got was pretty good. Brenda gave me some of her cream to add to the tea, but sweet Jesus, that just made it worse. My companions were nudging me along, assuring me it would help me feel better and to just drink it already. I tried, I really did, but it was just so damn gross. I've never been a tea drinker, not even sweet tea, so it didn't go down very well. I finished about half of it and called it a win. (Side note: the cold medicine I bought earlier in the day was not helping. I was really hoping Scottish drugs would be pretty badass.)

Cake? Good. Tea? Not good.

We got to sit on the little patio.

Last view of the Castle before we left.

I was still feeling pretty terrible, and just needed to sit down, so I headed back to the hostel's lounging area while Brenda and Nikki finished up some shopping. I was just miserable and even more ticked off that I was feeling so lousy. But, at least we had a downhill climb to the train station to leave. Since we were early to the station, we hopped on an earlier train to Glasgow than what we had first chosen. (We thought our tickets were good for any train that day.) Halfway there, we were approached by the ticket police, and he informed us that our tickets weren't good for that particular train, and we each had to pay more money to continue on our journey. Luckily, it wasn't too expensive. Hey, you live, you learn. At least we made the train!

Our  incorrect train to Glasgow.

I attempted to rest on the train, but since this was a much shorter journey than our train from London, I didn't really get much of a chance to nap. It's really amazing how Edinburgh and Glasgow are in the same country, not even that far apart, and it was like two completely different worlds. I immediately disliked Glasgow after coming out of train station. It was bigger, dirtier, noisier, and much shadier than where we had just come from. It could have just been because we were so close to the train station, but I still wasn't impressed. At least our hostel, Euro Hostel was nice, although not nearly as quaint and adorable as Castle Rock.

In fact, Euro Hostel had a much more modern/edgy feel to it. Everything was monochromatic with lots of metal accents. Our room had very little color or personality, but at least we had curtains and our own bathroom this time. Since this hostel was much larger than Castle Rock, people were much more spread out and less frequently seen. There was definitely a less social vibe about this place.

Euro Hostel

This lobby was quite different than the medieval feel from Castle Rock.

More bunk beds.

There were also curtains on the windows. Woo-hoo!

Yay for our own bathroom though!

Worst shower ever.

The basement/game room. It was a cool space, but there was NO ONE down there!

Creepily empty.

It was nearing dinner, and after walking around for forever, we ended up at Crystal Palace, which was more mediocre fare. I couldn't even finish it, let alone my beer because I was feeling so terrible. I went back to the room before B and N to get my laundry ready. This would be our first and only laundry stop for our trip (I managed to pack half the clothes I did for Italy knowing we would be doing laundry at some point.) They fortunately had two washers available, which was nice since we had enough laundry between the three of us for both of them. I opted to dry my jeans on a lower setting and it was a big mistake. It ended up taking forever and cost more money than if I had just dried them on high heat! But, at least they didn't shrink.

Dinner spot. You ordered at the bar and gave them your table number for delivery.

I really liked Carlsberg beer, but sadly, I couldn't even finish this one. :(

Meh.

Even though it was a Friday night, we were all still beat from our bar crawl the night before, and I was in no condition to go on a bender. I didn't sleep well since I couldn't breathe. I swear Scotland was trying to kill me. I just hoped I'd feel better tomorrow.