Day 41 aka to sleep or not to sleep? sleep. to shop or not to shop? SHOP.
I woke up not feeling well at all so I decided to go back to sleep and I slept until like 12. Which was good, but I was really hoping to go to the V&A, but no worries because Catherine and I are making plans to go on another afternoon. So I woke up and got ready to go to Primark and New Look with Sarah to see the deals and get a pair of boots for horseback riding in Edinburgh on Sunday! Primark was CRAZY-- think like good quality stuff but walmart-at-jmu-on-move-in-day experience wise. Apparently it is like that every day though. I waited 20 minutes to try things on and another 20 to pay. Sarah waited about an hour to return something because they have the customer service desks in weird places and also do checkout there as well. Then we went to New Look which was AWESOME. They have a 10% student discount, except on sale items, so I didn't get to use it. I also got the cutest pair of tan/gray boots. :) After our weekly meeting, we watched some more HP to get ready for the midnight release on Thursday!
Day 42 aka harry potter all over my newsfeed.
We went to a graffiti "gallery" with Jay for our outing in culture by design. It used to be a Eurostar terminal under the Waterloo station, but then they stopped using it. So some street artists had a big exhibit there, and now people just graffiti it all the time. It's actually a legal place to do so. Which kind of makes it less cool-- I feel like a big part of street art is the danger and the cleverness of getting away with it. After getting back from class, we watched the live stream of the Harry Potter premiere. If I hadn't had class today, then I would have gone to the premiere, because it was like 15 minutes away from my house. But you had to have been there since Wednesday morning, and I couldn't skip class to sleep on the pavement in the torrential downpour. After watching coverage of the premiere, we got ready to go to Edinburgh the next morning! It was an early night, since we had to be at King's Cross Station at 8am.
Day 43 aka EDINBURGH!!!!
Edinburgh, Scotland is the most beautiful place on Earth. Well, maybe not, but it's the most beautiful place I have ever been. See for yourself:
the castle was gorgeous.
and so was the view from its walls. including WATER :)
So the train ride was 5 hours long, but in keeping with the "this trip is mostly about harry potter" theme, Sarah and I rode the Hogwarts Express.
i thought it would be a faster way to get to scotland
Just kidding! But we did get our picture at Platform 9 3/4!
It was lameish because they're doing major reconstruction at King's Cross due to the Olympics next summer, so they had a fake brick wall, even though it is usually on a real one. But we did it anyway.
So after 5 hours on the train and a walk in the rain to the hotel, we were finally on our way to do stuff! First we went to Scottish Parliament, which is MUCH more public than the Houses in Westminster. The building was built in 2004, so it was very modern, but I think the architect tried to use way too many concepts at once. I did like that the building kind of grows out of the ground, though. And it was cool that it is on the opposite end of the Royal Mile (the nickname for High Street) from the Edinburgh Castle. We watched the final space shuttle launch live on TV in the Parliament Cafe while waiting for the second tour group to finish. Cool. After Parliament, we went on a bus tour of the city, but we were all SO tired from the long day that we started falling asleep. However, sleep is for the weak is the other motto of this trip, so we went to Mum's for dinner, which was a diner-ish place with traditional Scottish food. I did not try the haggis, but some of the group did. I had bangers and mash and a local beer. Yum! After that, we went to a bar that was really close to our hotel, because they were having karaoke night! So we all did some songs and danced and it was great fun! The Scottish people seemed to love us, even though we basically took over the scene... they even found some American flag cardboard crowns that some of us wore... it was dumb, but really fun anyway! I sang Love Song and everyone was singing along and it was really cool... and then I won the £20 raffle! And we tried to get the birthday girl (Courtney) to sing, but instead she had a shot at midnight. So, good enough.
Day 44 aka royal treatment
Today we went to the Edinburgh Castle! It was gorgeous, at the top of the Royal Mile and set into the hill. The view of the estuary and the town from there was gorgeous.
After the castle and a free taste of whiskey inside their store, we went off on a walking tour of Edinburgh led by Dr. Butt. We walked to Greenmarket and through the center of the city for a while, enjoying the (very few hours of) sunshine and the city. After eating lunch at a pub with a great view, we went shopping on the Royal Mile, and got some great gifts for people. Hint hint. After all that, we were super tired so we went back to the hotel for a nap. Good thing because then came the monsoon. It was literally raining so hard that when I stepped out to try to meet up with some people for Courtney's birthday dinner I made it about a block before I had to turn around and go back. I had pools in my sneakers and my clothes were soaked. Even with an umbrella and rain jacket. Gross. I went back to the hotel and got a small pizza on the way back. Then I finally took that nap and it lasted until about 9:30. At which point it was still raining like crazy so I stayed in and read in our comfy hotel room. No regrets.
After the castle and a free taste of whiskey inside their store, we went off on a walking tour of Edinburgh led by Dr. Butt. We walked to Greenmarket and through the center of the city for a while, enjoying the (very few hours of) sunshine and the city. After eating lunch at a pub with a great view, we went shopping on the Royal Mile, and got some great gifts for people. Hint hint. After all that, we were super tired so we went back to the hotel for a nap. Good thing because then came the monsoon. It was literally raining so hard that when I stepped out to try to meet up with some people for Courtney's birthday dinner I made it about a block before I had to turn around and go back. I had pools in my sneakers and my clothes were soaked. Even with an umbrella and rain jacket. Gross. I went back to the hotel and got a small pizza on the way back. Then I finally took that nap and it lasted until about 9:30. At which point it was still raining like crazy so I stayed in and read in our comfy hotel room. No regrets. Day 45 aka frustration. but worth it.
Sunday was finally horseback riding day! A group of us decided to get lunch around 12pm, so we could walk to the bus stop and catch the 12:56 bus. Too bad that the restaurant decided to serve us at 1:05pm. So we got the 1:30 bus, and seeing as the bus stop didn't have a complete map, I wasn't sure of the name of the stop. I only knew that we were taking the bus to the Liberton Cemetary. Apparently everything outside of the city is named Liberton. We asked the bus driver where to get off to hit Liberton Drive, but I think he thought we meant Liberton Road and told us to get off there. So then we started walking the wrong direction, got a GPS map on Jessica's phone, and finally started the right way. Then it led us in crazy places, and we were lostish again. Meanwhile, we've been walking for about 1/2 an hour uphill. We FINALLY got to the farm 15 minutes late, so we weren't able to have our full hour that we paid for. But we did have about 40 minutes, so that was good. It was SO beautiful riding along the trails and seeing the mountain (Arthur's Seat). All the frustration was worth it. It started raining the minute we got off the horses, so we took cabs back (good idea, because it took like 10 minutes and didn't involve us knowing how to get back). Then we got our suitcases and went straight to the train station for another long ride home.
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