Edinburgh, Scotland

Before my trip to Valencia, I took a 2 day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. One of my friends here was generous enough to give me one of his best friend's number from back home, who just happens to go to University of Edinburgh. It was a last minute decision to go, I hastily booked a night bus ticket from central London to Edinburgh on Thursday night and went Friday night. I had talked to his friend and he said he had a couch open and I was more than welcome to crash there for the weekend.

The bus ride was sort of rough getting up there. It was sleeting for most of the time and I could barely sleep because we stopped every 1.5 hours for breaks at the highway service stations. Not sleeping for more than 3 hours at a time, I drudged off the bus, finally in Edinburgh, at around 6:30 in the morning. With a burst of energy from some dark coffee I saw Arthur's Seat in my sights. Arthur's chair is at the summit of that land form you see below. The area its in is called Holyrood Park. The geography was formed from an extinct volcano system that runs under it.



At the time it was snow covered from the weather during the night, but I didn't care. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time. It was cold! After the storm had passed through the weather dropped below freezing and by the time I got up to the top I thought differently about my intentions about this ascent. But I got up there. There was no one up there so I had to resort to the old self-timer function on my camera to capture the moment. I vandalized Arthur's Seat and edged my name into it also. (Sorry mom and dad - you raised me better than that) Summit is close to 900 ft. elevation




If you can see that...




Then, I took a walk along the Royal Mile that runs through the center of the city. Its point lead up to the gates of Edinburgh Castle. Atop, I got to see an aerial view of the surrounds different than on top of Arthur's seat. I also took a walk to the top of Calton Hill. So I walked a lot and then finally met up with the friend of a friend. His house was 100 ft. away from Adam Smith's house back in the day. (If there are any Econ people in the house, you can't help to appreciate that).



Stuffed Dolly

The following day, I went to the Scottish Portrait Gallery and Royal Museum of Scotland. I got to see Dolly (stuffed), the first cloned and arguably the most famous sheep. Also one of the first steam engines produced was there. The next day I went into St. Giles Cathedral. The people I met were great during the trip were great and welcomed me into their homes considerably. All in all, it was a great start to my spring break. I got one more picture in of Edinburgh before I ended the trip back on the bus back to London.