Caitlin's Blog

Scotland

Posted on October 14, 2009. Filed under: Uncategorized |

So they say that in Scotland you experience 4 seasons in one day…I must say that this is a true statement. While we walked around it would go from being sunny and comfortable to cloudy and windy, to cold and rainy, and then back to sunny again. It was a little annoying, but you get used to it.

Well let’s go through an overview of my Scotland weekend:

Thursday: We left from the bus station Thursday morning and started on our 7 hr and 30 min bus ride. The first four hours I spend sleeping, which was nice. By the time I woke up we had to take an hour break in New Castle so the bus could fill up with gas and what not. It was the dinkiest bus station and you had to pay to use the bathroom (which is kind of common around here). The hour seemed to drag on but we finally got to get back on the bus and we arrived in Edinburgh at about 4:30pm. It is much nicer getting to where we are going in the afternoon. We then got a taxi that took us to our hostel. None of us had really eaten all day, I had had a doughnut and a bag of chips. So once we put our belongings in our hostel room we went to find some place to eat. We  ventured down the street and found a restaurant called Sizziling Scotts. We went in and ordered. Cody got a started of Haggis, which we all tried before we exactly knew what it was. It actually didn’t taste too bad at all. I will tell you what is in Haggis, but I warn you, it is disgusting. Haggis has sheep stomach sac, heart, lungs, liver, and kidney fat. Yuummmmmmm…I seriously never want to eat it again. Well I had ordered an 8 oz steak that came with grilled tomato, mushrooms, onion rings, and mashed potatoes with cheese and chives. Now this sounds delicious right? Well the steak was the worst steak I have ever had…it tasted like I straight up ate a piece of charcol. Nasty. I was not a happy camper after that. I forced myself to eat it all though because I paid quite a bit for it. After we got done eating we went back to our hostel and we all went to sleep around 9…until the fire alarm went off at 11:45 because someone in the kitchen burned something. That wasn’t exactly a great wake-up call. So that was our Thursday.

Friday: So we got up Friday morning and set off to go on the tour of Edinburgh Castle. (Note: After we took our taxi to the Hostel the first night we walked absolutely everywhere we went in Edinburgh, and everywhere in St Andrews except the ride from the train station to our hostel.) We started walking in Edinburgh and saw some pretty churches, parks, and just buildings in general. We made our way up to the castle, which included walking up some crazy steep hills! For one, the castle didn’t look like what I imagine a castle looking like, but it was still beautiful. We took our tour and learned some history of the castle. After our tour we went into certain buildings like the great hall, the Queen Anne building, we saw the Scotland crown jewels, and royal apartments. (I don’t have pictures of the castle b/c my camera died that morning, so Cody has all the pictures.) We looked around and we also went and looked in the gift shops. I bought Cody his Xmas present…and I already gave it to him. (it’s a good thing cause he said he was gonna buy something like it.) So in return he bought me a pair of cashmere gloves, these came in handy because my hands were freezing a lot of the time. Besides looking at the castle, we also went on a Murder and Mayhem tour. We met outside the castle by a retaurant called the Witchery. This tour was meant to show you the darker side of Edinburgh but they did it with humor. It was a great experience. I thought it was going to be scary at first, but it ended up just being funny and very imformative. That’s what we did on Friday, in a nutshell.

Saturday: Saturday we caught a train to go to St Andrews. It was only about an hour train ride. Once we got there, we got a taxi and went to our hostel. We again, didn’t stay there very long and went and walked around. St Andrews is a very beautiful town, I like it because it’s  a small and yet there are things to see and do. We walked and went and saw the Cathedral ruins, went and walked on the beach, saw the Castle ruins, and then made our way to St Andrews golf course. All of it was very nice, although St Andrews isn’t was pretty as I thought it was going be. I guess it’s just the history that is important. After walking around for a bit and going in the gift shops we went back to the hostel and I took a nice nap. After that we went back out and and went to a bar/restaurnt (I dont remember what it’s called) and I guess is famous because of St Andrews. They had pictures of golfers all over the place. I also had the most amazing piece of apple pie there. It has like a strussel top and then a layer of carmel, and it was warm, and had ice cream on it. I would seriously go back just so I could have another piece of pie. Yumm Yumm. After we ate, the three of us went and climbed on some rocks and looked out at the water. It was beautiful.

Sunday: Sunday we got up at 6:45 (boooo) and went back to the St Andrews course and walked the 18-holes and took some pictures. That was the last of our Scotland trip. The rest of Sunday was spent riding back to Hull. We finally got back around 8 pm, and we were all thankful. It was a very good trip but tiring. My legs were super sore from walking everywhere so it was nice to relax.

This upcoming weekend we are going to Wales. I will blog and let you know how that trip goes.

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