I don't know how we decided on Edinburgh but I am glad I had a second chance to check out this a-maaaz-innnng city. Note to all you readers - come.visit.the.uk.and.go.to.Edinburgh. Ok? Deal. I can't really tell you why I love it so much but I just do. Its got something to do with how its so open with not many tall buildings and lots of peaks where you get amazing views and just the fresh air. But then again that may be because I am used to London's fresh air being the tail smoke of a double decker bus. Last time I was there we were really lucky with the weather and I must be a lucky charm myself because we had a couple of lovely spring days.
Let me back track a bit to our journey up to Eddy (yes I am getting too lazy to write the whole name). We all met at Kings Cross Station at about 5.30pm and jumped on a train. I was pretty excited about this because I didn't do much train travel in my adventures across europe and hadn't spent any longer then a couple of hours on a train so I know its a weird thing to be excited about but I was! It was a pity that it was dark because it would have been great to look out the window but its ok we amused ourselves easily. We had all stocked up on wine and snacks and got stuck into them straight away. We then started to play cards and that killed a few hours and before we knew it we were arriving in Edinburgh and after five hours of drinking and many bottles of wine we were pretty pissed when we got there.
After we managed to find our hostel after me and Siobhan went the wrong way after taking wrong directions off the hottest policeman I have ever seen (I was just caught up in his accent) we were pretty chuffed to find it was right off the Royal Mile (the main strip in Edinburgh). We checked in and dumped our stuff in the room before heading back out to the closest bar. It turned out to be a heavy metal/alternative bar but that didn't really matter because they sold 2 pound Jagerbombs and 7 pound fishbowls. Needless to say we had a sample of the cheap drinks menu while we listened to Papa Roach - "She Loves Me Not" which was then stuck in our head and our trip theme song for the rest of our time there.
After a couple of hours it was getting pretty late and we came to a vote that we would be better off going home now and sleeping it off, enjoying tomorrow and having another fun night out the next night so we headed off to the nearest boozy food store. At the corner of the street our hostel was on there was a chip shop where we found the most amazing midnight munchies EVER. Hot chips with gravy and cheese. Drooooooool. We bought a couple of serves and they got inhaled. We loved them so much we made some random backpackers take a group photo of us with the chips because it was such a hugh occasion.
The next morning we got up and surprisingly we were feeling pretty good but still in need of a good feed before our adventures so we asked at the hostel and they led us to Snax Cafe. Which was basically a greasy spoon/diner type cafe thing that gave us a 'Big Breakfast' (and let me tell you it was aptly names) and a coffee for 3 pounds. Oh yeah all that grease hit the spot and we were ready and raring to go. We wandered up the Royal Mile and had a peek at a few market stalls and shops along the way before heading to Mary Kings Close for a tour of the underground city.
The Real Mary Kings Close is a guided tour of the underground city that was left behind when they built over it. We got shown through the tiny little rooms where they lived and got told all the history of the close's and even got told a ghost story - which was actually scary!! The whole place was so old and amazing it was hard to imagine hundreds of people living in these closes back when there was no running water or heating or electricity. Yuck. Interesting but I am SO glad I don't have to live that way!
After the tour we headed further up the Royal Mile to have a quick look at the castle. We realised it was 14 pounds to get in and as none of us were very keen to part with that kind of money for a castle we decided to wander around the other parts of the city and then make our way to Arthurs Seat. We wandered through the GreenMarket and checked out lots of their shops before doing to the Elephant Cafe for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. The Elephant Cafe is where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and it is filled with pictures of her writing at the tables and other memorabilia. I went into the loo and the toilet seat was covered in pictures of Harry Potter characters and the toilet door was covered in the funniest writing ever. There were things like "Ministry of Magic This way" with an arrow to the flusher and quotes from the series including one about a bathroom ( I know I am a fan but I'm not that good at remembering exactly what it was) as well as lots of letters and quotes to JK Rowling thanking her for such a wonderful series of books.
Arthurs seat was one of the things I wanted to do last time but did not get the chance and my desire to climb it was fuelled by the book One Day. For those of you who haven't read it (YOU TOTALLY SHOULD) basically these two characters take a climb up to Arthurs Seat and it is one of the main parts of the book. Sort of. Anyways just another reason why I wanted to do it. Although the downside was that Arthurs Seat was quite far away from the Castle so after walking for 40 minutes to get there we then had to spend another 40 minutes doing the very steep climb up to the top. And I can tell you now it was well worth it. As the photos show the view was phenomenal.
The funniest part of the climb was that as there were two peaks to the hill/mountain/ridge whatever it is and we weren't sure what one to climb (you could do both) and Matt looked at the steps and then looked back at the hill and was like 'I can go straight up the hill without going up the steps' so he managed to climb straight up the side of an almost vertical hill which was quiet an effort. We had planned to meet him up there but on our way up to the path we asked some locals which one was which and he pointed to the opposite hill. So we had to call Matt and get him to come down the path and then climb up to the top of the other peak. Hahahaha
After a very tiring climb, a good long admire at the view (ok it was a rest) and a tentative climb down the peak we wandered back to the nearest pub closest to our hotel and treated ourselves to some food (we were ravenous by then) and a well deserved drinks. We then slowly wondered up to the hostel and had a few lazy ciders while we chatted to our hostel room mates and got ready for another night out. We found a thai restaurant not too far away and had a really yummy meal and a few drinks before heading out to a pub.
We headed over to Rose Street as we knew there was a strip of pubs along there and we hit up a few pubs along the strip. After we couldn't really find one with a good vibe - you know good music and good atmosphere we decided to head back along to the Royal Mile and see what we could find. I was actually convinced that I knew the way to a club I had been to when I was there before but after walking 10 minutes in the wrong direction (whoops!) I got vetoed as head of directions for the night and we stopped at a couple more pubs before making our way back to the hostel in the wee hours of the morning.
The next day we just spent wandering around the city and chilling out in the park and a sort of tired and hungover mood. We had gotten to the point where none of us had much money left to do any more of the sights and the weather hadn't let us sit outside without freezing to death so we basically just bummed around until the time for the train. It was still fun checking out the sights of another city but I was happy to get on the train for a bit of a rest and home for an early(ish) night. This was my third weekend away in a row and it had started to take his toll and I was wrecked.
It was such a great time away and like I said previously it is one of my favourite cities I have visited. We have semi-scheduled in another trip for sometime later in the year to somewhere like Liverpool or something. Exploring the UK is unfortunately often put to the bottom of the list because Europe is so tempting but after this weekend I am determined to see a bit more!
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