On May 4, 2009, I passed my one year mark of living in New York City!!!!! Happy anniversary to me! 1 down, many more to go.
Anyway, I just got back from the lovely United Kingdom. Rachel and I took a quick trip out to Edinburgh & London. Again, it was sort of a last minute trip. Rachel’s cousin, Brenda, lives in South London with her husband and 3 ADORABLE children and offered to let us stay with her during our visit. And I figured — if we’re going to go THIS far, might as well check out Scotland, too!
So Rachel and I met at Newark Airport. DUDE, we were on the SAME flight (she flew in from San Francisco). Talk about luck! We managed to sit with each other AND score an empty seat between us!!! It would’ve been a decent red-eye flight but the kid next to me across the aisle stayed awake and TALKED the entire frickin time. It was cute at first because he had such a heavy Scottish accent but you know what? That brogue can definitely wear on you after, oh, I don’t know, the first hour. Regardless, it was an easy flight and I’m really thankful.
We got to Edinburgh, Scotland around 8 am and didn’t really have an idea of what to do. Our hostel room wasn’t available until noon so we had a few hours to kill. It’s in Old Town, next to the Grassmarket (pretty great location, if you ask me), by the way. So Rachel and I wandered the streets a little, walked down Royal Mile and when it started sprinkling (Scots don’t believe in umbrellas, BY THE WAY!!), we headed down Princes Street to go shopping. Edinburgh is pretty. It’s REALLY old and my mind could not wrap around that fact. The streets in Old Town are all cobbledstoned and the buildings are all gray and.. I don’t know, it’s gorgeous. Edinburgh is also very hilly. They have these little shortcut alleys called closes. They’re kiiiiiiiiind of creepy. They’re just stairs from one street to another.
The Royal Mile
One of the creepy closes! This is NOT a black & white picture, by the way!
Scottish Parliament
Of COURSE we had to go see Edinburgh Castle. I’ve never seen a castle ever! The views are amazing.
A view of the castle from the gardens below
What an odd sight -- a parking lot in front of the castle.
The Royal Apartments
What a view!
I got stuck 
Rachel and I
In our downtime, and because our hostel didn’t have wireless internet AND I brought my laptop (due to work responsibilities–what can I say, I’m addicted to my work), Rachel and I used the free internet at one of the nearby pubs. Um, how amazing is that? DRINKING AND FREE INTERNET???
Rachel was happy!
After a few drinks and getting our internet fix, we were both pretty happy!
Anyway, our first night in Edinburgh, we went to the Beltane Fire Festival in Calton Hill. It’s a Pagan fire festival that celebrates the start of summer with a HUGE FIRE. And lots of naked dancing. Seriously. That was an interesting night, to say the least. We met some great people and that’s always a plus.
Don’t let the summer festivities fool you–it was COLD! We were lucky that it wasn’t raining that night (miraculously) but it was still ridiculously cold!
The view from Calton Hill
The Beltane Fire Festival.. before they got nakie
Haha look at that woman's face!
Naked pagans!
Fire!
There was one thing I REALLY wanted to do in Scotland–eat shortbread. I am not even joking.
YUMMY
You can't fake that kind of joy.
And I really wanted Rachel to try some haggis (I couldn’t because I don’t eat red meat.. or anything gamey).
It's just sausage, really
She liked it!
We also hiked up Arthur’s Seat.. well, actually we hiked up one of its crags. So here’s the thing. There’s this massive cliff that’s about a 45 minute hike up to the peak and we wanted to see it. There are a few ways to get there and even though we were told how to do it, we kind of just winged it. Okay, I lie, I winged it and Rachel just followed me blindly. Hahaha.
This is not Arthur's seat. It's just one of the crags
THIS is Arthur's Seat. About an additional 30-45 minutes of hiking through a valley and up that massively steep incline.
Haha who else is going to pose like this while hiking? Oh Erika.
Check out the background!
Edinburgh's so green
Finally reached the peak of the CRAG.
I look dangerously close to the edge, don't I?
We spent our last day just wandering around some more. We didn’t explore as much of Edinburgh as we could have.. the public transportation is KIND OF expensive. It was either 3 pounds per bus ride (ridiculous!) or a stroll in the rain.
At the gardens below the castle. Rachel's happy w/ her cotton candy!
Another view from the gardens
Some plaza
On our way to see a waterfall
It was somewhat of a let-down.
Princes Street
I’ll detail the London portion of my trip in Part 2, which will come soon, promise!
<3
E
they sell haggis in a clothing store?
Comment by diana c — June 21, 2009 @ 7:16 pm
haha, it’s a gift shop/cafe. they had free samples!
Comment by Erika — June 21, 2009 @ 8:00 pm