something is scratching its way out.

Arrived at Stansted Airport at around 10pm and had to kill time before about 4am when we wanted to check in for our 6:10am flight.

Sat and watched football at Oneills pub, then sat at Pontis restaurant, an open place with benches and tables where we hoped to spend the night and sleep and eat. We mostly ate and were terribly bored. Craig and Catlett played pictionary-I-Spy. Trie d to sleep on the bench, very uncomfortable the first time around…second time around I was out like a light until they woke me up because it was check-in time.

Currently at an internet cafe bc Pop Inn give us 15 free minutes a day. We went to gorgeous Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore cathedral on Palm Sunday–cool stuff, and went to the Piazza della Repubblica where the Santa Maria degli Angell is.

Going to Trevi Fountain tonight and eating dinner. Ok, Im out of time and there are no apostrophe keys on here so my punctuation is annoying and horrible. Ciao!

So it’s about 3:30pm and we’re leaving at 4pm to head to the train station. We’re taking the train to Stansted, and from that airport, we’re flying to Rome.

At the moment, I’m watching Supernatral because otherwise my nerves will be frazzled and I would have to probably pee five more times than I usually do–embarrassing fact of the day: I’m like a puppy. Take that as you will. Anyway, good news about Supernatural again that only proves how wonderful it is!

It’s coming back for a fourth season!!! Not only will it be back on April 24th with four more episodes to finish up the third season, but it’ll be back in the fall again! I’m so happy. That’s four out of five seasons down according to Eric Kripke, the show’s creator. He said they’d planned out five seasons total, so hopefully they’ll all get done!!!

Catlett and Craig played soccer this morning. I was going to watch and take pictures, but I was too tired after sleeping at about 4:30am. I was packing and re-packing over and over again, stressing about the weight of my bag, about the number of 100ml toiletries I brought (ok, so last time they got thrown away for being over 100ml per bottle, but now I’m worried I have too many of those little bottles…), and about dinero.

Anyway, now I’m super excited. The parents called earlier to say bye and that was nice. They’re on their way to the beach. I miss them terribly! I know they’d love it here and love all the things I’m seeing–maybe we’ll come back together!

I can’t believe I’m actually leaving already for this humongous trip I’ve been stressing over and planning for a while now! Like whenever something big’s about to happen, something exciting or scary or just completely monumental, I feel sort of distant about it. Man, three weeks around Europe–my dream countries and cities! Different cultures, languages, landscapes…

That’s kind of hard to get my head around. And that may be the biggest understatement ever. Perhaps not in history, but perhaps in MY history.

:oD So this is goodbye for three weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to record all the good stuff into the little notebook I brought–I’m hoping to write down the things that happen, the things we see, and crazy things that are said (as there are normally tons of those) in neat bullet points each day I’m gone. We’ll see how that works out…

This is what I’ve seen as the climax point of my life thus far, and it’s beginning today.

WONDROUS.

It seems like all I do here is procrasinate, vegitate, plan, and stress. At the moment, yes, you guessed it, I am stressing.

The previous post details my indecision regarding that super weekend as well as my excitement, because I think I knew all along that I wanted to go to Nice. However, after actually booking it, I find that I am terrified.

So I decided shortly after posting that yes, I was going to go to Nice. Heather soon followed suit and Catlett, being practical and rational as always, decided to wait until after break to observe the state of his bank account and determine then whether he would go or not. That would have been the smart thing to do, I think, if not for the worry of rising prices when my student bank account suffers solely from withdrawals.

Now, my account is past the safe zone I mentally keep. I have yet to pay for the train tickets to get to and from Nice as well. That’s not even taking into account what more I will have to withdraw while in Europe: transport within cities, shot glasses, magnets, postcards, snacks, site fees, alochol?, laundry, towel/linen fees, etc.

My meal allowance is about 10 euros a day–and that’s going to be difficult. Incredibly difficult seeing as how food is my life. And Italy is the first stop…not good. I’ve been looking forward to pasta, gelato, pizza, bruschettas, pastries…man.

I don’t even know.

I’ve never felt scared of not having money before coming here. I see now why homeless people eventually go kind of crazy. I think I can’t not have a job or the stress alone will kill me. I’m only 20, dammit! Which, granted, is getting there–not quite old, just close to the point of having to be responsible for oneself…I suppose that really should have been earlier, I admit to being sheltered and pampered and perhaps spoiled, but I liked that a lot and am very sad to realize that letting go of that means letting stress into my life.

I looked in the mirror and saw more gray hairs today. I think that maybe the hair dye can’t withstand the fury of my stress, and therefore the gray hairs shed the brown dye and sparkle on my head when in the sunlight. Or in the fluorescent light of my washbasin.

I don’t understand the point of those hairs though. If they’re there as a result of stress, shouldn’t some of that stress be relieved? It’s the only logical explanation, besides the actual explanation, which I don’t want to get into because that doesn’t make me feel any better. Really though, if my irrational reasoning about gray hairs is correct, then I really can’t imagine what my stress levels would be like should I have been unlucky enough to be without gray hair growth.

Ok, I think I should stop writing because I’m rambling about hair and money.

And also because I don’t want to come back to this very sad post in three weeks–I’ll write again tomorrow when I wake up excited and hopefully devoid of stress at the prospect of riding a gondola, being in Italy, eating lots of food…ok, I feel a little better now. This bodes well for the rest of the trip.

Goodnight.

All right, so I’m indecisive; anyone who knows me knows this. Or, well, it’s not really that I’m indecisive so much as indifferent to the two choices I’m faced with. Usually I like both and would be perfectly fine with either–it’s that utter equality in feeling about the two that makes the decision difficult. Ok, well then I guess I am indecisive as I can’t choose between two choices that I feel the same about.

Eh, semantics. I’m not a linguistics minor for a reason. That’s the side of English that I can’t ever remember, probably because I hate it.

Anyway, that’s relevant and not completely random because it applies to the subject of this particular post:

NICE vs. DUBLIN vs. PRAGUE: friends vs. beaches, because everything is FREE, and for some reason this makes life difficult.

The weekend of April 18-21 (Fri.-Mon.) seems to be THE weekend of the semester, apparently.

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I feel the need to burn.

1) First, Ray P invited Heather, Frannie, Catlett, Craig, Steve and I to go with her to Nice for her friend’s 21st birthday. She said we can all stay there for free, so the only thing we’d be paying for is the ride over there and food, etc. The plus side to this, besides the free accomodation, is that the weather would probably be gorgeous, we’d be in one of the nicest, if not the nicest city in France (besides Paris), and we’d be right by the BEACH.

I’m pretty much a beach-body/sun-basker and can’t do without warmth and sun for very long. Sheffield thus far has been very friendly weather-wise, but it’s often been cloudy if not drizzly, and my intangible side is withering to ash as we speak from lack of the good side.

Then again, over spring break we’re going to Marseille, and that is also a southern French city. However, we’ll only be there for two nights during a week that is bound to be slightly chilly and not quite beach weather. Additionally, we’d most likely be discovering the sites and hidden intricacies of the Old Port rather than vegging on the beach.

Now, price-wise, it’ll cost a total of about 120 pounds to get to Nice and back from Luton. So that’s $240 approximately, not including food, which is the only thing we’d really spend on other than alcohol and perhaps a few sites. This would be for three nights. Not bad considering Nice is supposedly, as I’ve mentioned already, a notoriously gorgeous place known for their beaches. Again, it’s the BEACHES that are in the forefront of my mind. Sue me. Sand has exfoliating properties and after only a month in Europe, my feet are in desperate need of any care whatsoever.

Heather and I told Rachel we were pretty much set on going to Nice. Catlett did not voice his opinion to Rachel, but he had been contemplating going with us. Frannie said it was either that or Dublin, but more on Dublin next. Craig I think was a definite no, and Steve was…I don’t know.

So if Heather and I decided not to go, we’d be backing out on Rachel after telling her we wanted to go and seeming excited (which we were, sincerely), which would make us assholes, essentially.

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I can’t decide if my friends are worth more than being in the rain.

2) So approximately a week after talking to Rachel about wanting to go to Nice, Rachel Francis (Frannie) found uber-cheap tickets to Dublin from Leeds. This was yesterday. Tickets are 0.01p to and from Dublin. Incuding taxes and airport fees, the total comes to about 12 pounds/$24. Crazy cheap. Therefore, the problem in dismissing this choice is that we couldn’t quite justify spending over $240 to go to Nice for the same weekend if going to Dublin is only $24+ (train, food, accommodation not inclusive, though these wouldn’t be terribly expensive).

However, as I’ve mentioned before, Nice would be a gorgeous place to go to, and I rather feel like that’s a city worth going to. When I think of Dublin, and pretty much Ireland in general, I think of rain and dreary weather, and I’m not quite sure how much more of that I can take; I’ve also been told that April and May in Sheffield are rather wet. Also, after speaking with Irishman-Wayne at Edinburgh, Dublin is supposedly getting seedier.

The plus side to this trip would be the fact that I came here banking on going to London, Wales, Ireland and Scotland because all are so close. Also, Frannie and Catlett are pretty set on going to Dublin because it is so cheap. I think I’d only really go on that weekend if they and Heather go as well because I’d want to hang out with them.

But the thing is, at the moment, the promise of going to the beach (I’m so terribly sorry if my ranting about wanting to go to the beach is becoming insufferable, but trust me, it’s killing me on the inside–I think I mentioned my intangible side was turning to ash? That’s because it burned up first when I realized that bringing my sunglasses to England was stupid, and that hurt a bit) is overriding my desire to hang out with everyone in rainy Dublin.

But I want to go to Dublin–and I will. Some time if not this time. It’s a must.

Before I go on, I’ll mention what made this particular weekend such a funny one.

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I love the sinister.

3) So Hannah planned out all her weekends and on this weekend, of course, she’s going to Prague, and of course asked me along! Just because that makes my life so much harder. So even prior to the discovery of the super cheap tickets to Dublin, I had Prague to consider on the other side of Nice. I was so sorely tempted to go to Prague because that is one place I was also really set on wanting to go, and also because I’d get to see dear Cow. THEN she said Stu would definitely come if I went, and I’ve also been missing Stu rather terribly recently. So that was hard.

But then I looked up the tickets and it was such a complicated route, not to mention very expensive. The plane transport was similar in price to Nice, perhaps a bit more expensive, but then I’d also have to pay for accommodation. Plus, I’d also be travelling alone because Catlett pretty much ruled that one out in a second–he’s always practical though, which helped me in this particular decision. It’s hard and far to get there, expensive, and, though this part doesn’t pertain to me, he doesn’t miss Cow and Stu as much as I do. A lot of going to Prague would also be to see them, for me anyway. But I also think Prague is romantically sinister.

I have a thing about sinister things. And slightly evil things. If they’re ambiguously sinister/evil. I don’t know why.

Anyway, this one was ruled out pretty quickly. I feel that if I came back to Europe (and this is pretty much written in GOLD), I’d go to Prague.

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After deliberation

All right, so it’s been about half an hour since I began writing this, and my decision is almost made. I’ve been leaning toward Nice from the start, and I think I will end up going there. Not only do I not want to back out on someone (as there is some history there already), I feel like it’s a once-in-a-lifetime oppurtunity. I’d be in a city renowned for how gorgeous it is, I’d have a free place to stay, it’s not somewhere I’d likely have the chance to go to again, and it has beaches.

Dublin will always be there, and will always be relatively cheap as it’s in such close proximity to England. Plus, I did some research on other weekends and it’d be rather cheap to go any other time as well, and on a day when I wouldn’t have to miss my Friday classes. Also, Emilie wanted to go somewhere, so maybe I’d coordinate going to Ireland when she comes to visit :oD

I feel like the decision’s been made for a while now, probably from teh start, but I just didn’t want to make the actual decision.

So I guess I AM indecisive after all. Go figure.

3.5.08: Franny’s 21st birthday:

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So Wednesday was Franny’s 21st birthday and it was fabulous! That morning Heather, Catlett and I got together to make fairy cakes for her–that’s what they call cupcakes. Except these things are dinky. But they weren’t bad! They even came with sprinkles and icing, though the icing was like liquified confectioner’s suger, which it probably was.

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We ate at The Edge dining hall for dinner and then got ready–we went to The Cavendish for karaoke night. Prior to leaving I popped open my bottle of chardonnay and by the time we got to West Street, I had finished almost half of it! I was so excited. It was hard to drink it on the way though, so I had to stop to take a gulp, then run to catch up again.Franny had SO much to drink beforehand! She had 10+ shots!!!!

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Karaoke was so much fun–the international kids pretty much took up the entire second level platform where the stage also was. Every time a song came up, the DJ was like, “And here’s another song for the Americans!” It was hilarious. We all sang so loud and danced around and it was great. I think Rachel had a great time too–she was really drunk also and so utterly hilarious and cute!I felt pretty good that night.

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Bouncer

After The Cavendish closed at around 12:30am, we headed back, but people stopped at The Harley. I was SO tired though and wanted to go back, but we waited for Rachel because she wanted to just stop in and then go home also. I went in for a second, but it was so stuffy that I came back outside and spoke a bit to whom I thought was the bouncer. Catlett said I should stay inside, but I was like, “Hey, I’ll hang out with the bouncer–he’s secure!” He (the bouncer) was very large and very friendly and smoking a ‘fag.’ That was funny. I think I asked, “What are you up to?” And he said, “Just smoking a fag.” And I said, “Cool,” I think, and he said, “I guess that means something different to you.” And that made me laugh a bit. And then the others came back out and I gave the big guy a hug before we left. Then I saw him go back inside and laughed again because he wasn’t really a bouncer after all...

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3.6.08 – 3.9.08: Porto and Liverpool

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So Thursday comes along, and we’re leaving at about 2pm for the train station. We were to take the train to Liverpool, and then a Ryan Air plane to Porto.The night before was a good one, but we slept kind of late and I woke up at about 6am and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I was really tired the next morning and missed my class. Then I packed and got ready and went with Heat to meet Catlett for lunch.

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So Catlett, Heather, Craig and I went to Porto together. It was sort of a last minute decision—Catlett found cheap tickets so we just booked and yay! We took a train to Liverpool and then Ryan Air to Porto. We brought our full toiletries (big containers despite them only being allowed to be 100ml) because Rachel Pearson said they didn’t check. They didn’t—but they did on the way back and I was so pissed and upset that my toiletries got thrown away.

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Past the scary place :o)

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 Anyway, so we got to Porto and took a cab to our hotel: Residencial dos Aliados. It was in SUCH a nice location! Right in the plaza of the city center! I have to admit that I was rather frightened while we were in the cab because we passed through a section of town covered in graffiti, and it was also really dirty. But then we kept on going past it and arrived in the city center, and I got excited again :oD

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Caught! Felt like we were harboring fugitives

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We were to split one room for two people between the four of us, but we got caught lol Craig and I went up to the counter and Heather and Catlett stayed in the stairwell. I checked us in and then when we got to the stairs, I put up three fingers for teh floor we were on. We all got up to the room and then we got a phone call. The lady at reception said, “Sorry, I forgot to tell you one of our rules–you can only recieve guests in the lounge on the main floor.” Haha—so basically we got caught and had to buy another room for 50 euros a night. It’s ok though. As we walked downstairs we saw cameras, boo!

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Falling in love AGAIN

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And then we decided to explore and walk around and maybe go out, but it was dead! We saw a lot of gorgeous places, but even by the river it was dead—everywhere was closed. So then we ate at McDonalds haha – man, I don’t really even eat that at home but I’ve been eating so much of it here! It reminds us of home lol  

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The Duoro River was not far at all—the set up of Porto is similar to those pictures of Greece (like in Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants)—layered homes on a cliff/hillside. It was so gorgeous! Especially at night!! Absolutely fell in love with the place. Again, like with Edinburgh. After that I think we went back home because we couldn’t even buy bottles of wine since no stores were open. Umm…we hung out in Heather’s and my room and watched some football on tv, some MTV and laughed at the German subtitles because we were in Portugal. I think one of them was Charm School and it was funny because one girl said, “Aw, hell no!” And the German subtitles said, “Aw, meist nein!” So now Catlett and Craig keep saying it.

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Out

The next day we wandered around and saw lots! So much walking! Just everywhere! The city is just so beautiful and easy to walk around—we also had wonderful weather! It was in the sixties and sunny! It was so great just walking around the streets of the homes on the hillside—they were all stone streets and I just loved it! We bought some wine and drank some before going out that night. Port wine is 21% alcohol! It was really, really sweet and fruity, but so strong that I really just couldn’t drink it. It made me start falling asleep after a couple sips. But…to give myself credit, I was rather exhausted. We had McDonalds that night too hahaha! The guy at the counter was so friendly and remembered us—he spoke English really well! It was interesting trying to communicate. Lots of people seemed to know it, but also a lot didn’t and it was fun trying to buy stuff by pointing and gesturing haha!

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It was funny though–the entire time in Porto, Heather and I always wanted food. We had wanted yogurt parfaits at McDonalds, but they didn’t have them the second time around so we were sad. But we saw people eating sundaes and thought those looked good. We both ate nuggets and fries though. Then I saw a lady at the next table eating her sundae and I swear, I heard Heather say something and asked her, “Did you say we should get one?” And then she starts cracking up and says, “No, but I was thinking it!” And it was just absolutely hilarious because we’ve always got food on our minds. Prior to this second round of McDonalds, Heather says she wants a yogurt parfait and then I say, “Yeah, and fries,” and then we start laughing because we’re like, “and nuggets too probably!” Then she says, “yeah, let’s be honest” and it was just funny.

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 That night we got some drinks at a pub by the river—it was hard finding places that were open that looked lively! We took a couple shots because they were 0.70 euros (I had THREE, are you proud?) and they had some Super Bock beer, which is the beer of Portugal apparently. It sponsors everything there haha! Catlett was pretty drunk off the Porto wine and was crazy! It was so funny because he went up to this group of youngish looking Portugese kids to see how to get to a place and they tried to help. We saw them later when we had drinks at a pub by the river and we saw them again. Catlett went over to say hey and talked to them for so long that the rest of us went over and met them. They were so cute! They gave Heather and I kisses on both cheeks. Apparently they were only 15, 16 and 17! The drinking age is 16 over there, but apparently one kid started drinking when he was 10! They made us feel so OLD! 

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We hung out with them at the place where Catlett first spoke to them and that was fun. I ate pizza and was very pleased. It was fun meeting them :oD

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  Inadvertent British voice inflections  

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After that we walked home and Catlett was very drunk! He said it’s the drunkest he’s been here! Hahaha—he’s also losing his memory streak. You know he always remembers stuff, even while he’s been drinking, yeah? Well now he forgets some stuff! It makes me sad, actually. I told him he’s losing himself. OH –oh god, he’ll hate me for putting this in here, but it’s so utterly HILARIOUS. Dude, Catlett’s pretty much one of the last people I’d ever think would pick up British words, right? And he doesn’t. Instead he’s picked up their voice inflections! When he’s skeptical or incredulous about something, his voice goes up toward the end and he sounds SO British! We all laugh at him for it and he hates it!!! Ahahaha it’s so funny! 

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Anyway, we walked around again the next day, went to the Port Wine Museum, saw the Crystal Palace Gardens (absolutely gorgeous…) and hung out at the river again. Heather and I, as always, were mind-reading and both wanted food and ended up getting hot chocolate instead of the sketchy gelato (we’re waiting for Italy!) we were thinking about all day hahaha! I got white chocolate and she got toffee/caramel and it was pretty good! It was so thick though! Craig got a pineapple smoothie.  

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Then we headed to a taxi and flew off back to England.

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Hold the aliens

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 It was so funny because when we arrived at customs, we got in line for ‘all other passports’ as the other line was for ‘EU passports.’ So we’re standing there in line and the one man at the sole counter for customs tells the line coordinator, “Hold the aliens.” LOL–we just cracked up laughing! We laughed about that all through the day and the next–it was so random and hilarious!  

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Homeless

So here we were in Liverpool, and since our plane got back at about 10:10pm, we knew we wouldn’t be able to catch a train or bus back so we planned to stay the night. However, we had no place booked because we figured we’d wing it and the place we were banking on wouldn’t let us book online. It turned out that there was a football match on and something going on at the uni so EVERYWHWERE was booked. We went to the International Inn (the place we had planned on staying) and he said he already had to turn away three people, but he helped us call places and all were full.  

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Heather knew someone there and that was our backup, and while we were searching for places, it seemed like he didn’t want us to stay there because there was so little room, but in the end he said we could stay—we were so desperate! Poor Craig and Heather were so stressed and upset about it, I think. I was ok with just staying up and hanging out lol, and so was Catlett.

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We’ll pay for a night in the drunk pen, officer!

We met him at a corner, but it took a while for him to get there, so we made fools of ourselves waiting there. I think we were all drunk on relief that we weren’t homeless for a night and we went crazy on the corner that people were staring. Catlett and Heather were doing crazy dances and we were all being silly and jumping around and looking drunk and laughing at the fact that we probably seemed drunk off our asses but were actually completely sober. We were even joking about talking to the cops and being like, we’re sober, but can we stay in the drunk pen for the night please? We’ll pay! Hahaha! 

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And then we went to Mike’s place (Heather’s friend) and stayed in his living room. It was kind of small, but more than enough for us! He was sooo funny! We slept kind of late.

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We woke up and hung out there watching a football match on tv and then we decided to wander around to see the sites of Liverpool. On the way we saw a Chinatown! That was nice. We went around to the city center which was really big and nice. They have the biggest Primark ever! Primark is the really cheap store in the UK. I didn’t get anything. But then it started raining as we wandered over to Albert Dock where you could apparently see the Atlantic and I was sad because no one wanted to go on, but it WAS raining…so we went back to pick up our bags.

We did pass by the Hog’s Head though! That made me smile :oD Kind of large, just like that face there.  

We were going to go to the Liverpool Museum, which was next to the coach station, but it was still raining and we were all so tired. So we just hung out until it was time to leave for our bus.

Then it was back home again!  

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 Spring Break is SOLID now 

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Ok, so here’s our 3-week plan in solid form! 

Me, Craig, Catlett:

Sun-Wed = Rome

Wed-Thurs = Florence

Thurs-Sat = Venice

Sat-Tues = Munich 

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3 of us meeting Heather:

Tues-Thurs = Paris

Thurs-Sat = Amsterdam

Sat-Sun = Koln 

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4 of us meeting Rachel (Franny):

Sun-Tues = Marseilles

Tues-Sat = Barcelona 

We’re staying with Heather’s friend for two of the four nights in Barcelona, so yay! Free place to stay! 

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Anyway, there’s that!

GRAND. That’s my word for this weekend. Granted, an Irishman (not a Scottsman) taught me to use this word in place of ‘fabulous,’ which for some reason was the word I began using for the weekend prior to ‘GRAND.’ But we’re settled now, and I have learned the proper way to use this word.

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To Edinburgh! and Javier’s missing his unmentionables.

We (Holly, Steve, Brandon from NM, Stephan, Javier and I) got to the Meadowhall where the bus left from via the tram, and Javier realized that he forgot his underwear. This is the first time among many during the weekend where he took off on his own, little independent Spanish bunny that he is, to try to find boxers in 10 minutes. Of course, we were skeptical that he’d make it back on time as we weren’t directly connected to the mall from the bus interchange. But he made it! Speedy guy. So we left with Megabus at 12:55pm on Friday, February 29th, for Edinburgh on a jam-packed bus. It was a 5.5hr trip, which wasn’t terrible, but I was a bit nauseous and motion sick.

I did end up sleeping a bit, which was good, and then Steve bumped my elbow and suddenly there was the ocean! That was gorgeous. You wouldn’t believe how much land we passed by–just empty, green land scattered with a few sheep and little homes.

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The most gorgeous city I’ve been to yet

6:30pm and we’re there! Classic city, cobblestone streets and walkways, ancient architecture, royal names, dark and haunting steeples, double decker buses, lots of lights, wind, and people milling about…it sort of just hit me like a wave, the kind that you don’t see coming that hits your middle with a crush and tumbles you head over feet. I guess it was like falling in love, but who knows how that works with cities; it sort of just made me really happy to stop and stare for a bit.

For some reason, dear Javier had the map, which led to 45 minutes of rather frustrated wandering and laughing and inadvertent site-seeing. Holly ended up asking two nice ladies about where to go to get to Edinburgh Castle as our hostel was pretty much right there as well. We didn’t know we were in what is called the ‘New Town’ and had to get to the ‘Old Town.’ We still got kind of confused on the way. And then we experienced Javier’s Disappearance #1! He stopped suddenly on the sidewalk without a word and when we turned around, he was talking to some guy. Apparently the guy went to his university and told Javier a short and easy way to get to our hostel. That backfired, which led to the aforementioned 45 minutes of wandering. We got there eventually though, and goodness were we surprised.

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Castle Rock Hostel: pretty much AT the castle

We finally get to the hostel and man, just a bit furthur up the hill is Edinburgh Castle! The castle literally sits up on a huge hill and the castle itself is humongous. Here’s a view from right in front of our hostel’s door. We were pretty much right off of the Royal Mile, which is approximately a mile long with the castle on one end and the palace at the other. This road is in the ‘Old Town,’ which  was all Edinburgh was way back when before the ‘New Town’ was built. This is where all the old, history-packed statues, churches, monuments and other old sites are.

Lovely.

The hostel was wonderful–it was colorful, full of character, the staff were very friendly and open. The guy who checked us in was pretty funny as well. We stayed in the ‘Currency’ room, and all of our assigned beds had names; mine of course was the Yen, haha! It was a 16-bed mixed-dorm, and it was surprisingly clean and the beds were amazingly soft. They had those foam pads on them. It was warm and felt really nice :oD The bathrooms were also clean as well and had private shower stalls and toilets.

After settling down for a short bit, putting our stuff in lockers, laughing at ‘The Virgin Room’ and ‘The Underwear Room’ and testing our beds, we went to find a place to eat.

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Just call me half-pint 

We stumbled upon a place called The Last Drop, which had a deal where you buy a meal that’s 6.50 pounds or below and you only pay 3.50! Oh that was such a yummy place. Most of us got pasta, red pasta or the spinach feta alfredo pasta (which I got and was delicious!) and Steve and Stephan got bangers and mash. So good. We had drinks there as well–I had a half-pint of Strongbow and felt good about that haha. We shared a table with this adorable old, Scottish couple. The man had SO many drinks of Tenents beer while his wife had tea and it was just so cute!

Afterwards we went to McDonalds to quench our leftover hunger (I got a Cadbury cream McFlurry, which was WONdrous). Javier pulled another moment when he went to the restroom and pulled the emergency handicap alarm in there lol. That was so funny–it’s this red string beside the toilet and he didn’t know what it was so he pulled it. Maybe he thought it was the flush, but who knows? He’s so funny!

 We then went to meet Javier’s cousin who’d been in Edinburgh for about six months now. His name was Carlos. It was funny watching them walk and talk together as we followed them. Brandon said they walked exactly the same, and they did!

Carlos ended up taking us to a club, which was five pounds to get in, so we didn’t go. We went somewhere else, but I can’t remember where!

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I’ve fulfilled one of my dreams: standing on the ramparts of a castle…and sitting on a large cannon

The next day we at cereal at the hostel, then went to Edinburgh Castle. All we had to do was walk up a few steps outside of our hostel and we were right there! It was absolutely gorgeous and breath-taking. It was 11 pounds to get in, but it was so worth it. We spent a few hours there exploring. It was windy and cold, but a lot of the exhibitions were indoors. We saw the Queen’s memorial, the Honours of Scotland (crown jewels), the museum, watched the cannon fire at 1pm, the dining rooms, exhibitions on weapons and fencing and just everything! I bought a shot glass and a magnet for home at one of the castle giftshops too.

The views were absolutely amazing–it overlooked the New Town and a bit of the Old town as well. The homes and structures are all so old and so architecturally beautiful that it was just wonderful. I think I said ‘this is so wonderful’ about a hundred times, but there was no other way to express how…wonderful it was! haha…ha.

We then ate lunch at Kushi’s, which was an Indian restaurant and it was absolutely delicious! I’ve never had Indian and was rather reluctant to eat there, but I’m so very glad we did. I had a chicken seekh kebab–YUM.

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Museums, galleries, many a stone head to creep us out

Then the boys and girls split up–Holly and I went off to go shopping, but we got sidetracked by the Museum on the Mound, which is the headquarters of HBOS, one of the UK’s largest banks. It was a bank museum, basically. And it was a bit dull except for the fact that Holly and I opened the safe to get a gold nugget of chocolate! The chocolate was praline and delicious :oD We had to answer three questions to get the combination and then open the safe in an especially confusing way. I didn’t think it was opening as Holly turned it to the right so that it would open, but lo and behold! The safe popped open and we were able to retrieve the golden nugget! SO exciting!

Then we went to the National Gallery of Scotland. It was so gorgeous in there. A bit tiring because museums and galleries always make me tired, but it was wonderful because we got to see works by Raphael, Van Goh, Monet, Cezanne, Degas…beautiful. It was rather frightening ascending the steps to the next level, however, because they were spiral staircases with white, stone head statues on the round wall–lots of heads! Scary, man.

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The Tron, Javier’s Disappearing Act #2, Ashley’s 20th

We later ate dinner at The Tron, a nice pub with a beer and burger deal for 3.50 pounds–I got a cider. The others did a round of jagermeister, then we played quarters and that was it for me! Definitely a half-pint girl I guess!

Javier went missing again! Stephan came back and he was like, “Javier got kicked out of the pub!” We all started cracking up. Apparently Javier was trying to find the restroom or get a breather or something, and he went out the fire escape. They kicked him out for it haha–and then wouldn’t let him back in later so he went across the street to The Advocate by himself. So silly!

We hung out in the upstairs part of the pub for a bit and then a few of the others met up with us there too. Teja, Freya, and Gazaleh sat with us, Troy and Brandon went downstairs and Stephan joined them. I don’t know who else was in that first wave of people, but they were in the lower level of the pub. We played an extensive game of Never Have I Ever and learned quite a lot about everyone! Longest game ever and very funny and interesting!

We then went downstairs and got ready to celebrate the turn of the day to Ashley’s birthday! Everyone was down there and it was just so much fun! I got a VDK Tropical, which was SO good! We danced a little bit on the mini stage until it turned to midnight!

There were these two Scottish boys, 17 and 18 who Gazaleh spoke with for a bit and apparently both were shipping off to Iraq and were very psyched about shooting people and then coming back home. Teja, Gazaleh and I were all saddened by that–we talked about how they wouldn’t be the same when they got back.

After The Tron, we went to meet up with Teja and Gazaleh’s Irish friends who they’d met the night before in the same pub–Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. It was pretty late, so we were kicked out after a couple of hours, which seemed to fly by like crazy!

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Deacon Brodie’s Tavern, Irishmen in Scotland, avoiding the 29th! and deep fried mars bars

At the tavern we met the coolest Irishman ever–Wayne. He was so funny and was wearing this special shirt that had those red, yellow and green bars on it that fluctuate with sounds. If you talk to it, the bars light up and go up and down depending on tone and how loud the voice is. He was absolutely hilarious. He told us this Irish tradition:

Apparently every leap year on February 29th, Irishwomen can propose to their men. The men, in turn, always try to come up with a way to be away from their girlfriends on this day. Wayne was in Edinburgh this weekend because of this particular tradition and the possible repercussions that may have occurred for his mates should they have been in Ireland on that day. He himself has been married for 2.5 years, but he came along with his friends (some married, and some unmarried) because of tradition! Apparently, it’s common for a man to break up with his girlfriend on the 28th and get back together with her again on March 1st, and apparently they do this on birthdays as well haha!

There’s also some history behind the name of this bar and, despite having hung out there twice during the weekend, we had no idea about it until the third day during our day tour! Info on this pub as well as a few others on my facebook photos (the captions).

After we got kicked out of the tavern, I yelled out that I NEEDED waffles. I’d been needing waffles since before we left for Edinburgh. Wayne then says he knows of a deep frying place and we just HAD to try the deep fried Mars bars because that’s what Brandon told us all about before we got there.

We frolicked through the rain on the empty streets of Edinburgh at 1:30 in the morning until we came to the Clam Shell.

We get in and it’s a torrent of confusion and a mass of bodies looking to quench their munchie-fevers. We all wanted to try the deep fried Mars bars, and though there was a moment of hysteria over how many were needed and who needed what, we eventually got them! Teja and I split an order of chips as well as one Mars bar. The fries were delicious–lots and lots of ketchup was consumed!

The Mars bar though! Oh, that wonderful deep fried Mars bar!

That is, without a doubt, the most wonderful food I’ve ever eaten, EVER. I’m not even a chocolate person! I like candy! But it was sooo good. I couldn’t think about anything else the entire next day–the only thing that got me through was the fact taht we agreed to go back to the Clam Shell so that the others could try it too!

After that, we parted ways and headed back to the hostel. We hung out in the bathroom to chat a bit because Steve was hyper and wanted to talk by the toilets lol.

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Falling off the right side of the bed and breakfast rolls

The next morning I felt pretty good, though I did fall off the top bunk of my Yen bed. Javier’s head was by the steps so I didn’t want to wake him up with feet, but I guess I was asleep and didn’t realize that by NOT putting my feet on the steps, I’d fall. And fall I did. Onto hands and knees.

“Loser!” yelled Steve, and that was a wonderful morning hahahaha!

We had to be out by 10:30am, and we did well with that. We stuck our bags in the secure luggage room and headed out to catch the free tour at 11am in front of the Starbucks. I finally tried one of those breakfast rolls from Subway and it was absolutely delicious. I got a latte with it too.

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Historical Tour with a girl who was shorter than me!

Our tour guide was this adorable Scottish girl who was lively and interesting and funny. It was a GRAND tour. Loved it, absolutely. We’d seen or passed by a lot of the ground covered, but it was a wonderful sort of reinforcement for all of that–we were able to have a greater appreciation for those things we’d seen as we learned the history and stories behind them. It was about a 3 hour tour and well worth the tip we paid the girl, Ruth, at the end because she was fabulous.

This is the statue of Alexander and Bucephalus. The sculptor felt he wasn’t paid enough by the town and got his revenge by lopping off the horse’s ears and replacing them with pig ears. Now his act of retribution sits in the middle of Edinburgh.

We also saw Mercat Cross where people would make speeches (politicians and powerful people), and some people would draw the crowd to them, call out someone who had wronged them or someone they didn’t like, and nail their foe’s ear to the door! We also saw the King Charles II Equestrian Statue and the Heart of Midlothian, and ate at The French Connection for lunch (where I got my first crepe–apple, cinnamon, and sugar–and the French guy was pleased that I loved my first one so much!). 

** Note: There’re more pictures and info on the sites we saw along the tour on my facebook :o) More historical details about each site!

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YES, I believe in MAGIC.

On the tour we also got to see George Heriot’s School, which is the school JK Rowling based Hogwarts off of!!!! Not only did we get to see that, we got to GO to The Elephant House where she WROTE Harry Potter! Gosh, I want round, black-rimmed glasses and a lightning bolt scar. The magic would be nice too…

After the tour we went to drink tea at The Elephant House :oD We could even see Hogwarts from the window too! That was absolutely wonderful. The others made fun of me a bit for loving it SO much. Man…that was great! So happy!

We then went on to the National Museum of Scotland where we got to see a mummy and Dolly, the cloned sheep! Steve and I got into the costumes you could try on too–that chain mail was heavy! And…fun to wear :o)

After that we went souvenir shopping and then walked down the Royal Mile to get to the palace. However, it was, sadly, closed. We then went back to The Tron for dinner and then back to the Clam Shell for one more deep-fried Mars bar! They remembered me there from the hectic night before and that was funny. One nice guy behind the counter was like, “You eat those Mars bars to keep you sweet!” That was nice. And I told him I’d be back! Because it was too delicious. But thinking back on it, I don’t know if I can eat another one for a long, long time. I mean, if it was there I could probably stuff my face, but it makes me a bit nauseous thinking about it now and made me feel uber motion-sick on the bus ride back.

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Back on the road again

We then went back to the hostel to kill two hours in the common room. Very nice place. I fell asleep in that comfortable position with my legs on the top of the couch for a bit, and then we walked competently back to the bus station where Richelle and Phoebe were already waiting for the bus. We took the bus back all together and that was the end of the road.

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Absolutely a GRAND weekend, and I’m so glad I went! I can’t wait to go back with the others and check out the palace, climbe the Highlands to sit on Arthur’s Seat, climb Sir Walter Scott’s Monument (all 297 steps!), and maybe take a picture in front of the original Hogwarts.