A Weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland!

The weekend began very uneventfully.  We caught a train from Lancaster to Edinburgh around 5pm on Friday.  Unfortunately it was pitch black outside for our ride, we were told that you see some of the most beautiful countryside going up there.  When we arrived in Edinburgh we set off to find our hostel.  It was just around the corner and over the bridge from the station (how convenient!).  The hostel was a bit of a hole in the wall but very nice and good people worked and stayed there.  We payed for our weekends stay put our things in our lockers and headed out to eat.  We all couldn't decide where to eat so we ended up splitting up.  Alicia and I ate in a really great little restaurant and she had the biggest sunday I've ever seen.  After that we tried to all meet up but the other people in our group were still eating.  Alicia and I set off in search of a pub that had live music.  And we found a great one.  The girl playing was from Ireland and was great (we even bought her CDs).  We headed back to the hostel after the band was done playing and hung out with some of the people that worked at the hostel and were staying there.  We met a few guys who were from New Zealand who were very nice.  

We woke up early on Saturday to get a good head start on the day.  We headed off for the castle.  We stopped at the Whiskey Experience on the way up and I got a little Scotch Whiskey trial pack.  I haven't tried it yet though. Maybe this weekend.  We went up to the castle and spent about 3 hours walking through it.  The view was amazing! We even saw the shooting at the gun at 1pm that they do everyday.  After the castle we spent the day looking for a kilt for Alicia (she's part scottish and wanted her clans kilt and scarf) which we found and continued to wander around old and new town.  It is such a beautiful city!  But there were tons of tourists! We headed back to the hostel and some of our group went out on a ghost tour, I was not interested and stayed at the hostel with a few of the girls that came with us and the guys from New Zealand.  After everyone was back we went out together to get a drink.  We walked to a bar called Frankenstein, we didn't stay, it was quite crowded and hot.  We headed out and found a nice small pub to have a drink and get to know each other.  After a few drinks we headed back to the hostel and I called it a night.  

Sunday we woke up early again (we had to check out by 10:30am) and set out to explore more of the town.  Alicia and I went off to see the Botanic Gardens just outside of new town.  It was about a 30 minute walk and the park was amazing and free!  We both decided we are going back when the flowers are in bloom.  I saw the first squirrel since I got here.  It was soo cute!  After the park we went to a pub that was Dr. Jeykell and Mr. Hyde themed, it was pretty cool.  We walked around a bit after lunch and then headed back to the hostel to catch our train.  We all met up and headed to the train station.  Our train was on time when we got there but ended up being almost 2 hours late.  We didn't get back to campus until almost 10:30pm and man was I tired!  

Overall it was a great weekend!  I'll have pictures up in the next day or two.  I have some good ones!