Great Scot!

This weekend was amazing. We arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland Saturday morning after waking up at 4 and riding a train for 5 hours. To everyones surprise, it was freezing cold outside. We were definitely not dressed for the occasion. The manager of our hostel, Muhammad, picked us up from the train station and got us settled in our rooms. They were actually a lot better than I was expecting. They had a mirror and a TV! This is more than we have in London, it still wasn’t a wonderful hotel, but we only stayed one night and this room did the job. We ate breakfast/lunch at an Italian Café called Papilio’s. It was really yummy (or maybe we just hadn’t eaten in so long, that anything would satisfy us). After we were all full and getting used to the cold, we headed up to Edinburgh Castle. It looked so awesome in the fog and the grey sky. I loved it, it was just like I had always imagined Scotland to look like. In order to get to the castle, we hiked up a pretty big hill. When we got to the top, we came upon a construction fence that we couldn’t pass. We could see people going into the castle, but they were a fence and sidewalk away. We had no idea how we got so lost or how to get to where all the people were, but we went around and finally made it up there. Even though we did that hike for no reason, it was still worth it. It felt good to be in the mountains again. It was really pretty. Zach and Katie decided to climb fences and walls instead of walk around, so this is a picture of them when we found them. They were stuck on the other side of this fence. It was fun to see them try to meet up with us! The castle was really cool. It looked especially great in the fog. To me, it felt more like we were there during a war or when the castle was actually in use. After we toured the castle, we walked down the Royal Mile and shopped in all of the souvenir shops. We saw a lot of cool things, and saw a lot of people playing the bagpipes. I loved hearing the Scottish music in all of the stores. I really like that stuff, it makes me want to dance.

We ate Mexican food for dinner!! I was so excited! It was different than Mexican in America or even in Mexico, but it was still good. Then we went back to the hostel and watched TV and went to bed. It was really nice to just go to sleep.

I don’t know if this had anything to do with the bedding at the hostel, but Sunday morning, I woke up with an eye infection. My eye was swollen shut and I had a hard time opening it for the rest of the day. Hopefully the sheets weren’t infested! Anyway, we took a train to Prestwich and we were headed to see Calzein Castle, but our timing was off so we wouldn’t have time. So instead we went to the beach!! It happened to be the first sunny day in 4 weeks. We played in the water; it wasn’t even cold! It was fun to just hang out, collect rocks, and run along the beach all afternoon. I even got to eat ice cream on the beach in Scotland. It was a wonderful day. I love Scotland! This was the best weekend of my life.