Sunday, May 12, 2013

Hello from Scotland! Edinburgh

     Edinburgh, Scotland...  Where do I begin?  I arrived there on April 27, 2013 and I left there May 11, 2013.  I had initially planned to stay there for only a few days, but I met such great friends, I really couldn't leave.  Also, moving from place to place every few days gets so exhausting and can really weigh on your mind and body.  I was enjoying my time with friends and it was relaxing to just stay in one place, so I did!

     The first full day I was in Edinburgh, I took a free walking tour around the city.  Edinburgh is quite small and you can see all the highlights pretty quickly.  I had a very informative tour guide and learned a lot about the history of the city as well as Scotland.  If any of you plan on traveling to the United Kingdom or mainland Europe, always look up this website http://www.neweuropetours.eu/.  SANDEMANs offers free walking tours in English and in Spanish.  At the end of the tour, you just tip the guide what ever you feel like.  I have done this company's tours twice now, in London and Edinburgh.    








 Edinburgh Castle behind me.

 The place where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series.

 A Scotsman in his kilt playing bagpipes.


 Patrick and I

 Manuel and I


     Scottish weather is not amazing.  In fact, it is incredibly weird...  It can be perfectly sunny, then cloudy, then raining, then hailing and then back to sunny again.  It is just up and down unable to decide what it wants to be all day long.  Anyways, when it is really sunny and a bit warm, it is best to take advantage of the day and be outside.











 On top of Calton Hill.












     My friends are Italian, both aspiring to be chefs and so I was incredibly spoiled with amazing food!  These guys can cook pasta!  I had a great time watching them do things like making sauces from scratch.  I wanted to bring a little bit of California to them and so I prepared a few Mexican dishes as well as a traditional American meat and potatoes meal.  Food and cooking was a big part of our time together.  The number one thing was laughter, lots and lots of laughter!












     One day I went to the Edinburgh Dungeon.  It is a tourist attraction that goes over the gruesome history of the city.  It was an entertaining hour and a half tour.  I learned about how people used to be tortured in medieval times, grave robberies, William Wallace and much more.  Edinburgh once had the best medical school in the world and it had an endless supply of bodies.  Most of them stolen from graveyards or murdered and then sold to the schools.


North Sea

I left for the Scottish Highlands for 3 days and 2 nights, spending time at the Isle of Skye which I will talk about in the next post!

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter". 
-E.E. Cummings

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