edinburgh, scotland

In the morning we knew we wanted to catch the 12:45 train from Inverness to Edinburgh, but the problem was that Jimmy Chung's didn't open until 11:45. The timing would be tight, but we had to go back there one more time - it was that good! Mike sacrificed going back for another round after dessert and we were able to JUST make the train in time.

A few hours later when we arrived, we were surprised at how big Edingurgh was. There were people everywhere and so many huge buildings, kind of what I would imagine London to be like. The only thing we knew about getting to our hostel was that a shuttle van was to pick us up from Waterloo Place. Well once we figured out what Waterloo Place was (the street with the bus loop), we realized we had no idea WHERE in Waterloo Place to wait! We headed to the nearby mall to find a payphone to call the hostel and ask. That itself was quite the ordeal, between figuring out how to dial the number and putting so much money into the darned thing only to realize that they couldn't hear us because the speaker in the mouthpiece was broken. UGH. I finally got through and was told to wait at bus stop "C". Sheesh, how hard would it have been to put that in the original directions on the website!? Anways, the shuttle finally came and after a 20 min drive we were at the hostel. Turns out the hostel wasn't as close to downtown as we thought and it would be and it would be too far (even for us!) to walk everyday. We had to rely on the hourly shuttle into town. It kinda sucked that we had to spend an extra $6 on that everyday, but we didn't really have a choice! The hostel itself was awesome. Each bunk had a private reading light, as well as a privacy curtain, which meant not having to go down the hall to the bathroom to get changed all the time! Privacy pretty much doesn't exist at hostels, so these two things alone totally made the stay for me. Oh! and I also had a little shelf to put my things on - bonus!There was also a theatre room, a huge kitchen and dining area, a bar overlooking the river, more than one computer for the internet, laundry, and a shop. Our keycard to the room was also a card we could load money onto to pay for things at the shop or to use the internet. It was cool, almost like a mini-hotel.. hehe.. That evening we didn't do much (it wouldn't be worth it to take the shuttle in for only a few hours). I watched "what women want" in the theatre before heading to bed..

Breakfast was included at this hostel, so after eating our toast and cereal we headed into town. We started off with the tour of Edinburgh Castle. There were a couple of museums on the grounds, and we saw Scotland's crown jewels. They're supposedly not as impressive as Englands, but they are older. It cost about 10 pounds to see all of it, and after we were like "did we just spend $20 cdn on this?" Sheesh. Of course we were going to see the castle though, we couldn't not go! From the Castle we walked along what's called "the royal mile", which is a street lined with all sorts of shops and restaurants. It's kind of elevated from the rest of the city, and from down below it's quite the impressive sight. It was raining on and off all day, and after the royal mile we headed back to the hostel and did some laundry.

Most of the museums in Edinburgh were free, so after breakfast we decided that would be the plan for the day. We visited the Museum of Scotland, the Royal Museum, and the National Gallery. On the way to the National Gallery I saw a 4runner and had a little moment of rememberance for mine =( I really do miss driving it. *sigh* I guess i'll have to settle for a fabulous trip around Europe instead.. hehe.. At the National Gallery was an exhibition by an artist named Ron Mueck. Mike wanted to see it, but I was kinda ify because it cost 6 pounds. There was a student discount though, for 4 pounds, which made it more appealing so I thought hey why not. I'm so glad I went because it was sooooo amazing! It was a collection of his sculptures, all of humans. They are so incedibly life-like it's almost scary. I half expected them to blink at me as I was looking at them! His thing is "life like, not life size", and all of his works are either really large or small. They are mostly made of fibreglass, but the faces are made of silicone and all of the hair is real and individually placed. Trying to describe it wouldn't even do him justice, so if you're interested just google him. I also ended up buying a book of his work, I was that impressed (to the family - I just mailed it home, so it should be arriving soon and you can look at it!) It was raining all day that day, which wasn't that bad I guess because we spent most of the day indoors..

We missed breakfast the next morning because my alarm didn't go off properly. I guess it's time to change the battery. I think I'll just take Mike's becuase it's pointless for him to have an alarm anyways. He pretty much needs to be shaken and dragged out of bed before he will wake up! lol. It was ok though because we weren't planning on heading into town until the late afternoon anyways. The Edinburgh Festival was just wrapping up so there was going to be a big fireworks show that night. There was some pasta on the free shelf, so we just bought some sauce from the shop and had that for lunch. At 4:30 we caught the shuttle into town. Even though the fireworks didn't start until 9, we wanted to scope things out and get a good spot. Mike also wanted to buy the new lens for his camera, but the store ended up being closed. We went to Marks and Spencer (huge department/grocery store) and looked for something to eat. We ended up just wandering around their dessert section in awe at how many different kinds of cakes, pies, puddings, cookies and sweets they had. We got this raspberry truffle bowl thing and then just ended up picking up a pizza from pizza hut before claiming our spot on the road to watch the fireworks. It was freezing cold and windy, but at least it wasn't raining! We had a couple of hours to kill; we ate and read our books for a while. The fireworks themselves were awesome! They were launched from the castle, which made it even more spectacular. The music was also all done by a live orchestra, to music from Romeo and Juliet. It was just a coincidence that we happened to be in town for the end of the festival - it worked out really well though! The fireworks ended around 9:40 and we wanted to try and catch the 10:00 shuttle back to the hostel and warm up as quickly as possible. It was a miracle that we were able to weave our way through hundreds of thousands of people in just 20mins, but we did it somehow and barely made it on the shuttle before it was full and there was no more room. Phew! We went to bed not sure of where we would be heading the next day..