Edinburahh

I totally didn't realize I never wrote about Scotland! Our hostel had pretty shotty internet, so I didn't get the change to blog while there.

WELL. Edinburgh is amazing and I could totally see myself living there someday. Crazy, right? But all of Scotland just blew me away with how awesome it was! After a 9 hour travel day on three trains and stops in Brussels and London, I got the Edinburgh pretty late. I stayed at Castle Rock Hostel which, as you can infer, is at the base of a castle! Now only were the views stunning, the hostel is so cool. This one was way more hopping than the other two. All the rooms were themed (I was in Beetles, Dung bed XD) and the walls had huge paintings and murals.

The main thing I did there was go on a Highlands Tour with Bess. It was on a little van and went through half a dozen Scottish cities and the Highlands. Our tour guide, Steve, was hilarious. I could listen to his voice for forever haha. He was such a history buff, I feel like I know so much out Scotland now! Sir William Wallace, you were the bomb.

I think the high light of the whole tour was the Loch Ness boat tour. There were SONAR screens so we could see the depth of the lake (more than 5 Statue of LIberties deep!) and see every single fish below the surface, and captain of the ship was explaining everything when this drunk English woman asked is he believed the Loch Ness monster is real. He response was "are real." Thus began the most fascinating boat ride conversation of my life. He was telling us how it's actually a legitimate species of animal, evolved from dinosaurs, but warm blooded (or else how could it live in such deep water and survive?). He showed us pictures on his iPhone of when he saw one in 2001 while kayaking in Loch Ness (I. SAW. THE LOCH NESS MONSTER. my luck is crayzay), and from when they found a carcas on the bottom of the lake. They couldn't bring it above the surface because the oxygen would destroy it, much like sunken ships rusting. He said he sent all these photos to MIT and they've certified it. People have tried to buy the photos off him for tons of money, but he'll never sell because if more people knew about these creatures, they'd try to hunt them and kill them and he cares too much about them and Loch Ness to let that happen. I also got to see a picture captured of three of the animals on the SONAR, two adults and a baby. Apparently, they live in 8 or 9 countries over the world, from Canada to Guam. So yeah, learn something new every day, huh?

After the tour, Bess showed me the Elephant Room/Bar/Palace/Grotto House, where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter on some napkins. We went to dinner at Maxies, a place my roommate Maurissa recommended from when she studied abroad a few semesters ago and it was delish. I like cucumbers now.

I'm also learning how to pronounce all these cities and street correctly a.k.a. learning how to NOT sound like a stupid American. It's Edinbohrahh, not Edinburrow. It's Glosstah, not Glouchester. It's LeviOHsah, not LevioSAH. etc etc.