This is the delayed post about the SPECTACULAR city of Edinburgh! My memories of the day are drifting away slowly so forgive me if this doesn't have as much detail. So I have been looking forward to going to Edinburgh since I got here. I knew I wouldnt like Glasgow that much and that Edinburgh would be much more my speed.
Well I was right! It was so beautiful! After the fog cleared away at least :D
I mean look at that street! The city was just packed with historic buildings and places! On our walking tour we saw so much! We saw the place where public executions were held and learned about the woman who survived being hung and was therefore let go. We learned about how horrific the living conditions used to be in Edinburgh. We visited the graveyard where the famous body snatching frenzy took place!!
The Queen was in town for her Jubilee thingy, and they had this special parade going down the Royal Mile. Now I missed the REAL parade with 400 bagpipers (a huge disappointment), but I did see these guys :D
Does anyone know what this is? Anyone? Anyone Harry Potter fans? This cafe is famously the BIRTHPLACE OF HARRY POTTER! This is the cafe where JK Rowling came up with the story and did the first chapters on a napkin. *insert fangirl squeel*
After I calmed down from that I ended up getting roped into trying to see the Queen. The royal family (The Queen, Prince William and his wife Kate to be exact) where in the cathedral for some ceremony. (William was being inducted into the Order of the Thistle) There was security everywhere. I thought the police men up in the cathedral were hilarious. They arent allowed to carry guns, so all they were doing was watching the crowd!
Okay, This is the precession where the Queen was coming out, I don't think she is in this photo but this is an idea of how far away I was. Oh Well. I have a better picture of Kate though. It helped she was wearing bright yellow.
This is a gorgeous Celtic cross, just for fun. :D Anyways after the Queen nonsense we went through shops for a while then I convinced my group it would be fun to go into something called the Edinburgh Dungeons. This is the place that is a tourist thingy that takes the gruesome history of Edinburgh and turns it into a show. It. Was. Terrifying. Seriously, it was traumatizing. I ended up going down with 3 guys and we were all freaked out for hours afterwords. We learned about the corrupt jury system. One of our group was on trial for cross dressing. Then we learned about torture.It would have been horrid but the guy doing it had a sense of humor. In fact there were funny bits throughout the entire thing which made it bearable. The scariest thing though was a boat ride through the caves of Sawney Bean and his family. For those who dont know, Sawney Bean was the head of a cannibalistic family that lived in the cliffs. They made their living by attacking travelers and eating them. By the time they were caught there were 48 members total, all incestuous. The cave was completely black with some creepy child's voice singing. Then the lights would flash and the cannibals were there. Scariest. Thing. Ever. There was a lot of other stuff but that took the cake. At the end though it was a lot of fun and I am so glad I did it.
After that experience I met up with one of the other girls in the program and instead of going back to Stirling we went to go see a recording of the play Frankenstein at a local theater. Again, TOTALLY WORTH IT. It was a spectacular play. I wanted to see it because one of the favorite actors, Benedict Cumberbatch, played The Creature. Seriously, it was an amazing play. After that we took a train back to Stirling and walla, Edinburgh was done. But there was so much I still wanted to do and see! I didn't see the castle, and I didn't see the National Museum. I have to go back. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe a year from now. Who knows, but this city and I aren't don't yet.
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