Edinburgh, Scotland

I had an amazing time in Edinburgh! I absolutely loved Scotland! It started at 7:45 am Friday morning. We had a 7 hour coach ride ahead of us and I wasn’t too happy….but, I took some motion sickness medicine and slept the majority of the time. We stopped three hours into our journey in a little town called Carslile. We had a little more than an hour so a group of us decided to eat lunch at this little Italian restaurant. Our food took forever and by the time we got it, we had ten minutes to eat it and still get back to the bus which was somewhat of a hike away. Of course, my food came last of all and it was boiling in the bowl when I got it…yay. I ate it as fast as I could and believe me; I have no taste buds left!
We still had another four hours till we got to Edinburgh, but since there was a lot of traffic when we entered the city, it took longer. Therefore, we had less time to get ready for a Posh Dinner at the Edinburgh University with UMD’s chancellor who made the journey over here to see how everything was going. The posh dinner was a lot of fun and in this really cool building that looked almost like a Castle on the outside.

The next day we toured the Scottish Parliament. It was a newly constructed building and it was beautiful. After the tour, a small group of us took a coach ride to visit Roslyn Chapel. Roslyn Chapel was absolutely phenomenal! After Roslyn Chapel we went back to our 5 star Youth Hostel. After a yummy dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, the majority of our group made our journey across part of Edinburgh for a ghost tour of ‘the most haunted’ place in Great Britain according to the BBC. It was a very freaky tour of the vaults and a cemetery. It wasn’t necessarily people jumping out to scare you but the history of the rooms that we were in was very unsettling. The next morning I woke up bright and early go to with a small group on a walking tour of Edinburgh with Amy, our assistant director of the program. The tour was pretty cool, we saw the National Gallery, some chapels, the castle, and oh yeah how can I forget, we got a cup of coffee at ‘the elephant house’ where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter!!!

After the walking tour I went off on my own to do some shopping till the time came for me to meet up with Katie and Ashley. I wondered a bit from store to store just enjoying some me time in Scotland. During the walking tour I noticed a beautiful pink wool coat in a store window and as I was on my own, I came across it again. So since I had the time, I wandered in the store, tried it on….and bought it. Yup, I have a bright pink, knee length wool winter coat from Scotland.
The next morning we got up early to make our way back to Birmingham. Three hours into our trip we stopped in the small town of Lancaster. So we had a little more than an hour to eat, we decided we didn’t want to scarf down hot food like last time so we went to the nearest little café by the bus to get a quick bite. Well…there were four of us, three of us ordered cheese burgers n’ chips and one ordered fish n’chips. All of us ordered a glass of tap water. After the waiter took our order, he put his coat on and walked out the door. A few minutes later he came back with a pack of classes, removed the card board and filled them up with water and served it us. Then we saw the cook come out of the kitchen, leave, and run across the street to the grocery store. When she came back she had a box of frozen burgers and breaded fish. Mmm….that’s a bit odd… Then the waiter left again and came back with a back of hamburger buns. Our food came a few minutes later and was horrible. That was my experience in Lancaster and I don’t think I’ll ever go back. Yikes!

Cheers!

Kirsten