Friday, June 17, 2011

Edinbrraaaah!

The rest of my evening yesterday was rather uneventful. By the time I went to my room in the hostel a number of people were already asleep. I went to bed pretty quickly. I was woken up a few times, but I think that is mostly because I am a rather light sleeper in hostels. I was woken up a few times because the bar downstairs has live music but mostly I thought it was funny because it was a bunch of people belting out "Ghost Riders in the Sky." That was (momentarily) entertaining, and it stopped around 1am.

I woke up around 7 and couldn't get back to sleep so I just got up and showered, sat around eating breakfast and reading, taking my time. My plan for the day was to jump on one of the hop-on-hop-off tours and they started at 9:30. Because I was taking my time I didn't get to the busses until around 10 but this was ok. I don't often want to pay for a bus tour like that but Edinburgh is really, really hilly and I hadn't really done any reading about what you can see here so this really was my only option. This is also great because if you get tired of seeing things you can just sit on the bus for a while and still feel like you are doing stuff.

They had a deal where if you pay one price you can board any of the 4 different companies buses, this was really nice. I started with one bus and just rode the entire route, it took about an hour. I did this because I was tired, it started to rain (great day for an open top bus tour), and I didn't want to pay entrance into anything. I then boarded another bus, this time with a live tour guide, these are generally much more enjoyable than the ones with headphones. The guide was really great. Again I just sat and listened to the entire tour - it covered mostly different things. I stayed on that bus and rode it to one of the Starbucks (which are conveniently everywhere) and hopped off.

I was freezing cold and ready for a nap but determined not to waste my bus ticket by napping. Instead I had a panini and a venti latte. I sat in Sbucks for about an hour reading and trying to warm up. From where I was I walked up the hill towards Edinburgh castle stopping to buy a lambswool scarf along the way - I desperately wanted to buy a cashmere one but I was being realistic about money matters so opted out of it.

I then went to the castle. It was alright. I was pretty exhausted and most of it was set up like a museum, which was nice, but I wasn't really up for reading a bunch of stuff. Don't really know if I got my money's worth, but for 5 extra pounds I paid for entrance into ALL historical sites in Scotland, so once the weekend is over I will have made my moneys worth.

I wandered through a lot of the castle before eventually coming out and finding a tour to book for tomorrow. It is going to be an epic day of busses but I think it'll be good, and it will be substantially easier than if I tried to plan it all myself. Sounds like a lot - a lot - of people have done similar tours so that means it really is easier. It is an early start and we get back late. Sunday I've plans to get to a castle that I won't get to see in the tour but I'll tell you about that after I actually do it.

So I hopped back on another bus and rode it around until I could stop by the train station. I thought I wanted to come and have a nap or something but instead I went to look for a shirt to buy because I need to do laundry but I thought maybe it'd be easier to buy a cheap shirt, then changed my mind again and convinced myself to just wash my clothes - which I still need to do! I went to the tourist office to get some details about my Sunday trip then walked back to the hostel, hung out, ate some food, had some tea, and now I'm updating all you lovely people on my day.

I realize I wasn't very informative about what I saw, but I don't really know what to tell you. The city is really beautiful, some highlights were the Queen's Scotland palace, the castle, beautiful architecture, private parks (you have to pay a membership to use them!), beautiful bridges, ya, I guess mostly it was just nice to look at the city today. I just wish it wasn't so cool and rainy. It really tires a girl out.

I'm hoping I get a better nights rest tonight because I have to get up at something like 6:30 and the tour is almost 10hrs I think. Clearly I will be sleeping on the bus. And yes, I am charging my camera battery as I type :)

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