For freedom!...and for beer.

This past weekend, the girls and I went to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.  The train ride from Sheffield was about 4 hours long.  The scenery was gorgeous (I mainly saw it on the way back cause I was passed out with my mouth open on the way there…whoops).  The tracks went right up the coast of the North Sea.  We were on top of cliffs looking over the ocean which looked like glass.  Absolutely no waves, nothing like our oceans.  There were beautiful light houses and of course…tons of sheep.  My favorite J

We arrived in Edinburgh around 130 pm and took a taxi to the Point Hotel on Bread Street.  The hotel gave us a little room next to the penthouse on the fourth floor, so let’s just say we had a pretty great view.  Check out picture one of my Scotland album on facebook.  The hotel was right down the road from the Grassmarket, which is where all the famous pubs are located.  We walked to the main strip and found the tourist information shop where we bought a two day city pass.  We decided to go on a literary pub tour and then an underground terror tour later that night, (I personally wanted to go shark diving at the aquarium, but it was a little pricey…and cold). 

The pub tour started at 730pm at the Beehive Pub.  The tour guide told us to buy a drink and meet the rest of the group upstairs…so we did!  We got up stairs and the tour began with a man who introduced himself as a actor…and then another man in the audience who kept interrupting him and correcting him on his history facts (obviously a part of the act).  The two actors were hilarious…too bad I couldn’t understand a word they said in their Scottish accents.  I did get the universal dirty jokes though.

The two men took our group of twelve to 4 pubs and gave us story after story of Scottish writers and their best works and dirty secrets.  Our group was diverse, we had people from Spain, Ireland, Britain, and America.  I got to try McEwans (a Scottish Ale), which was tasty but gave me an instant headache.  After tour, they quizzed us on our knowledge, I got 2 questions right! Yay! America REPRESENT!

Then we walked to Starbucks, got a hot chocolate because of the wind was brutal, and then stopped in the meeting place of the terror tour which began at 10pm.

So the tour guide pops pretty much out of nowhere.  He is British, short, skinny with dyed maroon spiky hair.  He tells us to follow him.  (Um I am pretty sure this guy was a vampire because of how fast he walked.)  We would start walking behind him, then find ourselves running to catch up every couple of minutes.  Keep in mind, Edinburgh is super hilly.  Everywhere you go there are stairs up, stairs down, steep hills…absolutely ridiculous.  I think my butt and legs got a month’s worth of work outs in just this past weekend. 

ANYWAYS! He began the tour in a creepy, tight alley and told us how the citizens of Edinburgh lived in the 16^th century.  Basically, there was obviously no indoor plumbing and a law was passed that all bodily excrements had to be put in a bucket and could only be emptied once a day at 10pm.  At 10pm they would ring a bell and if someone was throwing a bucket out the window, they would yell, "Garde loo!" (from the French 'garde a l'eau').  SO the end of the story, was that if you were a drunk, walking home from the pub and you heard someone yell from above, what would you do? …Look up.  And that where the term sh*it faced comes from.  So there ya go.

The creepiest part of the tour was when they took us to the torture museum and showed us all the tools they used torture so called “witches” and the criminals (including the homeless).  Then they took us to the underground vaults that were built for merchants, but ended up being used by criminals and homeless to escape from the authorities that were torturing those who broke the law.  The authorities refused to go down into the pitch, black vaults because of the crazies and diseases festering in there.

So unspeakable things happened in these vaults and that is why it is the most haunted place in Edinburgh.  Now I’ve always believed in angels, so I guess I believe in demons as well.  But I never thought I’d be in one’s presence, and I didn’t expect it to happen this weekend.  But I swear to you….no doubt, something was down there.  We would go from one vault to the next hearing stories of what happened in each vault, or what the daily life would be like living there, hiding from the law.  Some vaults’ temperature would just drop and you could all of the sudden see your breath in front of you.   That was a little uneasy, and seeing a live witch’s temple was weird too (they rent out the temple for worship…currently).  But the worst was the last vault all the way in the back.  They spilt the women and men up on different sides, because they said the spirits usually target the women on the left side of the vault.

The story was that there was a fire in Edinburgh, and the men put the women and children in this vault for safety while the men went to fight the fire.  What actually happened, is that the vault acted as a furnace and they were all cooked to death.  As he is telling this story…I look behind me…my back is to the wall and I see a short women with a wide face and prominent sunken eyes.  Um…I freaked out and grabbed Amanda.  The tour guide told me to basically shut up.  I looked again and she was gone.  Then something pulls on my purse…twice.  My back is against the wall…no one is behind me.  Then a girl in the group screams and everyone bolts.  But let’s think how smart these people are…they are freaking out, but they run into the vault…not out towards the exit….idiots.  The girls basically knock me down into the mud while everyone is screaming and trampling me, and everything is echoing.  Ugh it was terrifying…and painful.  The tour guide helps me up, and we get the heck outta there.  I’m not one to believe in stupid ghost stories…but I don’t have an explanation of what was behind me.

Day two, we went to the Edinburgh Castle…so gorgeous and the view was stunning.  You can check out all the pictures on my facebook.  Then we did the Scotch Whiskey Experience where we learned how whiskey is made and what regions certain tastes come from in Scotland.  Then we had a taste test…found out I don’t like straight scotch.  But, alas, the experience was interesting.  We also went to the 3D Lochness Experience…awful and bootleg video.  I fell asleep and I now believe there is no Lochness Monster….thanks for killing my fairytale.  Then we freshened up and went to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe where we waited at the bar for an hour and a half for our table.  However dinner was nice, drinks were delish, and the music was great.  We walked back and stopped at the Beehive for some local pub experience and then headed back to the hotel.

In the morning, we went shopping on the Royal Mile and then caught the 1pm train back to Sheffield.  The 4 hour train ride turned into a 5 hour plus train ride cause apparently people were stealing train cables for copper and the train signals stopped working…this would only happen on our train.  By this time I was out of cash and couldn’t even afford a scone or tea on the train.  So slept until Leeds and then finally got home around 6 or 7.

Edinburgh was my favorite weekend so far.  I loved the views and scenery.  The history was so fascinating and I actually didn’t want to leave.  I have to go back to Scotland one day.

Next Friday my mom will get here and Morgan, she and I will leave for London Saturday morning.  We will stay there a couple of days and then head to Paris.  Now all I have to figure out is how to pack for a week’s worth of London and Paris in one little duffel bag…hmmm.