Edinburgh, Scotland

Ruqqiya and I took a weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland! We took the night bus which as we found out is not the most pleasant way to travel. But when we left after dinner we were excited! The night bus, like in Harry Potter! We were going to Scotland! On the tube ride to the bus station a bagpiper was playing at one of the stations. I took that as a sign that the trip was going to be fantastic. And I was right. On the walk from the tube station to the bus station I saw a man peeing on a building. Two minutes later a guy asked if we had any used bus tickets. When we said no he said, "Merry Christmas." We didn't get to sit together on the bus and that really sucked. Sitting next to a stranger for 9 hours on a night bus is not the most pleasant thing ever. Especially when he goes to sleep, turns over so his butt was touching me. Also not pleasant is being woken up at three am for a rest stop(or as they call it here a service station) by a really loud Scottish guy over crackling loudspeakers and leaving the warm bus and walking out into freezing rain. Wake up call! It was not like in Harry Potter.

I was so excited! The kinda excited that even though I was beyond uncomfortable, I just didn't care.

When we finally arrived in Edinburgh at 7 in the morning we were tired and didn't know where the heck we were. When we left the bus station the freezing cold air hit me like a fist in the face. It is sooo much colder in Scotland than London. And I hadn't packed right at all. Then it started raining. Freezing cold rain. My face felt like it was burning off because of the freezing cold wind.Everything was closed except a McDonald's so we ran in there, ordered some tea, tried to warm up and regroup. The weather varied from sunny to raining about 100 times a day in Edinburgh. But it always stayed freezing!

Ruqqiya and I hiked up Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat has nothing to do with King Arthur it's just a big hill/mountain thing. When we were walking up it started to drizzle so we decided to take a short cut. Almost straight up. It was hard. But we finally made it to the top and the view was soo worth it. It was so windy I was being blown around.

Cheesing on Arthur's Seat.

We didn't beat the rain that was rolling in while we were on the top. We were soaked and muddy by the time we got down.
When we got down from Arthur's Seat we heard some strange sounding half bongo half Indian music. The source of the music was these two guys wearing suits dancing around being filmed a very low budget music video.

Looking from New Town across to Old Town.

Edinburgh has so many stairs. These lead up to High Street. hahaha High Street. get it?

Edinburgh is such a gorgeous city. Everywhere you look there is beautiful buildings and monuments. Also men walk around wearing kilts! They just wear them around- to work or wherever! ahahaha How cool is that!? haha

The Elephant House. This is where J.K. Rowling started Harry Potter on napkins. We were both really excited because we are both huge Harry Potter dork fans. We went in and had tea and a delicious brownie sundae.

Acting dumb in the children's section of the museum.

I climbed up Calton Hill alone and saw some monuments and another great view. This was the windiest day. I was literally almost blown off my feet. They were doing some work on one of the monuments and the construction workers saw me almost get blown off my feet and they were all like wooooah be careful!! Don't blow off the edge!! Stay back from the edge! HAHAHA It was so embarrassing! haha

Edinburgh Castle at sunset. We decided to do the castle on our very last day in Edinburgh. When we arrived at the castle around 2 o clock the gates were barred and there was a military guy in full fatigues holding a giant machine gun in front of the door. I didn't know if it was closed or if it was always like this, or if we were at the wrong entrance, so I went up to the guard(who looked kinda startled at being addressed) and was like Hi! Are yall closed? And he was like yeah and then he started telling me this whole long story about why it was closed(a function-long story lol) and when it would be open and when we could come back. hahaha He was nice. When he was finally done chatting to me I went over to Ruqqiya who was like SARAH! I can't believe you went up and talked to a guy holding a giant machine gun! Are you crazy!?hahaha

I took a walk outside our hostel on the last day in Scotland. I looked out on the Firth of Forth and saw this island in the distance with some ruins on it. Do you see the rainbow shining directly onto the ruins?

There are a zillion more pictures on flickr of course. I take soo many pictures! But hey they're digital so who cares!?