04/03-05: Edinburgh

04/03:

We arrived in Edinburgh without major incident and then hit a bus into town. From there we took a quick little cab ride from the downtown area out to Charity’s place. Charity joined a long list of hosting heroes who have helped me save a few kronor in my travels. She and Byron are good buddies from By’s ASU days.

When we arrived we were greeted by Charity and her roommate Liz as well as an open bottle of wine. So in the end we just hung out that evening boozing, eating Chinese food and getting to know each other. It was a really nice (though not particularly photogenic) evening.

04/04:

The next day we left our hosts to their studies and Kitri and I ventured to explore the beautiful Scottish city. Our day started with a coffee at Starbucks. Sadly they were sconeless so a muffin had to suffice. However, the Starbucks in hand and the native English (or something resembling it) being spoken everywhere made me feel very comfortable. From there we hit a bus into town and wandered a bit to get introduced to town.
Along the way we came across an organization catering to an issue I am very passionate about:
After a small amount of stalling we went on one of New Europe’s free tours, which I have pimped countless times on this blog. It turned out to be yet again, fantastic. Our guide took us around town and recounted history as well as some odd stories. It was a bit odd that we didn’t venture down to the Palace at Holyrood and hear about Mary Queen of Scots, but there was plenty to talk about such as the old castle, life in the old town, and some other random stories.

Here's Edinburgh Castle:

He made sure to point out the coffee shop that J. K. Rowling wrote much of the first Harry Potter book. She spent much of her time looking out one of the windows you'll see below ...
... and her view was something like the following. The story goes that the castle you see in the distance (not sure what the actual building is) was apparently inspiration for Hogwarts. (As an aside, I think it's hilarious that Firefox doesn't have a problem with the spelling of Hogwarts)


The other more random story that tugged on your heart strings was the tale of Greyfriars Bobby. According to Wikipedia:
Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh after reportedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner, John Gray, until he died himself on 14 January 1872.

So to this day, people will often leave little tokens on the graves of his owner and sticks at the grave of Bobby.
There was another interesting resident of the cemetery, that being Tom "I am Lord Voldemort" Riddle. Kitri went back later and snapped a photo of his gravestone.

A few more photos looking up towards the castle on the tour:

Can you see the family resemblance?


The tour culminated in telling a tale of how some Scottish students stole the Stone of Destiny and brought it back to its rightful place (before it was taken back), and then highlighted the Scottish nationalist movements.

After the tour, Kitri and I went up to go see Edinburgh Castle. The castle is impressive, and the grounds are quite interesting, however I didn’t find it as interesting as Sterling Castle, which Courtney and I saw on our last trip to Scotland. By all accounts Edinburgh Castle has far more history, but it just didn’t really captivate me.

The views however were spectacular.





Here's the prison which apparently held quite a few American POW's during the revolutionary war.

The following isn't particularly important to anything but I thought it was pretty...
Following all the touristy nonsense I made plans to meet up with my two favorite Brits. The fact that there were two was a bit of a surprise. I had written to Derek and Tom about my dates that I would be passing through Edinburgh, but I hadn’t heard back from Tom. At this point I thought he might have been in London or perhaps on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but sure enough he showed up, having taken the bus ride from Glasgow.

At any rate, Kitri and I found a table in a bar with some super loud and obnoxious people (soccer fans? I never quite figured out what they were celebrating and singing about). Tom met us there and joined us for a pint, and then Derek arrived, having just got off from work, shortly before.

At that point we went out looking for a place to grab a few pints and some pub fare. In the end we settled on Bobby's Bar, named after Greyfriars Bobby. Here you can see the statue erected for Glasgow's most adorable native son:

The dinner was a blast. In addition to our main courses, Kitri and I split a Haggis starter, which turned out to be quite tasty. While hanging out we drank and chatted and drank so much that I forget what we chatted about. All I do know is that it was a good time. At some point however the two guys had to make it back home, and Kitri and I took a stroll back to Charity and Liz's place and called it a night.

04/05:

The next morning Kitri and I headed into town where we grabbed a super unhealthy (translation: delicious) Scottish breakfast before I rolled off to the airport to fly back to Stockholm. Kitri meanwhile hung out for the rest of the day before catching an overnight train trip down to London. As for Kitri's London exploits, I'll leave you to take a look at her blog: KitriHasPullmanSyndrome.blogspot.com.