Scotland

Favorite trip and place we have been to so far hands down! I am in love with Scotland. It was beautiful and had such a fun environment. I was diggin on the scottish accent for sure too haha. We left Wednesday morn at seven and caught our train to Edinburgh at eight. It was a great five hours, surprisingly the trains were much nicer than I expected. I naturally slept most of the time and before I knew it we were in Scotland! The first thing we did was check into our hostile. Yes I was super worried what it was going to be like- turned out to be nicer than hotel de hollande. No joke! This was very comforting. We dropped our luggage off and went straight to Edinburgh castle. 

This was the first castle we have been to. I was lovin it! Ha it really was one of the tightest things that we have seen. It's view was awesome. We walked around the place for quite awhile and then we were on our own for the rest of the night. It was sweet because our hostile was right off of the Royal Mile. There were fun shops and food along the whole road. When coming out of the castle we found about bunch of family heritage stuff in a bunch of shops. Family clans are a big deal in Scotland. Each family has their own color, crest, motto, etc. I bought a little Grant book haha. Got all updated on my history. Yes I read the whole thing believe it or not! "Stand Fast." We went into a little shop that had all original scottish gear and was a family owned business. Let's just say we were there for at least an hour and are now friends with the owners on facebook. Hahah. Biggest sweethearts ever. They gave us killer deals on all of our purchases too. Good old Stephanie and Matthew. Then after hanging out there for awhile we went to a pub called Mitre. It was delicious. After we all headed to some little grocery store, bought some shortbread, magazines and headed back to the hostile.

The next day we had the whole day to ourselves. We slept in a little bit and then started our day off walking down to the Holyrood Palace. We weren't able to go in, but it was cool to see where their Queen is currently living. Pretty palace. Then we went and checked out King Arthur's seat and I ended up hiking it with Liz! It was beautifulllll.

Following our hike we went and walked around some more, finding some crazy graveyard and a few other random places. Then we stopped at the Elephant Cafe. This is where J.K. Rowling started Harry Potter. Everyone went nuts over this place. I was snapping pics left and right. Bless all of your hp fan hearts. Haha it was fun and then we headed back to Stephanie's for a little while to grab some last minute things... and to chat with her of course. 

A big crew had decided that they wanted to see the play Annie. Luckily there were a few that weren't in the mood! As much as I looove plays.... I wasn't feelin the whole sit down and listen kind of thing for the night. So me, Liz, Ashley, and Ramzi did our own thing. We found a mexican restaurant that was sooooooo good. I could not have been happier. I miss mexican food more than anything hahah. So whether it was even that good or not I guess i'll never know, but in the moment I was loving it. Of course after dinner you always need dessert right? We went to some place called Chocolate Soup. Enough said.

Then we headed off to a ghost tour that they do around the city. It was so much fun! We had a guide that took us around to a bunch of creepy places and he told us scary stories from the past. He even took us underground into the old taverns where people who had the plague lived and died in. It was scary but a blast haha. Just imagine three american chicks -all wearing matching Scotland hats- freaking out. We had zero attention drawn to us.  

Afterwards we met a few more friends haha took some pictures and headed home. One of the most fun nights I've had while being away. Great day.

The next day we left Edinburgh for Sterling. The first place that we went to was New Lanark. I will always wonder why we went there. It was just some old town cotton mill. Creepiest town ever-although very pretty. Haha. I don't even know how to explain it. There were these freaky mannequins in all of the displays and ugh. Just weird. There was some ride at the end that was called the Annie Macloud exhibit. She was a young girl that had to work in the cotton mill and it told her story. Ash, Anne and I crammed in one of the car things. We felt like we were on the haunted house ride in Disneyland. Too funny. After we hiked to the top of some waterfall (Clyde waterfall I think it was called) it was gawgeous. Then we were off to Stirling for the rest of the afternoon/night. 

Scary enough?

Stirling was only about an hour or so away from New Lanark. When we got there we checked into our hostile and then went straight to the castle. Don't take this in the wrong way... but this castle was nothing and so over rated compared to the Edinburgh one. Haha we tried to walk around and enjoy it as much as we could. The best thing about it was that it had a beautiful view since it was at the top of the hill. (Seriously everything in Scotland is uphill. And the coolest things are always at the top.. haha)

Sterling has zero night life and hardly anything going on. So for the night a pretty big crew of us decided to lay low and do something we haven't in a long time: go see a movie. We grabbed dinner at a place called Franky and Benny's (Equivalent of a TGIF) and then went to Gnomeo and Juliet. It was hilarious ha I was very pleased with our night. Then we just went back to our hostile (not as nice as the one in Edinburgh... let's just say there were some scares of bed bugs, creepy hairs, annnd that's all i'm going to say). The next day we got to sleep in because we didn't have to get on the bus until 10:15. The showers were too scary so we all threw our hats on, packed up and were out of there. Before we went to catch the train home, we went to the William Wallace monument. There were a good 246 stairs up to the top of that thing... once again. Europe is obsessed with stairs!

Off to the train station we went, dreading a five hour train ride... that turned into an seven hour one. Not kidding. Basically I could have been in the US in that time. Haha. We kept stopping and I don't even know! Pretty awful but we made it fun and finally got home. Such a great trip. It's always nice to get back to the centre though. I can't wait to go back with the Fam!