My Scottish Adventure
I decided to take a break from Finland before my classes start...
I ended up in Edinburgh, Scotland. Here's a bit of my journal from the week below, and to the side are photos - click on the photo to view larger. 8.2 Flying out to Edinburgh. This was my first trip in Europe, and I just so happened to be traveling alone. I caught a train from Jyvaskyla to Tampere, then had to figure out WHERE the airport bus was hiding. I met another lost traveler and we decided to try to find out together. haha Turns out we were taking the same flight to Edinburgh! We even ended up sitting together on the plane. Her name was Jessica and she is actually a Finn-Swede (which means she is a Finnish citizen with Swedish heritage, and that she actually doesn't speak Finnish, she speaks Swedish instead) There's actually alot of turmoil between Finns and Finn-Swedes and it was fascinating to hear about it from her side. I also learned alot about "old Finland" from her. We parted ways at the airport and I went on to look for my hostel. I turned the corner and stood on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh last night..... I literally couldn't move... I just had to stare... This morning I woke up to see Edinburgh castle staring at me just out my window..... I don't have words for all this yet... but I am on cloud 9 :) I haven't even been here 12hrs and I've already decided I'm never leaving LOL This hostel I am staying at is AMAZING :) 9.2 I had breakfast at the hostel and roamed around the city for a while and got lost on purpose, just taking it all in. I wandered into an amazing cemetery and took lots of photos. That night I went to the Couch surfing meeting and met lots of other people who lived in Edinburgh or were just passing through. Thank goodness for Google Maps / Street View... navigating a city you've never been to, trying to find some obscure bar.... is not an easy task. haha but I enjoyed the challenge. After the meeting a few of us went to a dance club and hung out for a while longer. 10.2 I needed to recover from traveling and dancing all night, so i slept allll day and just hung out at the hostel. I even did some homework! That evening I went to ask the receptionist for directions to my swing dance lessons. She ended up calling a cab for me after we noticed how far the walk was. Thankfully taxis are really cheap here. I had a great time with the Edinburgh Swing Dancers. Afterward, I was waiting at what I hoped was the right bus stop. One of the older ladies from swing came to ask me a question and I asked her about the bus. She then informed me that her and her husband would just give me a ride! They were the SWEETEST old couple. 11.2 I found an ad for the Edinburgh Butterfly garden and decided to go check it out. It was a long bus ride, but that was great because I got to see a lot of the Scottish countryside along the way. People here are soo nice. I didn't know what stop to get off at, and people on the bus were more than happy to let me know the right one and talk to me a bit as well. The Butterfly garden was awesome. There was a reptile room as well :) Hooray! 12.2 I went on a Ghost tour and saw several of the old tunnels of Edinburgh. I met girl from Washington State, we teamed up so we wouldn't be so scared down in the vaults. We ended up at this amazing Ballad rock bar completely full of drunken Scotsmen all singing at the top of their lungs and playing air guitar. My new friend and I joined in on the singing and had a wonderful night. 13.2 I got lost in the city again. I found my way back to the city centre and decided to eat at The Last Drop. I wanted to finally try some Haggis! It was soooo delicious! Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish. They take all the internal organs from a cow or sheep and grind them up with spices, then they stuff it all back into the stomach of the animal to cook it. It is usually served in the stomach and you cut it open and eat the meat inside. LOL Sorry for the description…. But that’s just how it is and when I am on adventure I like to try new things no matter what I think about them… I will at least TRY them. (I would have eaten the cooked grub worms in the Amazon if they had made them for us! Yuck! Lol) Well, while I was enjoying my Haggis, two couples sat at the table directly next to me. We easily picked each other as Americans when we ordered our food and drink. The couples included two brothers and their wives. We talked for a good while and one of them invited me to go on the Ghost Tour with him later that night because everyone else was too scared. I roamed around the city for a while longer, taking lots and lots of photos. I finally went back to the hostel and was trying to decide between an open mic night and the ghost tour. I decided to at least try to find the ghost tour and see if my new friend was going to actually be there. I showed up and to my surprise both the guys were there. The brothers. The tour we went on was AMAZING. Our guide was one of the best storytellers I’ve ever seen/heard. We went into more of the underground vault systems and to Grey Friars Graveyard. (The same graveyard I wandered into by accident earlier in the week and took so many photos of!) After the tour the brothers and I went for drinks, we ended up at a live music venue and finally at an awesome private karaoke place where you can rent your own room just for you and your friends! It was soo much fun. I really enjoyed talking to both of them so very much. They are such super nice guys. I’ve got invites to come visit either of them. One lives in San Diego and one lives in Ireland! They kept calling me the sister they always wished they had, lol. It was great. 14.2 Happy Friendship Day! Happy Valentine’s Day! In Finland they call it Friendship Day. I like that. My last day in Edinburgh was a bittersweet one. I slept in quite late because of my awesome night out with my new brothers. I walked to the cemetery to get some photos of the Harry Potter references from the graveyard. I didn’t take my camera on the tour and the photos at night would have been awful anyway. There are two very prominent grave stones in Grey Friars (McGonagall and Thomas Riddle (aka – Voldemort) ) The school on the other side of the cemetery was also belived to be inspiration for Hogwarts. Just a bit of interesting literary trivia. I had thought about walking to Arthur’s Seat (a very important place for Geological history) but it was a bit too cold, the day was getting away from me, and I was a bit bummed out about leaving and going back to Finland. So I went back to the hostel and curled up by the fire to watch a movie. I spent the rest of my night packing so that it would be easier for me to leave in the morning. 15.2 Goodbye Edinburgh!! I woke up early (on accident) took a shower, got ready, checked out of the hostel, had breakfast and was getting ready to catch my bus and head to the airport when I finally noticed how early it was! Hahaha I had reverted back to Finnish time already. So I had a few hours to kill… I updated my photo blog and just hung out for a while. I decided to walk to the castle. It is quite expensive to get INSIDE the castle and I didn’t have THAT much time left. So I decided to save that for my next trip (yes - I will go back) I wandered into a few more shops and decided it was time to catch my bus to the airport. I stopped at Subway (haha) and got a sandwich to go. I walked up to the bus and noticed it was 3.50 (pounds) Yikes! I thought it was only 3 pounds! All I had was 3.40. I explained to the driver and he just said “Sorry, you can catch the other bus across town for 1.20” I was already running out of time. The next bus pulled up and the driver who was taking over had heard my dilemma. “If you are only short 10 pence you can ride my bus, no problem” (This is why I love Scotland, well one of the reasons) I walked to the check in counter and, well well… There’s my new friend Jessica standing JUST in front of me in line! What great timing. I am so very happy that I met her and that she was my traveling buddy helping me deal with the airports and buses and trains. We talked the whole way back to Tampere, of course. She even helped me find my train back to Jyvaskyla and we hugged goodbye. “There now you have one more Finnish hug. Oh, but this time from a Finn-Swede” “Even better!” I said Now I am sitting on the train just waiting to get “home” It is soooooooo very cold here in Finland. It’s been horrible like this all week. Negative 35 to neg 25 C. Look up the conversion… that’s COLD I am not sure how I will react to being back yet… In a way, I am looking forward to returning to my crappy little apartment after a day of traveling. I am trying so so so very hard to stay positive about this adventure in Finland. I just reallllly don’t like the cold darkness. Lol We’ll see…. |