Study Abroad in London: Edinburgh, Scotland: The only place where Cashmere, Haggis and Ghosts belong together

Hey everyone! This weekend I traveld to Edinburgh, Scotland. We left from Kings cross station, Platform 8, which conviently had a tribute to Harry Potter right next to it! I got to take a picture at 9 3/4 pretending to jump through the brick wall! :)

While in Edinburg I stayed at the Edinburgh Backpaker's Hostel, right off of the Royal Mile Road which is the main street in the area. It was alright, kind of dirty and the bathrooms were gross too. I did not realize how small Edinburgh is until I realized we could access all parts of the city from our hostel by foot! MUCH different than London. I really enjoyed this aspect of Edinburgh because it made the city more accessible and feel more friendly.

The stairs in our hostel. Of course we stayed on the 2nd highest floor!

Edinburgh is full of cashmere shops because there are so many sheep in the area. I was able to buy myself 2 scarves for only £19.99 each! What a steal! Never before have I seen so many "CASHMERE HERE" signs in one small area! Also, there was a shop called Chocolate Soup which served chocolate any way you can possibly imagine. I bought a Choco-ana Latte I believe it was called. It was basically a chocolate milkshake with caramel and banana in it. Cashmere + Chocolate = Heaven. How could I not be in love?

The city is absolutely beautiful as well. We climbed to the top of King Edward's seat (this giant mountain) as well as a few other places and saw terrific views. The city is breathtakingly gorgeous from every angle. Plus, since the city is full of hills, it adds a lot of dimensions to the views. I could not stop snapping photos, it was gorgeous.

Friday afternoon we explored the city to get a feel of the area. We saw a bagpiper playing in the center park area! I was so excited. Then that night Jenna, Jason and I went on a pub crawl that was organized by some tourist group in Edinburgh. For £10 we were taken to 5 different pubs and received a free beer (I tried the local one which was frothy and warm and tasted like drinking bread, yuck.) and four free shots. I only took two of the shots because some were whiskey shots. (Or whisky as they spell it in Scotland.) And whisky grosses me out so I passed on those. Although it was somewhat annoying to travel in such a large group, (hard to meet locals when you change bars every 25 min) I enjoyed the pub crawl because I had fun with my friends and got to see a bunch of pubs that I likely wouldn't have seen otherwise. I'll upload pictures of the night as soon as Jason's not looking... ;)

The second day we did most of our exploring. We went to St. Mary's Cathedral, which was made originally to honour someone's mother but then the Bishop from Edinburgh needed a place to stay, so it was given to him. Then we went to the Royal Mile and walked the street. It was so tempting to buy all of the beautiful cashmere sweaters, scarves and gloves! Then after some lunch, which was DELICIOUS, we climbed King Arthur's seat. It is basically this giant cliff. It was sooo steep! I thought I was going to pass out climbing it, but it was definitely worth the effort because the views were beautiful!

King Arthur's seat. Overlooking the city. I'm wearing a purple cashmere scarf I bought there!

UNH kids on top of King Edward's seat. L to R: Jenna, Jason, Jill and I

On Saturday night we went on a ghost tour of the underground vaults. Edinburgh has an underground city because they ran out of room above ground and wanted to stay within the tall building walls to avoid attacks from the English. So the poor people, prostitues, and murderers had to live underground. And boy I felt bad once I had to see them! Our tour guide told us that the underground vaults remained unknown for a couple hundred years until some students one day banged something against one of their apartment walls and heard an echo. They pushed the wall down and found a stone city! After research by archeologists and such, they realized what the students had discovered. The underground vaults had been an area of refuge for prositutes, murderors, the poor and the like. Today people consider the rooms to be haunted because many souls died there. I was not scared of the souls, but it was eerie to be in a room where so many people had died. Plus they barely light the area so that was disturbing as well. One room was particularly disturbing: the coldest, largest room. In that room many women and children fled a great fire in the mid 1700s. Whilst the men fought above ground, the women thought they'd be safe underground because stone does not burn. Stone does, however, conduct heat. When the men went to go retrieve their wives and children, they discovered that they had all perished. It is said that while in that room you might feel scratches, shoves, or feel your hair being tugged. This is because that is likely what all of the women and children did while trying to escape the locked room. Eerie!

Our tour guide. Flambouyant but hysterical. (Yes, he was wearing a black cape.)

Then on Sunday we woke up around 8:30 so that we could visit Edinburgh Castle before heading home at 1:30. The castle was impressive because it is built high up on a hill into a giant stone rock slope. It must have been quite the fortress in its day. It was not as marvelously decorated as many English castles, and although this bothered Jill, I was not upset by it. The fact that the Scotsmen of that day were able to drag heavy stones up such a steep and high slopeside must have been quite the feat!