Without further ado, here is a long-overdue record of my weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland, on September 24th-27th:
Ahem!
Chapter 1:
Mallory and I decided we wanted to go up to Scotland for the weekend. We started pricing train and bus tickets. We were indecisive. We were rapidly running out of time. Things were getting complicated. It was Wednesday night. We wanted to leave on Friday morning and we still didn't have tickets.
Then things got more complicated. We realized that overnight buses were cheaper. This meant leaving Thursday night. So we bought the tickets. Yes, 24 hours before we left.
Minutes later, things got even more complicated. Our internet shorted out. So we were left with bus tickets to Edinburgh, Scotland, the following night, but we had no place to stay and no means of getting home again on Sunday. Additionally, we had no formal plans of what we'd do once we got to Edinburgh on Friday morning.
To make things even more complicated, I had already planned to go to an event at HTB with my flatmate Tyson (it was the Alpha Launch night with special guest Bear Grylls...yes, I have seen Bear Grylls in person, for those of you who know who he is. Feel free to be jealous!) which wasn't supposed to end until about 9:30pm or so, and Mallory had a required trip to the theatre with her Shakespeare class that night. Our bus was supposed to leave Victoria bus station at 11:20pm. Mallory would be sprinting from the Globe Theatre with her duffel bag, and I would rushing to get home from the church event.
Thursday came, and things got slightly less complicated because our internet finally started working again around lunchtime, so we booked a hostel and a train home in between our morning and afternoon classes (we both had morning and afternoon classes, which effectively meant almost no time to pack). Tyson and I went to the event at HTB, which turned out to be really cool. It finished at a reasonable hour and I hurried home. But things became slightly more complicated again. I hadn't packed yet.
I packed incredibly fast, throwing only essentials into the camping backpack that Rachel Tarter graciously loaned me (which served her well during her semester abroad in London a few years ago) and bolted out the door. I caught a bus to the Tube, then took the Tube to Victoria station. Arriving at Victoria precisely moments before the time I'd agreed to meet Mallory, I let out a sigh of relief and looked around for the bus stop sign. I saw a sign that said "Victoria Coach Station -->"...
...and things suddenly got more complicated again. This sign pointed the way to others like it, and I was off on a race across a few blocks to where the bus station--which I discovered that night was a separate building from the Tube station--was located. Mallory and I finally found each other and breathed a sigh of relief. We tried to collect our tickets, only to discover that things were more complicated than we'd thought.
It was after 10pm. The ticket counter was closed. And no ticket seemed to mean no bus to Scotland. We quickly tracked down a member of staff, who [fortunately] informed us that since we had our confirmation numbers written down, we would still be okay. Phew!
And after all of that, we were finally on our way.
Chapter 2:
We arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, at breakfast time. It was raining. We acquired sustenance and coffee from a pastry shop and found an awning under which to eat it. Soon the weather cleared and we began to wander up and down the Royal Mile.
We stopped at the Edinburgh Museum just to look around...and spent the next few hours there. On the second floor (first floor, UK definition), they had an area designed for young people (and the young at heart) complete with crafts and historical costumes to teach children about the history of Scotland in creative and interactive ways. Two theatrically inclined individuals + rack of costumes + no other definite plans = lots of fun pictures!
There was also a coloring/craft area, where we worked hard on "stained glass" souvenirs!
Such maturity, I know. We also looked at rest of the exhibits while we were there, not just the ones for kids! We also saw the Scottish National Covenant
and the Badge of the Six Feet Club
and information about historical trade patterns.
Chapter 3:
[to be added later...it's after 1am GMT and I have work in the morning!]
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