I jetted off to Scotland last week. Had a wonderful time; I think Scotland is my favorite trip yet. The country is right over the Irish Sea, but it took us buses, and trains and planes to reach our destination of Edinburgh; a bit too much traveling for my liking.
We originally bought tickets to Glasgow for a ridiculously cheap price; flying out Thursday night and back Saturday night. Then when I met a few Scottish people, everyone’s advice was to visit Edinburgh. There is a frequent train in between so the plan was to fly into Glasgow and take the train to Edinburgh.
I spent most of Thursday traveling. I left my flat around noon and after missing the first bus by seconds (and the buses in Ireland are never on time!) we waited an hour and caught a bus to Shannon Airport, about two hours away. After seeing a beautiful rainbow in Shannon we flew to Glasgow Airport. It was a short flight, about forty minutes. We got to Glasgow and the second we touched down Brianne was in love with the country. She went on and on about how much she loved Scotland- and we hadn’t even stepped foot off the plane! While waiting for the flight attendents to let us off we chatted with a few Scots who taught us to pronounce Edinburgh as “Edin-butta.” After visiting the information booth at the airport we found that we needed to take a train from the airport into Glasgow city center. We had just missed this train (what luck!) so we waited an hour for the next. While I waited, Brianne and I hit up the Irn-Bru vending machine! A Scottish friend introduced us to the soda in London and Brianne and I drank more Irn-Bru than I can count throughout the weekend. I don’t know how to explain the taste… but it is delicious! [it reminds me of something you would like Jer].
So we caught the train into Glasgow which was a 45 minute ride. Once there we had to walk to the other train station. A few people saw me with a map and were so helpful offering help! The train from Glasgow to Edinburgh was about 45 minutes. We finally made it and our hostel was only a short walk away.
We stayed at Royal Mile Backpackers which is on the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is about a Scottish mile, and the road runs from Edinburgh Castle, down to the palace where the Queen stays when she visits. It is full of shops, pubs, and historical buildings. Edinburgh Castle is built on top of a volcano, and due to icebergs which carved out most of the land but not the trail right after the castle, the Royal Mile is a high ground compared to the rest of the city. Our hostel was really nice, had a great atmosphere. The rooms and beds each had creative names. We stayed in the room called “Addictions,” my bed was labeled Chocolate and some of the others were Shopping, Alcohol, Gambling, and Smoking. We each had our own locker and safe, which was a first for any hostel I have stayed at. By the time we actually made it to the hostel it was already 9. We decided to be adventurous and headed out to explore the city. At one of the pubs I tried a Brother Cider, which was Toffee Apple flavored, that everyone seemed to be drinking and the next night I tried a Strawberry and Pear. Best drink in Scotland! I wish they had it back in Ireland.
The next morning we woke up early and grabbed some breakfast. I tried haggis, a must since I was in Scotland. It was interesting, full of spices. It is the sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs all minced up with spices and oats, cooked in the stomach. YUM! Ha- I tried not to think about that when I was eating it. After breakfast we took a free walking tour. We saw a few other groups from Cork who were also in Scotland for the weekend. Everyone was taking advantage of the cheap flights this weekend! The walking tour was great. The tour guide gave us the historical background of the city full of fun facts and stories. We went up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle, which was built on top of volcanic rock. So it has a great defense, as no one can scale up the rock easily. The castle was beautiful. Edinburgh is full of haunting and ghost stories as we learned a few on the tour. It is in Edinburgh that the famous body snatchers Burke and Hare originally stole dead bodies to sell to science for Medical dissection. When they ran out of dead bodies they went on a killing spree. There were also many witch burnings and the site of hangings. The pub across the street is called The Last Drop, as you would go there for your last dram of whiskey before the hanging. We went through Greyfriars Kirkyard, a haunted graveyard where Benjamin Mackenzie spends his time haunting and many people have been hospitalized after visiting. Lots of people were reburied in this graveyard, and it was after seeing so many coffins with scratches inside that wakes became more popular. So people would know for sure that the bodies were dead and didn’t bury anyone else alive. Some of the caskets have these cages built around them to protect the people from body snatching. It was great history and lots of eerie stories. After the tour, we walked up Calton Hill to see the sun set which was beautiful.
I stopped in this heritage center that you can find your tartan and clan of your ancestors. I am part Scottish on both my mother and fathers side so I stopped in and looked up my history. I found out that Hastie, from my father’s side, was a part of the Clan Graham, and Dunbar, from my mom’s side, was a part of the Clan Murray. I bought bookmarks of each with the tartan, crest, and some information on them. It was really neat to look up the history and see where my ancestors came from.
For dinner we stopped in at The Last Drop where they slash the prices in half if you show your hostel card. It was a Friday night and I can’t even count how many Stag and Hen parties I saw all night. Edinburgh is clearly the place to go. We stopped in a pub later for some Scottish music, which was very similar to the Traditional Irish music with the fiddle and flute.
On Saturday we went to the National Museum of Scotland in the morning. I saw Dolly the first cloned sheep, who is stuffed and displayed in the museum. After, we went to the Elephant House for tea and to write some postcards. The Elephant House is the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books. The view from the back is amazing as you can see Edinburgh Castle and also the “original” Hogwarts, a boy’s school out the window. Just looking out you can see where she must have gotten her inspiration from.
We caught the train back to Glasgow around noon. There were street performers everywhere! So we listened to some bagpipes and drums on our way to the train station. Next it was the train to the airport, and flight back to Ireland. We landed in Shannon and waited an hour for the “next bus.” It wasn’t until 8:45, after waiting in the rain for a bit, that the bus driver going to Limerick informed us that there were no more buses back to Cork tonight. We found the Bus information desk back inside, but of course no one was there, no one was answering the information phone and all the schedules that we needed were out of reach at the back of the desk. Right as we were debating jumping the desk to get the bus timetables a jolly security guard came over. We explained out dilemma of getting back to Cork and just as he was telling us that we would have to spend the night in the airport the bus driver going to Limerick came running in. He came all the way inside to get us to let us know that we could take his bus to Limerick then take the train back to Cork. We took his advice and hopped on the bus to Limerick. We were not too excited about this, as our Irish roommates always warn us about Limerick because “Limerick is where you get stabbed.” We caught the train at 10:00. Luckily there was one other passenger in the car who got off at Limerick Junction. We asked where she was going and realized we better get off too, or who knows where we would end up. We transferred trains and then on our way to Cork bought our tickets. We asked for student tickets pulling out all our “Student ID’s” as we all have so many cards proving we are students. The conductor then informed us that they only take their student card which you have to buy from them- and you can’t buy it on the train. So we ended up paying an outrageous amount to get back to Cork. By the time we made it back to Cork, we were so mad about spending so much money that we walked all the way home from the train station. For the forty five minute walk we thought about all we could have bought for the price of the train ride. “I could have bought ‘five sandwiches from Hillbillies’ for less than the cost of that train ride.”
Scotland was wonderful! I absolutely loved Edinburgh, and seeing all the historical buildings and cobblestones. The traveling was another story... but we made it to Edinburgh and back to Cork, so in the end it all worked out!
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