Edinburgh, Scotland → London, England

Our severe lack of a map caused us to make up really creative ways to find our way back to the hostel. Usually, the castle was a good landmark, and easy to see from everywhere, but the neighborhood we'd wandered into was buried behind tall buildings. Thus, we just started out in the general direction from which we'd come. When the castle finally came back into view and we knew we were at least in the right area, I decided I needed to duck into a market and grab some delicious British chocolate. It was very lucky I did. If I hadn't, we wouldn't have walked out and noticed, directly in front of us, the Lebowski bar. This exists!!!

They have an entire menu of white russians, which I was actually pretty sad about not being able to drink. There happened to be trivia going on as we walked in, too - Big Lebowski trivia, naturally. So we had to stop and sit for a drink. Secretly I think we were both hoping to stay for long enough to avoid the pool tournament back at the hostel, but no such luck. As it got dark, we headed back and joined the chaos happening in the commons room.

Feeling really tired, but also having paid 1 euro to enter the stupid contest, we went and got drinks and hung out in the hostel which was getting kind of crazy. At some point, our French roommate showed up and I lamely attempted to speak some French with him. Some time later, I noticed he was speaking in French to these two other people who looked oddly familiar. I asked the girl if she had been hiking earlier in the day, and it turns out it was the two people we'd seen hiking on Arthur's Seat, and the girl that had fallen! Her friend was in the pool tournament too, so we spent the rest of the evening practicing our awful French with all five of them while they (kindly) switched to English so we could actually have a conversation. As if I hadn't wanted badly enough to live in France already, talking to them made me want to go even more. We spent at least an hour just comparing our school systems. By the end of the night, I was dying to get there already (even though it was planned for the end of the trip) and I was in, what? the third day? They invited us hiking outside of the city the next day, but alas, we were headed to England in the morning to meet some pirates.

So we hopped on the James Bond train (why??) and headed down to London. The whole trip, I had this terrible problem with staying awake as soon as I was moving. Probably a combination of jetlag and lack of sleep, as soon as I got on anything in motion, I passed the hell out. It was annoying, because I would have liked very much to see some scenery along the way, but I just could not keep my eyes open. So I spent most of the train ride sleeping, and we arrived in London in the late afternoon. It was perfect timing for figuring out the tube, since we were carrying all of our things again, everyone was heading home for the day, and there were lines and crowds of people everywhere (sarcasm!).
Noah used to work at a pirate store, and was their Jack Sparrow. There's actually a whole community of Jack Sparrows all over the world that share information on where to get parts of the costume and fabrics, etc. So through an online forum, Noah set us up a place to stay a little ways outside of London proper, and we miserably lugged our stuff through at least 4 lines before arriving at the house. Scott had a fantastic little flat and was very welcoming. We hung out there for a bit and then headed back out to explore, and be super tourists!

 We also had to adjust drastically to the change in pace in London. Edinburgh was laid back and mellow. London was crowded and so fast paced I felt like I was going to get mowed down if I didn't get out of the way. Getting off the tube at London Bridge was like walking into a grand theft auto game (with slightly less violence). It took at least a whole day before we started walking quickly again and caught up with the rest of the world.

We'd had lovely weather in Scotland, but it was appropriately rainy and bloody cold when we arrived in England.

It was late in the day, so we wandered toward the Tower Bridge, passed the castle, and meandered along the south bank toward Parliament. Something I learned quickly about London: Pret a Manger is freaking everywhere. Jesus, they're more abundant than Starbucks in the states. At a four way intersection, there is one on every corner. The only good thing about this: they had food that I can eat - with vegetables! - when I was starving and there weren't any options anywhere else.

The second day in London was set aside for wandering, of course. We got up early and took the ridiculous amount of trains back into the city to eat at this (mostly) vegan place Noah had found online, Tibits, in Picadilly Circus.
Real food!

You make a plate, weigh it, and pay by weight. And they had sticky toffee pudding, much to my delight. So we stuffed ourselves, and then went out to find Buckingham Palace, and kill a few hours before we had to meet the pirates! There's a pirate ship along the south bank of the Thames called The Golden Hinde. It's right next door to a lovely little pub, where we were meeting a handful of Jack Sparrows (and Scott) that Noah knew through the forum.

 After spending hours walking around, we decided to take advantage of our day pass on the tube and went up to Camden town for a bit. There was a Whole Foods there (surprising!) that was absolutely full of raw and/or vegan food. I wanted to eat everything. We got an absurd amount of chocolate and junk food, and those Nakd bars they sell all over the UK that I am now seriously deprived of.

I find this statue immensely creepy. Why are the women of WWII just clothes?

Finally heading over to the pub, we met all the lovely Jacks and some lovely ladies who joined them as well. Because Noah has a lot of facial hair at the moment, we were very aware (well, him more than me) that hardly anyone wore beards or mustaches in the UK - that we had seen, anyway. Everyone was very clean shaven. So it was extremely amusing to be amongst all these men not only with facial hair, but all with the exact same facial hair, and that slightly Jack Sparrow look about them. They were absolutely wonderful, humoring us with our ridiculous amounts of questions, showing us around, buying drinks, and being generally fantastic hosts. Darren was also a magician -

I loved the flaming wallet. As we left the Golden Hinde and headed across London Bridge, Graham provided a commentary of the buildings and the bridges and everything, making me wish that anyone in our country knew as much about the towns and cities we live in as all these guys knew about London! At some point, it was decided that we all had to pee, and Darren, who worked for the Underground, snuck us all into a secret employee bathroom in the tube station, which, for some reason, Noah and I found to be very exciting.

 Beaucoup des Jack Sparrows.

Oh, you know, just payin' the check.

(To be continued)

Edinburgh, Scotland

Waking to a dreary, gloomy sort of morning (it felt just like home), we headed to the commons area to internet and figure out how to catch the buses to Arthur's Seat, for some volcano hiking. After speaking to a few people at the hostel and figuring out the bus lines, we hopped on a bus and headed in the general direction of the mountain.

The bus line stopped a ways from the base of the trail, and on the way was the queen's palace in Scotland, as well as a bus full of kilted, burly Scotsman playing bagpipes (drool). As it turns out, it was the Black Watch, and there were SO many of them, along with quite a crowd of passersby.

 

I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed bagpipe music. It was really kind of lovely. 

So after the little mini concert, we started up the mountain. Apparently the side I chose was the "hard" side, and it was quite steep before flattening out. The rocks were amaaazing. Another not so little known fact about me: I need to climb everything. I can't even explain how tempting the rocks here were. They were laid out perfectly, with nice easy handholds and even little ledges to rest on on the way up. They also came with signs warning people such as myself not to climb the walls. So, I resisted. At least, when there were other people around, I resisted.

The hike wasn't too bad, and didn't take long at all. Up and down was about 3 hours, but mostly because there was a lot of lingering and exploring in between. The views both on the way up and from the top were ridiculous.

About to head up the switchbacks! As we were walking along the edge of one of those lovely climbing walls, a French couple started walking ahead of us a ways. The girl fell and yelled, "J'ai tombé!" Having taken a year of French before this trip, I was really excited that I immediately knew what she said ("I fell!)" They hiked up the rest of the way in front of us, while I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to eavesdrop on their conversation.

There are actually 3 different peaks once you get to the top. The second photo up from here is the main one, I guess, as it's the highest and has a little marker showing the direction of different historical points around the city.

There was a second trail on the other side of the peak, heading down a gentler slope, so we opted for that one on the way down. Some creature ran across the trail in front of us when we were most of the way down, and I still have no idea what it was. We spent five minutes thwacking through the bushes trying to find it. It looked like a mongoose, but much, much larger. And I may have made it up because I'm the only one who saw it.
Anyway, down near the end of the trail, just above St Margaret's Loch,  I noticed some ruins. Of course, we had to go explore. It turns out it was St. Anthony's Chapel, or what remained of it. The little plaque said it dated from (about) the 1300s. It was quaint and standing in the old doorway, one can look out over the Loch and all the black and white geese, and the Atlantic beyond.

View from the doorway:

And then naturally, I had to climb it (Sorry, Scotland)

Une femme et beaucoup des chiens

You may have noticed the fancy looking buildings way off in the distance in one of those first pictures, up on a hill? And you may recall from an earlier post, the theme of this trip: see something cool in the distance, walk to it. So, opting for more exploring in lieu of returning on the bus, we wandered in the general direction of the monuments. On the way, we came across the queen's palace, which was all closed up as they readied for her arrival over the weekend.

At this point, I think I'd also eaten a banana since about 8am, and it was now well after 2. There was a beautiful cemetery and some lovely buildings that got passed by without exploring as we debated whether we should hunt for food first, or monuments. The monuments happened to be on the way to food, so they won by default.

As it turns out, we were headed for the national monument, and what we were trekking up was Calton Hill. The view was spectacular, just as on Arthur's seat, but with a close-up view of the city and all the old buildings. And so many chimneys!

Nelson's Monument

This thing is gigantic.

Something I learned about monuments and statues in Europe: everyone climbs them. Although I'm not one hundred percent sure that it's just the tourists - it seems like everywhere I went there were people speaking in the local language/accent/etc. that were climbing all over these monuments and statues along with all of us tourists.A lot of them are seriously not easy to get up on, either. I was thoroughly amused by a woman who climbed up just after me, spending five minutes hanging off the ledge trying to figure out how to get her legs up. Getting down was even better.

She finally made it!

Heading back into town, we ended up next to this guy...

...and then in the area we'd explored the day before, and felt a little less lost. Food was definitely the next highest priority (forget the fact that we'd been walking for 8 hours straight), and we happened by this tatties place, which had vegan haggis! What! There were also these lovely looking (and usually chocolate covered) flapjacks everywhere in the UK. It's basically an oatcake with goodies mixed in. They had a vegan date flapjack, and I was in heaven. Naturally I had to have both. The 'small' was two whole potatoes covered in about two pounds of vegan haggis. It was ridiculous. I was pleased.

We spent some time wandering through neighborhoods and getting lost, finding more pretty churches and a little park.

Eventually, we headed back to the hostel, where Noah got finagled into joining a pool competition which started much later in the evening, and then we wandered back out again before the sun went down. When we had come in on the bus the day before, we passed a church that was partly under construction, but having been able to see it from the street the hostel was on, I needed to go back and find it. Unfortunately, it being so late in the day, we couldn't go inside, but it was beautiful anyway.

St. Mary's Cathedral

Scottish kitty

Speaking of which, we left the church and headed out to explore in the opposite direction. There wasn't much out that way - a few cheery looking pubs, a lot of laundromats, and then a large residential area. I spotted a church steeple and wanted to head toward it, but as we came up on it found that was small and tucked away and, of course, closed. So as we headed back down the way we'd came, a man with a very thick Scottish accent comes out of the door nearest us, on his phone. As he walks out, he's yelling into it, "Well if you hadn't fed the fucking thing so much, he wouldn't be hanging around my flat!" And just as he says this, a cat darts off the porch and runs passed, out into the street. The man abruptly pulls the phone away from his ear, covers the mouthpiece with one hand and yells after the cat, "Richard, look both ways!"

Best part of the whole trip.

(To be continued).