Day 31-August 1

K, so last night ended up being way stressful. By the time we got on the computer and all got together to book a hostel for Scotland they were ALL full! There was one open but it was a co-ed room and I was not willing to sleep with creeper guys that I don’t even know in my bedroom. Amanda was so mad and frustrated, Kylee was just calm and trying to find some hotels, Michelle couldn’t do anything because she didn’t have a computer, and I was so tired that I didn’t really care what happened anymore. We almost didn’t end up going but then we found a hotel that was only 99 pounds per night for a double bed. Between four people that was about as much as the hostel we were going to stay in and we had no idea how big the double bed was going to be but we figured we could all squish. This morning we woke up at like 6:00, packed really fast, and headed on the train to Scotland. It was so awesome because our BritRail pass covered the whole thing so we didn’t have to There were just six of us: me, Mallory, Amanda, Beccah, Kylee, and Michelle. First we went to Alnmouth on the way and stopped to see Almwick Castle which is the Harry Potter castle. It was way cool. I’m totally into the castles!
Almwick Castle...where Harry Potter learns to fly

I asked this soldier at the castle if I could take a picture by him and then he put his hat on my head. It totally caught me off guard but it was cool! haha. It was kinda sweaty and gross though...

They had owls there that you could pet and we took pictures by the wall where Harry Potter learns to fly in the movie. (I really should probably read Harry Potter when I get home )
I totally fell in love with this owl. It was so cute! I didn't even know I liked owls but now I really want one for a pet. haha

We were at the castle for a couple of hours and then ran to the train station, saw some folk dancers in a town square on the way, and barely made our train in time to go the rest of the way to Edinburgh. Our hotel ended up being in a great location and right next to the train station. It was way nice too! I was expecting our bed to be a little full size bed but it was huge…like California king!!! Kylee and I were so excited! When we walked in we totally screamed and gave each other a huge hug. Haha. The first thing we did after we dropped off our backpacks in the room was film ourselves doing 'the scotsman' in Scotland.
getting ready to do 'the scotsman'

For those of you who don't know what 'the scotsman' is, it is basically our school pride song and we sing it at all of our games. It was SO funny and totally awesome! We found a sign that said 'scotsman' on it across the road, and our hotel was called the 'thistle' hotel so it was perfect! I will have to post the video of it when we're done with it and it will all make sense. After that we went on a bus tour of the city. It was really cool!
This is one of many pics from our bus tour.




Edinburgh is an awesome city! It’s super old and every building looks like a castle. I loved it! I’d probably have to say it was one of my top 3 favorites. We were on the top of an open double decker and it was just way fun. Afterwards we walked through a couple of streets and went on a ghost tour of the underground vaults.
I thought the spire on this cathedral was AWESOME! This is where our ghost tour started.

Edinburgh has an entire really old city buried underneath it. Some king long ago built a wall around the city to protect it from England if they ever decided to invade, but he didn’t make it very big. It was only a mile by like a quarter of a mile long so the city got crowded pretty fast. After they built all of their buildings as high as they could without the buildings collapsing, they started digging down beneath the ground and created vaults that people could live in. They were really dark and damp though so it’s super creepy. When they stopped using them everyone just forgot about it and they got lost for 200 years, but now you can go into some of them and it was way cool. I loved our tour guide. She was super enthusiastic and she told us really cool stories. I found out that the bright plaid prints of the Scottish actually isn’t a very old tradition. It all started when King George IV (I think) was going to come to Scotland for a huge party and he thought the Scottish were savages and everything and they wanted to impress him. So whoever was throwing the party (the government or something…I forgot) got the highlanders and lowlanders (who didn’t like each other) to come together and made them brightly colored tartans for their party outfits. You see, they traditionally had very somber colored ones so that they could be more practical and camouflaged. Once the highlanders and lowlanders actually met each other they decided that they liked each other and after that they got a long great. They also really loved their new tartans and it became their favorite way to dress and a national tradition. I’m not positive that that story is true so don’t quote me on it but I’m pretty sure it is. I don’t know why she would’ve told it to us if it wasn’t. I thought it was cool though. When we went down into the vaults it was way creepy. They were super dark and damp and musty. We actually only went through a couple and she told us ghost stories and stuff that’s supposedly happened to people when they were inside of them. When we were in the haunted room where ‘the entity’ (whatever haunts it) is, Mallory, Amanda, and I were all at the back of all the people and were freaking out! We totally clung to each other the whole time and Mallory was freaking me out because she was SO scared and kept saying she’d seen something, or something. Then all three of us heard a ton of shuffling footsteps behind us and freaked! Of course there was a chain reaction and the entire group of people was freaking out and we ended up 20 feet farther away from the back wall. Haha. I didn’t really believe anything our guide was telling us so I wasn’t genuinely scared and didn’t have a dark feeling really or anything like that. It was more like going to a haunted house and you kind of just freak yourself out, but it was really scary and fun. Then a few minutes later she turned off all the lights and they had someone jump out at all of us. I’ve never screamed so loud and jumped so far in all of my life!!! Haha. After the ghost tour we went to Hard Rock Café and it was SO yummy! Amanda and I split chicken fajitas and a smoothie and we all had coupons for hot fudge sundaes that we got on our bus tour. It was way nice to have genuine American food and it was just super satisfying and delicious.
mmmmm. Hard Rock!

It was a lot of fun. We were so tired when we got back to our hotel that we just went straight to bed and konked out. Amanda, Kylee, Michelle, and I all fit into the huge bed just perfectly and Beccah and Mallory were staying at a different place. I felt like we fit in a lot today and I’m so glad we came. It has been way worth it already.