Edinburgh Explorations / We're Big Girls Now

This feels like it's going to be a long one... Two longish ones in a row; sorry, I like to talk a lot, and Scotland is exciting.

Today (Well, yesterday - Saturday), I got up bright and early (aka at 9) to get on a bus to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland! It was about an hour long ride there, followed by about an hour (maybe? I lost track of time) in the bus after getting there as a very nice Edinburgh resident narrated a bus tour around the city. She told us about some history of the city, as well as information on some of the landmarks we passed. Two of the main streets we drove down were Princes Street (largely shopping) and the Royal Mile. After the bus tour, we were unleashed upon Edinburgh! We were given about four hours to roam the city on our own.

Sarah and I set off with the main goal of finding The Elephant House - "the birthplace of Harry Potter" - more on this later. Anyway, we asked the tour guide how to get back there, and she very nicely told us! So, we set off, excited and chilly. We followed her instructions, and found some really pretty scenery, but we failed to find The Elephant House. But, we instead stumbled upon Edinburgh Castle. SO PRETTY. We didn't go inside, just took some pictures of the Scottish scenery, and a nice woman snapped a keeper of us:  (sorry to those of you who read both Sarah's and mine... I have a feeling we're going to overlap quite a bit....)

We carried on our way and stumbled across a street performer. Basically, he's my new favorite person. He was very energetic and charismatic, and since Sarah loves me and understand my obsession with magic/live performances in general, we stopped to watch his act. We didn't realize it would last an entire hour, but I think it was worth it... Thanks for putting up with me, Sarah :)

You can check out a video of one of his performances here if you are so inclined - he is a character, indeed. The video is kind of terrible quality, but you get the gist. The video is of his final act. After he finished, Sarah and I hung around briefly, and ended up going to the café right on that street where he performed (just to the right of where the picture ends) to talk to him for a little. It sounds sketchy, I know, but it wasn't, I swear. He was also American (or Canadian, he had a bit of an accent) and a friend of his was there too. He was really nice, and offered to buy us coffee since we stayed and watched the whole show. We politely declined, but still sat and chatted to him and his friend for a few minutes (turns out that his wife is a professor at the University of Glasgow!). We mentioned that we had been attempting to find The Elephant House, and his friend scoffed. He told us that J.K. Rowling wrote maybe a couple pages one time in that shop, and that the establishment had been cashing in on it ever since. He suggested that we also go to a place called Spoon. Apparently, J.K. Rowling was a habitual customer here, and spent much more time penning the series at this locale. Good to know! They told us how to get to The Elephant House as well as how to get to Spoon, and even how to make our way back to the bus station. Nice guys. The performer - Todd Various - even gave us a copy of his show performance DVD for free!

We bid them adieu, and then set off on their directions to feed our Harry Potter obsession. They were spot on, and we quickly found our destination:

We also found the street that the tour guide mentioned as being the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter and wandered up it. It was so cool!

We stopped across the street from The Elephant House for Doner Kebabs and hot chocolate/tea, then out we went again! On our way to find Spoon, we found the National Museum of Scotland. We decided that we would venture to find Spoon the next time we went to Edinburgh, and instead spent about an hour wandering through the museum. We were quite excited...

LLAMA.

We're special...

Dolly! (annoying light...)

POLICE BOX. 

not the TARDIS exactly, but we were still freakishly excited.

We tried calling the Doctor, 

but he must be busy elsewhere because we failed to reach him...

We tried to stop into the Greyfriars Cemetery (really old and the most haunted cemetery! also a source of inspiration for J.K. Rowling. You can find now-famous names such as McGonagall and Tom Riddle in this cemetery), but it was locked up.... we will explore that further upon our next visit. Instead, we walked back to where the bus was parked (with fifteen minutes to spare, thank you very much) and went into the cemetery right next to the bus stop. Creepy but so pretty.

Here's Sarah in a doorway in the cemetery. 

It was still darkening outside at this point. Within five minutes, it was sooo much darker.

We also got some gorgeous photos of Edinburgh while we were walking back. Everything is just so pretty here...

On the bus ride back to Glasgow, Sarah and I used each other as pillows as we slept the majority of the hour ride back. From there, we each went into our own room to regroup, then ventured back out to do some grocery shopping. Neither of us were hungry (apparently the donor kebabs we had for lunch were super filling), but we knew we needed to eat. So, we used our weird 'buy two things at each store' method to buy the least expensive products, and made our way back to our rooms with some penne pasta, pasta sauce, raw hamburger, ciabatta bread, and some nice pizza-like things that you stick in the oven (the latter two for a different meal some other night). Since we aren't the "let's get drunk" type, we don't really plan on drinking all that much while here, but we figured a little bit of rum & coke with our pasta would be yummy. So, I also picked up a 2L bottle of Coke and a bottle of coconut rum. I kept asking Sarah if she was sure I was allowed to buy it; I was convinced I'd be thrown out the door. But, legal drinking age here is 18 and I am going to be 20 in two months, so we are indeed legal! 100% sure! I am just crazy (The cashier didn't even ask for my ID... I was actually a bit put out over this fact. Card me, darn it! It's an experience!). Anywho, we went back to Sarah's kitchen and began our cooking ordeal. Everything went really well and we have leftovers to last us like two more meals each... that's six meals from one evening of cooking. We're pretty proud of ourselves. Also, between the pizza things and ciabatta bread, and the sandwich fixings we already have, we are set for quite a while on food... I for one feel like a big kid, feeding myself.  Here is a snapshot of our beautiful pasta, complete with meat sauce and rum & coke:

That's right. Be jealous of our awesomeness. 

Overall, great day. I'm now up ridiculously late, but it's okay because, other than blogging, I was organizing my new room and talking to roomie (Kirsty). (Oh yeah! I switched rooms and roommates yesterday - there was a logistical error so I moved to help fix that. I now live in the building two doors down from my first one. My new roomie is really nice, and is from Australia! Yay for meeting new people!) We've been talking about everything from gun control to Harry Potter. It was nice to get to know her more; this will be a fun semester. 

I skyped Mommy for a little bit earlier, and that was really good too. Hopefully will get to skype with Mom and Dad before the weekend ends. No plans tomorrow really; Sarah and I are most likely going to wander the park near campus and find where our classes are. Things tend to be closed on Sunday here, so probably no shopping. Besides, we are probably set.

Okay, I really should go to bed now. Roomie just did, and it's almost half past 3 in the morning... Oops. 

Goodnight!