I’ve been traveling again! I can’t even describe how amazing it was to finally visit the UK. Originally, when I first knew I was going to St. Edward’s, I had wanted to study abroad in Edinburgh but Germany clearly stole my heart. Still, it was good to visit a city that I had been waiting to see for a while. For 3 days I explored Edinburgh and then took a train to London, where I had another 3 days to attempt to see as much of that big city as possible. I’ll cover Scotland in this post and London in the next, since the two deserve to be separated and would probably prefer it that way anyway.
Little European airports are super chill. What a relief after flying around America, with their huge x-ray machines and aggressive TSA agents! I flew out of Frankfurt-Hahn to the Edinburgh airport with Ryanair, a cheap European airlines known for allowing travelers on a budget to travel anywhere in Europe, and for sticking very tightly to rules regarding baggage limits. Everything went really smoothly though: security was just a passport and bag check, and I actually walked onto the plane from the tarmac via a set of stairs like in the old movies. It was so much fun!
Landing in Edinburgh was a bit of a shock. It was raining, as I expected, and everything was in English. I haven’t been to a country which primarily speaks English since I left the States. And I thought the difficult thing would be understanding everyone around me, but it was actually the signs. The Shell gas station had signs in English. I understood all the advertisements, and when I walked up to people at desks I simply had to ask my question in English. It was really weird, and I walked around in a daze the rest of the night. It affected me in ways I couldn’t have predicted. I bought a coffee and walked out after I paid–without the coffee. This is going to be a lot of fun when I get back to the US. I felt so stupid! Fortunately everything was fine the next morning.
Edinburgh is beautiful. There are little Scottish pubs everywhere, and the buildings are made out of heavy grey stone. It had a really warm feel to it, despite being colder than Germany and rainy besides. My hostel was located just at the foot of the Edinburgh Castle, and it too was decorated like a castle on the inside! There was a game room, a “posh” lounge where you could sit and read by the fire in a winged-back chair, and a record room (with over 200 LPs, I swear!) It also turned out to be one of the most social hostels I’ve been in (more on that later.) So, Castle Rock Hostel is the place to be if you’re ever in Edinburgh. And no, they didn’t pay me to say that.
I spend almost the entirety of my first day at the Edinburgh Castle. There must be 5 museums there, plus the view, a tea room, and the historic rooms of the castle! I learned a lot about the history of Scotland and the Castle (did you know it was once used to house Colonist “traitors” during the American Revolution, and that some jail rooms used for their own soldiers look suspiciously like college dorm rooms?). I saw the room where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to King James VI or I of England. The Castle also houses the Scottish crown jewels, preserved since the union of England and Scotland in 1707 as part of the conditions of unity. They were incredibly beautiful and it was a great opportunity to learn more about Scotland as a kingdom, instead of regarding it simply as part of the UK. I could write so much more, but it seems enough to say that the history there is overwhelming, you have to stay for the 1 o’clock cannon, and the view is unbeatable.
It started raining and I was exhausted after the castle so I went back to the hostel and rest a while before dinner. Instead, I met some American girls who are studying abroad in London and they invited me to climb Arthur’s Seat with them. As a lone traveler, it is not often that anyone invites me to join them for something so I jumped at the opportunity, even though it was clear it would pour down rain on us by the end. And rain it did.
The hike up to Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano which overlooks Edinburgh, was long but not particularly steep. About halfway up we noticed some rain clouds heading our direction, obscuring the view but not destroying it–you can see so far from up there! We continued upwards, despite the clouds, and made it to the top just as it started to rain. While the view was great up there, the most frightening place you can be in the middle of a storm is the top of a mountain so we quickly made our way back down. Let’s just say despite our best efforts, I felt like I’d jumped into a lake by the time I arrived back at the hostel.
For dinner, one of the hostel employees suggested that I eat at a new chicken wings restaurant, just open on weekends and hidden to anyone except the locals. No one has ever been more right! I had to turn left down an alley next to a Mexican restaurant, into something that looked like somebody’s garden. There was no indication of another restaurant other than a blue door marked “Pull.” Hoping I didn’t accidentally end up in someone’s home, I opened the door to find the tiniest hot wings restaurant I’d ever seen. There was one long table and two shorter ones with a cash register and a TV for playing Mario Kart. There was nowhere for me to sit by myself so a guy at one of the smaller tables invited me to sit with him, and his 2 friends when they got there. It was the best dinner I had on that trip! Not only were the wings amazing and cheap, but I got to have a great conversation with 3 complete strangers. One of them was from Scotland, the other was American but studying there, and the third was another American friend on a visit. Though they’d been waiting for this dinner together all week, they never left me out of the conversation. We talked about football, traveling, Germany, Scotland, local food, and half a dozen other things. It was amazing! Definitely the best thing you can do while traveling is to find one of these little places. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll find great people there too.
Day two was another treat: I got to hang out with a friend from St. Edward’s! One of the great things about St. Edward’s being so involved in global education is that my classmates are now scattered across the globe, and we can visit one another as we travel. We went to a local pub for lunch (fish and chips!) which turned out to be one of the pubs where Hare and Burke would pick up victims to murder and then sell their bodies to the medical school in Edinburgh. Hey, how’s that for some history? But really, it was a joy to see her and to hear about what it’s like to study in Edinburgh. It’s amazing how different our study abroad experiences are–and I guess you’d expect that, given the different countries, but each experience is truly unique.
Upon returning to the hostel, I met some girls from Canada who were traveling around Europe. They were so friendly and we shared a lot of interests. (Yes, apparently British television can bring people together from all over the world.) So, we went out to dinner, joined by an Australian from our room, and it was probably the most fun I had the whole time in Edinburgh. You see, I really enjoy traveling alone, there’s a lot of freedom in it. But, when I get the chance to meet new people and have some company, it’s the most amazing thing in the world, because we’re complete strangers from different countries and yet we ended up at the same hostel and thought, hey, let’s wander around this town together because we’re all travelers. Oh, and after talking to them for a while, I found out that 2 of the Canadians were homeschooled! We swapped stories about that for a while too. What a small world!
The next morning, I left Edinburgh for London’s King Cross Station. But before that, I joined my new friends for breakfast at a little Scottish cafe not far from the hostel. I cannot describe how much I miss breakfast food. In Germany, most of the time I make my own breakfast, but for some reason they don’t have bacon here in the American sense, nor have I found oatmeal. And when I travel, most of the time I find cold cuts and bread are the traditional breakfast food. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. But I’ve never liked it much. That said, I ordered a big bowl of porridge and a coffee. Both were amazing and most welcome!
Oh, and one more thing about breakfast: the Scottish breakfast is amazing! Traditionally, it’s baked beans, a tomato, mushrooms, over-easy eggs, sausage, haggis, black pudding, hash browns and bacon. Wow that’s a lot. Anyway I was brave enough to order it one morning. And by brave I mean I actually ate the black pudding. I don’t know who first thought, “hey, we’ve got some leftover blood so let’s fry it up with some grains mixed in for texture” but that’s pretty much what it is. Yeah…strange stuff. I mean, it tastes kind of meaty but the real problem is just thinking about it. I’m eating blood. And that makes it pretty nasty so I won’t be eating it again, even though by all means it’s not disgusting in taste or texture. Haggis is much more appealing (sheep’s lung, heart, and liver) and I ate it twice while in Edinburgh. So, there’s your Scottish food information for the day!
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Visiting the UK was very refreshing. It was like coming home without coming back to America. That is, while Edinburgh and London are not at all like Austin–I still had the experience of visiting someplace new–at the same time I found some comforting things that I had missed in Germany. I didn’t have work through a foreign language on a daily basis, a process that can be more tiring than you realize. I ate a cheeseburger, macaroni and cheese, and chicken wings. I guess I didn’t exactly eat healthy but I had missed those things! I experienced a history and visited places more familiar to Americans because they are, in a way, also our history because we find our origins in the UK. And I think I needed all that, not because I’m tiring of Germany but because I am getting tired. I’ve been here for four months and that’s a long time, especially for my first time outside the USA. It was a much-needed break and a long awaited journey.
London entry to come soon!