Haggis: So nice I ate it twice.

This past weekend I continued my British Isles Experience with a trip to Edinburgh. I was looking forward to seeing some castles, hearing those melodic notes of the bagpipe, and braving a taste of the (maybe) national dish of Scotland, ground up sheep's heart, liver, and lungs cooked in sheep stomach, which actually tasted way better than I expected. Like the title states, it was so nice, I ate it twice. And one of those was for breakfast.

I arrived on a very foggy night, so foggy that I gave out a shout when we hit the runway because I thought we were still thousands of feet in the air. I found my way to Bailey's res and we ventured out into the fog to a bar before taking communion at McLigion's local chapter.

The next day was super windy and rainy and perfect for being a tourist. Bailey and I climbed Carlton Hill, me almost collapsing at the top. I decided that weekly communion at McDs was not conducive to hill climbing. Regardless, the view of the city was pretty awesome from the top. The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided into two parts: the Old Town, a collection of medieval and reformation-era buildings, and the New Town, which was actually built in the 1700s. The city itself is pretty compact which makes it great for walking and all the old buildings are beautiful.

Tourist sensation on Carlton Hill

After Bailey left for class, I went to the Edinburgh Castle, birthplace of King James the VI and I of Scotland and England, respectively. It also had great views of the city but by then, the wind and rain had really picked up so I ran from building to building. The castle had a ton of historical information which I really enjoyed as I'm a British history nerd. After the castle, I needed a warming up so I went to the Elephant Cafe, where JK Rowling wrote some of the first Harry Potter book. The cafe exploits that fact and now they have signs reading "the birth place of Harry Potter" on the back of their staff shirts and on the front window. I met up with Bailey and we went to the Museum of Scotland. Then we picked up food and drink for the night - bonus purchase was 1.50 pound expenditure for a six pack of Kx stimulation drink; I'm assuming that they can't actually call it an energy drink in the same way cheeze whiz can't be spelt with an s - as well as some golf clubs because there is a golf course behind Bailey's res. We found our way onto the golf course to partake in two of Scotland's national past times: golf and whiskey. Sadly, I did not have any tartan pants however we did have a cigar so we were able to maintain the image of classy serious golfers until I started kicking my ball towards the hole because I suck at driving.

The next day I woke up super excited because I knew I was going to use my cute gold credit card at Top Shop!!!!!! I saw Top Shop on the bus ride into town and I was pumped that I would finally have the chance to go as there isn't one in Paris. I picked up a couple of things and then walked along the shopping stretch of Princes Street, picking up two more pairs of shoes along the way. After shopping spree supreme, I met up with Bailey and we chilled in Princes Street Gardens because it was finally a sunny day, albeit still windy. We went to the National Museum of Scotland, before hitting up the Scotch Whiskey experience. Although it was not as brainwashing as the Heineken experience, it was still a lot of fun and I now consider myself a scotch whiskey connoisseur (I am particularly partial to Speyside and Lowland whiskeys).

FUN FACT: Edinburgh is considered the UK's most haunted city. We decided to do a ghost tour of the closes underneath the government buildings. The closes were narrow alleyways that used to be part of the main city but the government buildings were built on top of them in 18th century. They are said to be haunted with victims of the plague or just dead peeps in general. The tour was slightly cheesy but it was cool to see the underground homes of the past. We didn't see any ghosts and it seemed that just as they were getting to really scare us, the tour was over.

That night, we did a tour of various bars around Edinburgh including an bar with a back room comprised solely of pillows on which one could lounge, a bar that stopped playing traditional Scottish music just as we showed up, the most hilarious cougar bar of life called Frankensteins, and a dive bar with live music called Whistle Binkies. The next morning we failed at life and woke up way too late to the climb the mountain. At least I had time for a traditional Scottish breakfast consisting of the most meat variations I've ever seen. More haggis! Yum!

It's the second best word you could put in this sentence: "More ________"

All in all, it was a great weekend and I checked another country of my list. I didn't get a chance to wear a kilt but it was probably for the best.