To the UK and beyond (also known as Edinburgh and Dublin)

Friday, 15 June 2012 (Edinburgh, Day 1)

The Elephant House 

For our second journey outside of London, we once again chose to go by bus. Fortunately, the bus ride, unlike the ride to Paris, was uneventful and we arrived in Edinburgh in the morning. According to a lot of the goofy souvenirs, it rains all the time in Scotland, and Edinburgh didn’t let us down. It rained basically the entire time we were there. But hat didn’t deter us. From the bus station, we figured out the bus system (Edinburgh uses busses, not a subway system) and got on a bus that took us to our hostel where we dropped off our bags before heading out into the city. Our first stop was a free walking tour that took us around Edinburgh. Ironically, our tour guide was not Scottish, but rather Irish, but he was still very knowledgeable and explained quite a lot about the history of Edinburgh. During our tour, we saw many of the big areas of Edinburgh, including the Grassmarket, which is an area that house bars, pubs, and shops. We also got good views of Edinburgh Castle, which sits on a cliff with three sheer sides. Also on the walk, we saw the Elephant House, which is the café where JK Rowling wrote the first three Harry Potter books. After the walking tour, which lasted for three and a half hours, we ended up relaxing a bit. We slowed down, ate lunch, and spent the rest of the late afternoon shopping around Edinburgh. After the slow afternoon, we went to a pub in the Grassmarket to celebrate a friend’s birthday. There, we decided that since we were in Scotland, we should try Scotch. We had 10-year-old Macallan scotch which was surprisingly quite good.

Saturday, 16 June 2012 (Edinburgh, Day 2)

Edinburgh Castle

Scottish Guard

The next day, our second day in Edinburgh, we woke up a bit early so we could make it to Edinburgh Castle before the lines got too long. Once again, it was rainy and cold, but it actually helped add to the aura of the castle. As we walked up, the cliff was shrouded in mist, which made the castle more intimidating and mysterious. A good portion of the castle is outside, so we trooped through the wind and rain to see the views of the city before heading inside to the different Scots war museums that the castle houses. My favorite part of the castle was seeing the Royal Scottish Guards dressed in their full dress kilts. After the castle, we headed to Loopy Lorna’s, a tea house, in order to get out of the rain and warm up a bit. We had tea and scones with clotted cream and Scottish strawberries. After tea, it was back into the rain and across town back to our hostel to collect our things and catch a bus out to the airport to fly to Dublin.

Sunday, 17 June 2012 (Dublin)

Gate at the Guinness Storehouse

Dublin is a city with a lot of things, and there was no way we could hit everything in one day, but we made the most of our twenty-four hours in Ireland. The first stop after breakfast was the Guinness Storehouse. We weren’t able to tour the actual factory itself, but we were still able to see a lot of what goes into making and distributing Guinness. My favorite part of the tour was the very end – we went up into the Gravity Bar which has a 360º view of the city. It was great to be able to see the city as a whole considering that we didn’t get to see many of the big things in Dublin, such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral. After the storehouse, we walked down the road to Temple Bar, which is an area full of markets, shops, and restaurants. We spent an hour or so there walking around and looking into the markets before heading to the bar called Temple Bar. However, the bar was crowded and loud, so we didn’t stay there for lunch, but headed on to Trinity College, which is just down the street. At the college, we went into the library, where we saw the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated version of the Gospel in Latin. Not only is the book beautiful with all of its illustrations and fancy writing, but it was also really cool to see a Bible that is so old – it was written in 800 AD. After seeing the Book of Kells, we continued through the library, where we saw the Long Room, which contains a lot of books from the past three hundred years and marble busts of important English thinkers. By the time we got done at Trinity College, it was dinner time, so we ate before heading to the airport to fly back to London.