Haggis and Hostels

I stayed in Edinburgh for only 2 nights but had the most awesome time ever. Those 2 nights marked many firsts, among them the first time I stayed in a hostel, the first time I ate haggis, and the first time I hung out with Danish high school students. It also marked the loss of my only sweater.

I visited the Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse (which seemed like it´d be super dreary to live in but had so much fascinating history, including all the Mary Queen of Scots stuff), a couple random places like John Knox´s house and the Scottish Parliament building, and took a full-day tour to Loch Lomond and Loch Ness. Scotland is absolutely beautiful, and even though it was raining pretty much our entire tour, the out-the-window views were pretty awesome. We maybe spent a little too much time in the van, but our guide was so friendly and knowledgeable and our tour group of 6 all got along really well. The entire tour was from 8 am - 7 pm, so very much a full day.

I missed a lot of the tour commentary because I was sleeping, having literally not slept the first night I was in Edinburgh. I stayed at a place called St. Christopher´s Inn, a hostel located right above Belushi´s Bar and super conveniently around the corner from the train station.

The first night I was there a group of around 20 Danish high school students was also staying there. They were from a music class, and apparently all Danish high school students leave the country for a full week at some point to learn about another country´s culture and stuff. Very cool. I would´ve loved to do that while in high school. There was one crazy point when they were all singing and playing guitar in the hostel´s ´chillout room´, and I took a brief video of us all singing along to their rendition of ¨Wonderwall¨by Oasis - not something I ever expected to see in Scotland : )

I actually knew immediately upon check-in that I´d love this hostel, since they told me that night was KARAOKE night in the bar! Yessss. How could I possibly not have a good time after that? Heard lots of old rock songs and an Italian dude singing Hotel California and sang Eternal Flame myself. The hostel staff is so much fun - a couple of them live in the building and most seem to be Australian.

During the 3 days I was there, I didn´t shower once. Roman emperors would have been totally disgusted hehee, but I felt it was way too cold and too much trouble, particularly since I was heading back to London at the end of those 3 days. Apologies to Warren for, as he claims, ¨stinking up his shower.¨

As a last note, there were several guys from Belfast there for St. Patrick´s day weekend, who were hilarious and drinking (of all things) Corona. I saw them Friday night at 5 am, then at 10 the next morning while I was checking out, they were already setting out to drink again! Insane. AND they were wearing green shorts and these plastic bare butt cheeks hahaha. K anyway, I may add more for Scotland entry later, but this seems pretty long already. Goodbye.