Excuses: Edinburgh.

This past weekend was my first weekend in London with just me and no visitors since JANUARY 4^TH.  I’m not complaining at all—my weekends have been full of lots of great trips and fun visitors.  But it was really nice to just chill and do nothing more than general housekeeping all weekend.  I did a ton of laundry and I cleaned our entire apartment …I hadn’t realized we were living in such filth.  I’m currently being overcome by fumes of cleanliness…something I’m apparently not used to. 

During my weekend of nothing-ness, I had grand plans of writing an extensive post for each of my adventures from the past few months.  But I think I need to be honest with you, my faithful reader(s), it is quite likely this will not happen.  Instead, I’ve decided to limit myself.  Here are three small parts of my trip to Edinburgh, the next installment of my series of excuses for not being a faithful blog updater.

1.  Driving

…was terrifying.  If you are accustomed to driving on the right and are planning on driving from London to Edinburgh and back over a weekend, TAKE THE TRAIN…or fly.  If you do decide to drive, TAKE THE M1 THE WHOLE WAY.  DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR GPS.  ONCE YOU PASS DURHAM, IT WILL INSIST YOU TURN LEFT AND TAKE A ROUTE THAT ACTUALLY LOOKS SHORTER.  IT IS NOT SHORTER, BUT IT IS MORE TERRIFYING.  It reminded me of the last time I ignored directions from a person who knew what she was talking about (the time my mom told me how to get to JFK to pick up Will from the airport—stay on the Belt Parkway, she said.  But the GPS (his name is Watson) wanted me to turn, turn, stop passing the turns.  I finally turned so Watson would shut the hell up, and as a reward, he decided to take me through streets of burned out cars and used auto parts shops where people were just out on the sidewalks staring at the conspicuously vulnerable white girl in a red Jeep.  I will never drive in the city again.)  Granted, on the way to Edinburgh, there are fewer burned out cars and more of these beauties:

Hard to see, but it's a hairy Scottish cow.

It actually wasn’t so much the being on the left side of the road part that was really scary.  It was more that the roads have no shoulder, are extremely narrow, and the other cars are all going really fast.  Driving out of Edinburgh, I got passed by six cars.  And I wasn’t going THAT slowly.  My mom would have been pleased by the speed I was going.

2.  My first hostel experience

…was interesting.  Our hostel was a converted church, so that was kind of cool.  Ashley and I had a funny thing happen.  We went downstairs to the girls’ bathroom to brush teeth and get ready for bed.  Ashley opened the door to the bathroom and a guy wearing just a towel was brushing his teeth.  He was way more startled by us than we were by him.  I figured the guys’ bathroom was full or something, and he had come down there to brush his teeth.  Whatever.  We made to back out and just let him finish, but he sprinted out the door with a mouth full of toothpaste.  As we walked in, we were like, “whatever dude, he at least could have spit.”  Then we noticed ladies underwear strewn on one of the sinks and a lady (who was presumably the owner of the underwear) hop back into a running shower.  I was brushing my teeth by the time I realized we had likely just interrupted something.  Ashley probably gathered this a little faster than I did.  About a minute later, the girl emerged from the shower, fully dressed, and walked out.  Ashley and I turned to each other and burst out laughing.  Just as Ashley was saying, “AWKWARD”, the girl came back into the bathroom.  Yes, it was awkward.  We all kind of looked at each other, and then Ashley and I went back to brushing our teeth.  The girl collected her things and then left for good.

3.  The city

…IS BEAUTIFUL.  I really loved it.  We climbed up Arthur’s Seat, this dormant volcano right next to the city.  Really, really beautiful.  And there are Westies EVERYWHERE!  Westies on every kind of paraphernalia you can imagine.  I was tempted to buy it all.  I was also sorely tempted to buy a real kilt for someone who would probably wear it.  But real kilts are expensive.  Sorry, Will.

Another thing that was really nice… the air there was sooo clean and fresh.  Ashley and I wanted to bottle it up and bring it back to London.  Get ready for some TMI…after an extended stay in London, your boogers will be BLACK.  It’s gross. 

Conclusion: The trip was TOO SHORT, but still tons of fun.  Edinburgh is definitely on my list of places to return to!