Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh (pronounced Edinborough) is the capital of Scotland and the epitome of what I imagined Scotland to be. It was beautiful with rolling hills (that I did not appreciate when I was walking them all day) and incredible breathtaking views of the mountains on one side and the North Sea on the other. It is home to Edinburgh Castle which was built 1000 years ago, Scottish Whiskey, and cashmere (they had a cashmere store literally every other store; it was ridiculous!) It is also the birthplace of Harry Potter. It houses the Honour’s of Scotland which are the equivalent to the Crown Jewels of England, it is supposedly home to the most haunted place in the entire world, and Dolly the cloned sheep. All these things I experienced in just 3 days!

View from the top!

I had to wake up at 4:20 on Friday morning to finish packing and get ready to meet the 6:15 train to Edinburgh. Talk about an early start, and as many of you know, I am not a good morning person. Our train ride took a little over 5 hours and we didn’t even get lost at any of the switch overs to other trains. We’re getting used to this traveling thing! We decided to take a tour of the city when we got there and low and behold we found a tour… that was FREE. Now, being a poor college student studying abroad that I am, I was all for a free 3 hour tour of a beautiful, historical tour. So we met up with our group and our tour guide looked like a legitimate pirate, and he was awesome. We’ve been blessed with an abundance of great tour guides since we’ve arrived on this side of the Atlantic. We learned of the Stone of Destiny, and Mary Queen of Scots, and the history of Edinburgh Castle. We also learned the history of Scotland in just 5 minutes which starts over 320 billion years ago apparently but I figured I don’t have time for all that in my blog. (You’re welcome!) We went to the cafe where J.K.Rowling wrote her first two Harry Potter books, and saw where the Harry Potter world came to life. From the window where she sat each day to write, she could see a school, a castle, and a graveyard. All the necessary components to get Harry Potter started. In this graveyard were the names McGonagall and Riddle which she took and used in her books. Also in this graveyard lies the most haunted place in the world. Sir George McKenzie haunts the graveyard. He was a wicked man and he threw 1,200 men into a prison in the graveyard because of their faith, and 5 months later when they were released, only 280 were still alive. In 1996 a homeless man went into the McKenzie mausoleum to sleep and ended up falling through the floor onto McKenzie’s bones and from then on he has haunted the graveyard where the prison used to be that he threw all those men into. How fitting! hey no longer give tour there and it is permanently locked because there have been so many injuries, deaths and even a coma.
Something interesting that I noticed while I was over there was that the Scottish are a lot friendlier than the English people. We ere only there for 3 days but we met some really cool Scottish friends in those 3 days, and we have yet to make any friends here in Cambridge yet. It was strange to me. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Cambridge, but people in Scotland are friendlier! I’ll have more stories to come, keep reading!
With Love,
Abby