Yesterday was a painfully long day but now here I am in Edinburgh, Scotland! I woke up yesterday at 6 and started getting ready. We had been told to eat breakfast at 8, grab our bag lunches at 8:15, be assembled at the Porter’s Lodge at 8:20, so we could get to the bus by 8:30. I had no problem getting up in time to do so, but I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do all those things quickly enough for that time table, so I went ahead and made myself a bagel before heading out. I packed way too much considering I had to lug it all over creation. First I had to go from my bedroom, across the street over to the JCR. There are always construction workers at the end of my street in the morning and one of them was highly amused by my bringing my fan. It’s been too hot in Cambridge and there has been zero air circulation in our rooms, so I decided it was a necessary precaution to bring it. Now that I am here, after carrying it all over creation and being crammed next to it all day on a bus, it isn’t necessary, but by gum I had it on all night anyways. We inhaled breakfast as fast as possible (or in my case second breakfast), grabbed lunches and tried to get to the bus as fast as possible. I was literally carrying so much weight I could feel it trying to crush me to death. Like, my heart was clearly not operating as it should have been. Anyways, after all that, we got there and the bus was quite late. I of course had fallen all the way to the back (though I had been the very first person to the JCR in the morning and started off around the third person in line walking to the bus). So I finally got on the bus, with so much stuff that I required my own seat, and there were none left. Fortunately one of the girls moved to sit with someone else so I got a seat to myself and my junk, but the seat she gave me was sadly the worst seat in the bus. The window was defective so it was completely fogged up on the top (aka I couldn’t see any of the beautiful countryside we drove through or get any pics) and the bottom of the window was filled with water that would slosh back and forth with the movement of the bus. There was also a sink next to me that was in my space and pointy, so I was repeatedly thrown against it while driving over bumpy or twisty roads. And for some strange reason that sink was exuding massive amounts of heat. There was no air flow as well, so all of us in the back were miserable. Kari, who was in front of me, felt really sick for a long section of the drive. We were told there would be two stops on the bus ride. One at Abbotsford to see Sir Walter Scott’s home, and one somewhere along the way.
After only a few hours driving we stopped off for lunch at some sort of rest stop, but the kind that has a food court. I had already started trying to eat the bag lunch they packed as I did not realize we were stopping for lunch. I had already found most of the lunch to be inedible, sadly. The sandwich bread was good, but everything on the sandwich was tasteless while also leaving a bad taste in your mouth afterwards. Also, a lot of the food required refrigeration which we did not have. So when we got off I got myself some Burger King food. The next stop at Abbotsford was absurdly far away. The first stop was too soon and the second too far. I asked how much longer to Abbotsford at one point and was told an hour and a half. I think it was actually closer to three hours away. Needless to say, it was a miserable bus ride.
Finally, just as they were closing, we got to Sir Walter Scott’s house in Abbotsford. The house was gorgeous, but we only got to see a few rooms so it was a bit disappointing. The gardens were far superior. The house was also on the bank of the River Tweed so we had a lot of fun down by the water. The river was roped off by an electric fence, but they put up a strange wooden contraption to help you climb over the fence. I touched the water just so I could say I did. We had a lot of fun taking pictures here. It was mostly just great to be off the bus. The next leg of our ride was really short as we were only 30 miles from Edinburgh, but we did not want to get back on that bus. Oh, also, I was really sad we didn’t get to stop off at the Scottish border. There is a rock there that says Scotland on it you can take your picture with. Also, by that point I was desperate to get off the bus. Edinburgh is much further into Scotland than I realized. The Scottish countryside (or what I could see of it) was much prettier than the English countryside around Cambridge. Around Cambridge all you see are big yellow fields for as far as the eye can see. It Scotland there are rolling hills and mountains, sheep, and heather. Edinburgh itself isn’t what I was picturing. I’m hoping it is just because we are on the outskirts. We are right at the foot of Arthur’s Seat. In Cambridge we are right in the city centre and we have gotten used to that.
We are staying at Pollock Halls which are dorms for the university here. I really like the dorms which are hotel style. I also have a room to myself whereas everyone else has to share (yay for uneven number of people!). We asked at the reception desk where to eat dinner and they suggested a place called Southern. We got lost several times going and it was completely full when we got there, so we went elsewhere. We went to another place called Clerk’s Bar. We were about to leave as it was full too, but there were two guys sitting at a large empty table and they invited us to sit with them. It was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but they were a lot of fun. They were here for work from Liverpool. They were on a pub crawl with their mates. Really nice guys and super funny. Apparently they had never heard of root beer before so we were trying to describe it and looked it up. Apparently it is made of sassafras root. They were unimpressed (which I totally agree with). They had also thought that New York was the capital of America and that New Hampshire must be a hoity toity place which we thought was very funny. The service was incredibly slow and we would have left if they weren’t so entertaining. The burger I got was really good, but I still don’t think I would go again since dinner turned into an all night affair and we were starving. Well, I have to get ready for today now, so I will end now.