Edinburgh

This past weekend I went on the CIEE hosted trip to Edinbourgh (officially pronounced Ed-in-bra) Scotland. It was a wonderful trip! We left early Friday morning and took a 4 hour train ride right into the city. Along the way most of us slept, but when we were awake we got to see lots of rolling green hills and fields with sheep!


The group went on a haunted graveyard tour that was very fun. It didn't start until 8:30 so it was nice and dark, to add to the scary factor. The tour was part history lesson and part ghost story so we learned a lot about the history of the city along the way.

Saturday was a fun filled day full of walking and site seeing. Cassaundra and I got up early to get in some shopping in the many adorable stores in town, then in the afternoon we took a tour of the castle there. CIEE provided us with a voucher for a bus tour around the city, so of course we did that. The guide had such a think accent that we could only understand him about half the time, but we got the jist of it and enjoyed seeing the whole city. Saturday night was probably my favorite. A small group of us found a tiny bar, a bit off the beaten path, that had local musicians that played tradition Scottish music every night. There was an old man playing bass with two younger men, one playing fiddle and one guitar. It was so fun to hear the music and be surrounded by locals.

Now for the pictures!


A view from the train

This is our room in the Hostel, 8 girls from the program stayed here

These are the stairs we had to climb to get from the hostel to most of the shops and things.

Just a cute apartment area we found while wandering

Shops!

This is St. Giles Cathedral

The Royal Mile (a road with lots of shops and restaurants that ends at the castle)

We went back to the haunted graveyard in the daylight

This is a building within the castle

We got a kick out of a fancy sports car within the castle grounds!

Me standing next to the one of the castle walls

That is Arthur's Seat. It is the highest point in Edinbourgh, it is free to climb but we ran out of daylight before we could make it there. Reason to go back i guess ;)

We took a walk on a side street, and it had a great view of the castle from a distance




When we first got the the bar, there was only room to sit behind the musicians. We eventually moved so we could see all of them, but back here I was able to take a stealth tourist video ;P


Sunday morning we got up early to catch the train back to London. All in all it was a really great trip and I would love to go back to see the highlands and more of Scotland!