Hello friends and family! Now that I have had a day to reflect on my first trip out of England and sort through all of the many pictures, I can finally tell you all about it. *Bare with me this will be a long post* First, a little background on why I chose Scotland: I have been intrigued by Scotland ever since my Dad visited Edinburgh last year. He raved about the beauty, the castles, the people, and how much he loved his time there. I knew I wanted to visit but had no real urgency to do so quite yet... until I started watching Outlander. Yes, a TV is what really pushed to visit Scotland sooner rather than later. So I started on my research and found an overnight train from London that was a fairly good price and I would arrive in Edinburgh at 7am the next day. To me this was a steal because you get your transportation covered and have one less night of accommodation to pay for (Technically two because I also was planning to take the overnight train back to London as well). I convinced my friend Sebastian from Pennsylvania to join me and we booked our tickets. On the night of our departure, we decided to get an earlier train into the city and explore around a little, which turned into us grabbing a few drinks so that we could sleep a little easier on the train. If you read my blog about London, you saw the picture that had the pretty lights hanging in the alleyway. Well, we were trying to find that street and got lost and ended up in an area that Seb and I discovered was a row of gay bars. Not knowing at first that we were in a gay bar, we found a table and ordered some beers. We met this hilarious couple that I found to be quite nice but they wanted to take us to a bunch of local clubs and I could tell by Sebastian's face he was way out of his comfort zone. We politely declined the bar hopping extravaganza, downed our beers, strapped our backpacks back on and made our way to tiny pizza shop a few streets down. Here we decided we'd better ditch the beers and start drinking some real liquor if we planned on sleeping 7 hours through the night on a train. A few jack and cokes later, we made our way back to the tube station to get to the train station and start our journey... I have been asked quite a few times how I handled being on a train for 7 hours. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. Think of it like flying from west coast to east coast direct flight. Totally doable, but not always the greatest trip. Anyways, the only negative to the night train, other than sitting still for so long, was how cold it got. I hadn't thought about that when was getting dressed for the trip. I only wore a thin long sleeve shirt under my jacket, which I had planned to use as my pillow on the train. Thankfully Sebastian wasn't as cold as me and lent me his jacket for the trip to wrap myself in. *It was during this moment that I made a mental note to bundle up for the trip home*. On the train, me met a nice gentleman from Glasgow, who gave us some recommendations of what we had to do while in Scotland. He also of course bashed us for not going to Glasgow instead. (These two cities are like rival cities, they make fun of each other often.) After making some mental notes about his suggestions, I finally fell asleep in an uncomfortable but bearable position. CLICK READ MORE Saturday, 04/11/17: Day OneWe arrived in Edinburgh at 7:32am. The city was barely waking up, cars were starting to fill the streets and travlers were pouring in. It was still quiet, and somewhat ghost like when we exited the train station in search for our hostel. This gave us a chance to gawk at the buildings without any distractions or people blocking our eyesight. It as a beautiful morning, with sunshine and brisk air and I just felt this overwhelming feeling of happiness rush over me. I had done it! I had arrived at my first, of many trips, and I couldn't wait to get started with the day. *below are pictures from when we arrived* Our hostel was only a short walk (half a mile) from the train station. You always hear mixed things about hostels from travelers, so I was slightly nervous for my first experience in one. Our place called Safestay Hostel had great reviews so I was hoping for the best, and boy that was what I got. I couldn't have imagined a better hostel! It was clean, they had free luggage storage for early arrivals (since technically we couldn't check in until 3pm), affordable breakfast, live music in the evenings, comfortable beds, friendly staff.. I could go on. Basically, I thoroughly enjoyed staying here. *Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, sorry sorry* Since we had arrived during breakfast time, we decided to taste real Scottish breakfast! I actually like it a lot more than I thought. It was ham, mushrooms, beans, hash browns, fruit, sausage and black pudding. Black Pudding was one of the Scottish things the man on the train told us to try, but he warned us not to look it up until after we had left Scotland, but I couldn't help myself. Black Pudding is oats soaked in blood and called blood sausage. WARNING: Somewhat graphic wording here* Apparently, back in the old days, when they didn't have enough food... instead of killing their cows and eating them, they would cut and bleed them into a bucket of oats and then stitch them back up. They would them cook the oats over a fire and thats how they would get their nutrition and still have their cows around to produce milk. Somewhat crazy, but you do what you gotta do to survive right? Anyways, I didn't much care for the black pudding but I loved the rest of the food. After we were done with breakfast, we walked into town to meet up with our free walking tour that I found online. I figured this would be a good way to see the city and learn its history from a local. Our tour guide ended up being amazing. His name was Richard and he was actually from Wales, not Scotland. He had a Masters in history and moved around city to city leading free walking tours because he loved sharing history with people that truly wanted to learn it instead of teaching at a university. He had that type of voice that could grab your attention and keep you so invested that you wouldn't even realize you had been listening for half an hour. A natural born story teller, he taught all of us centuries of Scottish history in just a few hours. Aside from history, he also informed us that J.K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter) lived in the city and had started writing Harry Potter at a local coffee shop. He also took us to see the cemetery where she would pick her characters names off old tomb stones when she got stuck in her writing. Here are some pictures below for you Harry Potter fans! The coffee shop where it all began, and Thomas Riddles grave.. the name of he who shall not be named in Harry Potter. The tour lasted a good two and half hours, below are some of my favorite pictures from the tour, and of the city's beautiful buildings. Our tour guide was so great, that we even signed up for his Edinburgh Castle tour later that day. We got lunch beforehand at an old pub called the Jolly Judge, which was said to be the oldest pub in Edinburgh (who knows if thats true, but we had to check it out). It was cute and small inside, with a fireplace to warm us up. Since we were so cold we decided now was as good of a time as any to have our first taste of Scottish Whiskey! Once we were done with lunch, we went on our Castle tour. It was absolutely beautiful! It overlooked the whole city and from wherever you were in the city, you could see the castle. The best part about the castle was definitely the view and getting to see the oldest building in all of Edinburgh which was in the castle, St. Margaret's Chapel, and it is over 800 years old. There were 5 museums inside of the castle that we were allowed to explore too, however most of them were no photo zones. I did get some great shots of the castle, which you can see below. Once the castle tour was over, we headed back to our hostel to prepare for our night. I had booked us a pub crawl because I had heart it was a great way to meet new people and what better way to bond than over some drinks? We had some cheap-o meat pies for dinner (only 4 pounds, wooooo!) and took off on our pub crawl. I don't have to go into detail for you, you know what happens on pub crawls. You cheers, you get drunk, you laugh, you sing terribly and you have an absolute blast. We met so many new people this way, and got to see some of the coolest bars in Edinburgh! I don't have any pictures from that night because I was nervous about losing my phone, but I do have lots of videos. Once I finish importing my videos off my GoPro I will make a Scotland video and you can all see Pub Crawl! **Side Note: Right before I had left for the pub crawl, I received a phone call from my Mom, informing me that my Wild Uncle Bill had passed away the night before. It was a hard thing to process before going out like that, but after talking to her, I knew that he wouldn't want me hanging my head for his passing. Instead, I did my best to celebrate him as much as I could. I poured a beer out for him before I left that night (even though it was a beer he would have definitely hate), and told Sebastian some of my favorite memories of him. The world is a little quieter without him here, but I will always hold onto his memory and loud YEEEEEEHAAAAAS** Sunday, 05/11/17: Day TwoOkay so this day I think was my favorite day of all. Considering that we were on a pub crawl the night before, you can assume we weren't exactly feeling up for an early morning start, so we slept in until 10am and got out the door by 11am. We had no idea what we wanted to do this day, but we had heard about this place called Arthur's Seat, which was placed at the top of a hill in the middle of the city. I was hesitant to go hiking because I hadn't packed the right type of shoes at all, but Sebastian assured me that he would make sure I didn't fall of the hill (thank goodness). Once we got to the "hill", we realized this more of a mini mountain, this place was huge!!! We hiked our way up (taking a lot of stops along the way because I was clearly out of shape) and realized we had hiked the wrong part of the mini mountain and had to go down and back up the other side. Bummer, but I considered this my cardio for the month. I remember looking up from the bottom of the other side at the steep uphill climb and almost turning around. It literally looked like you had to climb straight up the side of the mini mountain and I knew my shoes were not going to handle that well at all. But then something kicked in and I had this thought of "Will you regret not doing this?" and I knew that I would. So I mustered up some courage and began the climb. It actually wasn't too bad, and took about an hour to get all the way up, and I tell ya.... The view was worth it. I was having one of those "This is what living feels like" moments as I felt the sun on my skin, the cold air all around me, and looking over all of Edinburgh. The castle looked like a little grey blob in the distance from Arthur's seat. This was one of my favorite moments from the trip. Once we got down from the mountain, we decided we need some down time accompanied by good food. I really wanted to eat at the Elephant House coffee shop (The harry potter place) so we made our way there. I was temped to get something I would normally order, but I was told that I had to try Haggis while I was in Scotland. For those of you that are wondering what the heck Haggis is let me enlighten you... Haggis is sheep's heart, stomach, liver (and sometimes lungs), traditionally packed and cooked in the sheep's bladder (not anymore though) and served with jelly. I was hesitant, but I figured if I could survive on the questionable food in Cabo last spring break, I could survive this too. To my surprise, I actually really liked it! I also had to check out the bathroom here, apparently crazy harry potter fans write all over the walls little messages to Harry and J.K. Rowling. This turned out to be true, and very creepy. Following lunch we wanted to get some shopping done! I found myself a nice Scottish scarf as my memory of Scotland, and some post cards. We then made our way to a restaurant for dinner, and had one of the best meals I've ever had in this adorable hole in the wall restaurant, that turned out to be a fancy place. I had the catch of day, and it was incredible. After dinner, we met out with our Scottish friend John that me met in our hostel, and went to find somewhere with fireworks since it was Guy Fawks day. We taxied to the local stadium that was hosting a fireworks show, only to get there and find out that it had sold out. We decided to watch from outside of the gate, which turned out to be a great view. The fireworks were so beautiful! If I ever get my Scotland video done, footage of it will be in there. We were getting ready to head back to our hostel, when I had mentioned that I wanted to go to Caldon Hill (the memorial hill in the city) and was bummed me never made it there. John said not to worry, that it was actually better to go there at night! Following his lead, we made our way to the hill and it turned out this was a great place to see fireworks from because a lot of people were up there! Most of them were shooting off their own fireworks, so we joined in. This turned out to be such a fun evening of fireworks, sparklers, and meeting some friendly people. That is one thing I really loved about Scotland, all of the people were so nice and welcoming to people that were visiting. It didn't feel to much like I was a tourist, more a new friend that was visiting a new place. After a fun night on the town, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed. Sebastian was leaving the next morning to go home, but I had the whole day to myself to look forward to. This was my first day being completely alone, so I was pretty nervous but also extremely excited! Monday, 06/11/17: Day ThreeBy this day I feeling pretty worn out from doing so much in the past two days, but I booked a Castles and Lochs tour, which took me to four castles and a bunch of Lochs, so I had to get my energy up! I decided coffee and breakfast on the go was my best option, since I had a little bit of a walk ahead of me to the meeting place. I checked into my door, boarded the bus, and... fell asleep. Yes, fell asleep on my tour. It was 8am and I was tired! Besides, we had a 50 minute drive to the first castle, I figured this was a good time to catch some Z's. The first castle we arrived at was the one I had been looking forward to the most... DOUNE CASTLE! Any Outlander fans out there????? This castle was Castle Leoch (the Mackenzie Clan castle) from the first season. It looks just like it does in the show except.. so much smaller than you would think. From the outside it looked so big, but everything inside was miniature. Their rooms would hardly fit a modern day bed inside of them. Although somewhat small, it was still so beautiful and I felt like I was stepping back in time to 17th century Scotland. The castle provided little head sets that you could listen to as you walked through the rooms in the castle and learn about what each room was used for. They even had voice clips of the actor that plays Jamie Fraser in Outlander talk about how the scenes were filled for Outlander in such a small space. We didn't have long to tour the castle, only 50 minutes, but I think I took plenty of pictures in that time for you all to get a good look at it! The next stop on the tour was a beautiful Loch, and a castle that we could only look at since it was somewhat in the center of the water! We also saw some really cool bridges, although I thought they were no matches for the Cali Bay Area bridges. We saw many Lochs on this trip, which were pretty, but they all looked the same to me. What I loved most was the greenery of the country side! It was everything I had pictured Scotland to be: green, gloomy, with lots of sheep and abandoned castles. Fun Fact: There are twice the amount of sheep in Scotland than there are people! How crazy is that! Makes sense why they used so many of their parts to make Haggis, they had an overwhelming amount of sheep in their country! Here are some pictures of the lochs and country side. Our next stop on the trip was Inveraray, a small coastal town with a beautiful castle, the Inveraray Castle. This castle is used in a lot of films, but is most famous for appearing in Downtown Abbey. Unfortunately the castle was closed for the weekend so we couldn't tour it, but we did get to go pretty close to it! Once I was gawking and taking pictures of the castle, I went into town to find some lunch. I was feeling a little nauseous because our driver drove like a maniac, so I was in search of some soup to settle my stomach. I looked at all of the menus and couldn't find anywhere that had soup, until I saw a small sign that said "The Cottage Restaurant This Way" and pointed down this little alley way. I followed the signs and found this adorable little food place. And guess what the soup of the day was.... Tomato Bisque!!! (my favorite, it was meant to be). This place reminded me of a place I always went with my Grandma Betty when I would visit her on the weekends from Chico, a place called Becca's. It had the same type of homey vide, and I knew that she would love to be sitting across from me ordering a cup of hot soup in a little tiny town in Scotland. This was another one of those moments where I was taking it all in that I was in another country, by myself, living such an incredible experience. I love it when I find myself having these moments, its refreshing to sit back and think about how blessed I am to be where I am and how thankful I am to have a family that has supported me being here. After I was done contemplating life and eating my delicious soup, I headed back to the bus, which was taking us to our last stop, Sterling Castle! Our last stop of the evening was Sterling Castle. I wish we had time to go in, but apparently this tour was more about seeing as much as possible, and not touring every castle. Oh well, it was still beautiful even at night! We headed back to the city from here, and this is when it hit me that it was dark and I was alone and my train didn't leave for 5 more hours. I remembered I had overheard another girl on the tour say she was from San Luis Obispo so I asked her and the other US girl if they wanted to go to dinner (postponing the being alone part as long as possible). We went to dinner at an old theater that had been refurbished to a restaurant. This is very popular trend throughout the UK. A company called Witherspoons buys old properties and turns them into restaurants all over. We had a nice dinner, cheers'ed our beers to our time in Scotland, and had some good laughs. They were both also traveling alone so we all were excited to have some company, even if it was brief. After we were done eating, we walked towards their hostel and ran into this place called the Witchery! I promised my Dad that I would at least go take a picture in front of this place, but didn't have time and here it was.. I just happened to stumble upon it. I love how that happens sometimes. I took a quick picture in front of it, and felt like my time in Scotland was now complete. I had done everything I wanted to do. I hugged and said farewell to my new friends and my way back to my hostel. After I got back to my hostel, I read for a while until it was time to leave for my train. This was when I actually started to feel pretty nervous. It was 11pm and I had to walk to the train station alone (YIKES). I considered ordering a cab but it was literally half a mile to the train station. So I strapped my backpack to me, put my hood up, and started walking as fast as I could. I arrived at the train station and then I realized... I was on top of the station, and couldn't figure out how to find the entrance to go down into the station. I must have looked completely confused because this nice gentleman noticed I was wandering in circles and helped me find my way to the station. He was actually going on the same train as me, the London over night train. Once I was on the train, I tried to read for a while but quickly realized I was exhausted. There were tons of open seats on this train so I made a pillow out of my jacket, laid down and slept the whole way back to London.
We arrived back in London at 7:30am, and thats when I looked down at my ticket back to Colchester and noticed it said I could only use it after 9:30am. So I found a quiet coffee shop and waited for two hours to get on my train. This was a nice two hours because I had time to reflect on my incredible weekend. I had so much fun, met so many great people, and made some great memories that will last a lifetime. Even though at that moment I was incredibly tired, I couldn't stop smiling as I thought about how lucky I was to have such a memorable weekend. Well friends and family, if you made it to the end of this terribly long post, I applaud you. That is some dedication to reading about my experiences and I thank you for taking the time to read all of this. Remember I miss you all, and I love you all so very much! My next blog topic will be my trip to Copenhagen, Denmark that I just got back from! And I'd like to announce to everyone that I will be spending Christmas with one of my sorority sisters in..... BRUSSELS, BELGIUM! WOO! I am very excited my trip to the chocolate capital of the world! But thats all for now! I'll leave you with a picture of me exhausted in the train station with my coffee. Check back again soon. XOXO Maddi
3 Comments
Aunt Mary
17/11/2017 06:47:38
Omg I love it! I read every word! You are so brave and outgoing! Love you lots! Can't wait to hear more!!!!
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Grammy
18/11/2017 19:59:16
Oh my darling....you are an amazing writer! You kept me excited, interested and waiting for more!! Love so much!
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MadeleineMy name is Madeleine Sarner, and I am an American student living in Britain's oldest recorded town, Colchester. After many months of saving, extensive planning, and a few break downs along the way, I have finally started my journey of living abroad. On this blog you can keep up with my adventures, my culture shock, and my new and exciting experiences! Archives
December 2017
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