I woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4am shuttle to the Dublin airport for my 6am flight back to Scotland (I didn’t believe that people pronounced it like Pittsburgh until I heard it in Europe). I arrived in Edinburgh, pleased to find that a flight from Ireland was considered domestic (in terms of immigration) and then waited for over an hour at the baggage carousel for my bag to show up. I fought crankiness on the airport express (the bus into town) as the loud Americans babbled about their travel plans. Now more familiar with the city (having been here before) I easily found my way to my hostel.
I stopped in a little cafe that I had had my eye on before and enjoyed a delicious savory Scottish breakfast roll. It was a beautiful sunny day. I continued down the Royal Mile in search of a free walking tour. And I found one that was just about to start! Our tour guide, Ben, pointed out to our small group of 5 this unicorn sitting on top of a pillar. The unicorn has been a symbol of Scotland since the 12th century. It seems an odd choice, but those Scots love their myths and legends.
We climbed down a secret stairway to the Cow Gate where people used to bring their cows to market.
I found this gate very impressive. 
There’s the castle from the bottom of the hill (my hostel is right below it)
Then we went to the graveyard where J.K. Rowling found many names for the Harry Potter series. This grave is Ben’s favorite (and probably mine too)–
William Smellie, who wrote the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
And here is the school that may or may not have inspired Hogwarts
The tour ended at the Grassmarket (which was where I stayed a few weeks earlier) right at the base of the hill of the castle. Ben pointed out what all of the restaurants were and I wanted to go to all of them! There was the smallest pub in Scotland, the oldest pub in Edinburgh, a place with amazing hot chocolate and interesting ice cream flavors and a vegan restaurant.
My legs were crying (especially with all the hill climbing). I took a look at my fitbit history and in the past 6 days I had walked 8-10 miles each day. The pain was justified! But I still had 2 more days of sight seeing before I could rest in London! I persevered– there were still so many things to see!
It still wasn’t time to check in to my hostel so I climbed back up to the Royal Mile.
I liked this building
And, you know, this was just on the other side of the crevasse. Cause there are castle looking things all over the place. 
At the bottom of the Royal Mile is the Holyrood Palace. A lot of action takes place here in one of the Outlander books. I was debating whether or not to go inside when I learned that this is the Queen’s residence when she is in Scotland and she happened to be in town. No one can tour when the Queen is there. So I just took a picture from outside the gate.
I could see people hiking up the side of this mountain. That’s not something I would do today.
Another awesome building on the way back up. 
I saw this pretty courtyard and decided to go check it out. 
There was a kitty!
This kitty was so happy to have me pet him! He rolled around in the sun enjoying the beautiful day and the attention. I telepathically said hello to my Sevencat. 
This is a heart that everyone spits on. It’s the symbol of a sports team, so that team’s fans spit on it for good luck, its rivals spit on it out of spite, and its also in the place where the tax collector used to be so everyone who doesn’t like paying taxes spits on it. And yet, tourists still propose here on bended knee. 
It was finally time to check into my hostel! I passed the castle gates (of the hostel) to find that this one was better than the last one I stayed in. It had high ceilinged spacious rooms. Each dorm room had a different theme. My room was Scottish food and my bed was the Scotch Egg (my favorite, the bottom bunk). And the internet worked!
I took a little nap and then climbed back up on the Mile for another tour I had signed up for. So the castle is on top of a rock (you’ve seen the pictures) and then the mile slopes down on a spine of hill with very steep sides. Hundreds of years ago, tenement towers were built on the sides of the hill (with those narrow steep corridors I was talking about). These buildings were very dangerous, so they chopped off the top of the buildings and widened the road by paving over the top above the buildings. Now there are little courtyards or “cross”s that look like they are on the level of the Royal Mile street. Beneath these courtyards are a dark maze of old buildings where people used to live. In these rooms and corridors it feels like it’s underground, but it’s really just built over. I went to visit Mary King’s Cross which was one of these “underground” ancient peeks into the past. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, so I don’t have anything to show you. It was such a cool tour. Again it had cool lighting effects and multimedia participation- there was a room with huge portraits that ‘came to life’ and ‘talked to eachother’. I got to see where the poor people lived and how they lived. The water wasn’t drinkable, so they drank beer in the mornings and moved toward wine and whisky as the day progressed. So they were basically drunk all the time. When they drank water, they didn’t feel better. When they drank beer and whisky, they did. They did their business in a bucket and then threw it out the door down the street (which led down to the river) at 7am and 10pm. The bars closed at 10 so if you came home at the wrong time you might get the contents of that bucket dumped on you, and that’s where the term “shit-faced drunk” came from.
This place looks very interesting. I couldn’t figure out how to go inside.
Later, Carly messaged me that she and Ben had just gotten to Edinburgh. They had to go on a ghost bus tour really quickly and then they would be done at 9:30. I was on the verge of collapse. Then Carly said they would actually be leaving Edinburgh the next afternoon. I would rally!
Their tour ended half a block from my hostel. With free Royal Mile wifi we easily found each other. I took them down to the Grassmarket and we did a little pub crawl to all of those pubs I wanted to go to. It was our only ‘night out’ in Europe together and we made the most of it (Don’t worry, no one was hung over the next day). We found awesome live music and sent pictures back to Emily and Josh to make them jealous. 
And Grandma Kelly got home after dark!
The next morning I slept in and rested my legs. I’d apparently used up all of my California sunshine the previous day because today we returned to typically Scottish weather: rain. I listened to the rain, looked at Hogwarts outside my window, and used the wifi to upload pictures from all the fun days of the previous week. I was seriously falling behind on this blog. 
It stopped raining for my final hour of Ben and Carly. I went down to meet them by the train station and we enjoyed their hour of free time in a little cafe. Then it was time to go and we said our goodbyes about 3 times, unsure of when we’ll meet again. They would be touring outside of London for the next couple of days (I would also be in London but it would be too complicated to meet up) and then we’ll fly back to the states on the same day. They’ll be in Illinois for about a month and then Qatar for 2 years. I’m curious to see how our next rendezvous manifests.
After walking the mile the day before, I had found a self guided walk in my Rick Steves guidebook that pointed out things I hadn’t noticed. They sounded really cool. Like something about witches. I meant to do this walk, but as I started reading I realized I had pushed myself too far. I went back to my hostel bunk and slept for 3 hours, until it was time for
Unlike most of the other tours in all of the places I’ve gone to, this one was put on by actors. A ‘Scotsman’ and an ‘historian’ talked about some of the great Scottish writers, recited poetry and debated whether great ideas were born in the pubs or whether they had more reformed origins. I think. I found the younger guy very charming and attractive, and I chose to get a drink at all of the stops so I was paying more attention to the presentation than what they were saying. Plus that Scottish accent…
I was completely enchanted. By the overall concept of what was happening and by Gary. When the show was over, the actors took us to the last pub, stepped out of character and hung out with a few of us who were game to stay. I was able to ask all of my questions! What was it like doing a show where so much alcohol was involved? Did some people get out of control drunk? Does the audience laugh more as you visit more pubs? Is this your only job? Do you work every night? This environment seems to encourage more audience participation than a dark theatre. Is that true? What’s that like? Who are you in real life? What is important to you?
I learned that the alcohol made things interesting but wasn’t as big of a problem as you would think. The audience participation was really fun and made each show very different. There were a few different actors who played the different parts (the older character was played by a couple of women-
Wait! What was that like when you do that part where the young guy plays the woman and you flirt with each other?!
And can a 30ish American play that part?!
What’s it like to do the show with someone you’ve never worked with before? Do you rehearse or just do it for the first time with an audience?
(There were other people there and I was the only tourist who was an actor so they didn’t quite answer all of my questions)
There were three made-up flirty girls from Boston who were totally crowding my game. But Gary had just been to Cambodia so that was something we could all talk about– travel. He said he would judge the Americans who only travelled domestically when he realized that for him, only traveling in Europe was equivalent to that. So he went to Asia and told some fascinating stories which have now blended in to so many of the other stories I’ve heard from travelers. The bar closed and I couldn’t bring myself to pretend that I didn’t know how to get home (like those dumb girls were doing) so I said goodbye and wrote a very favorable, if slightly intoxicated review on Tripadvisor.
My final European stop for this stretch was back to Rose’s flat in London. Her job is at it’s busiest, and she was working long hours. I told her that I was exhausted and needed sleep and time to blog more than I needed entertainment. We had a wonderful couple of evenings before we had to say goodbye again.
Then 21 hours of travel by a bus, 3 trains, 2 planes and a pickup from Emily took me back to Denver for Kate’s surprise wedding.