Off to Edninburgh! Day 2.

June 23rd

The next day, we woke up bright and early for the hotel’s free breakfast! They had juice and fruit available for us, and brought us yummy toast. They also brought us an “English” breakfast which consisted of sausages, bacon (but strange bacon—at least it's not the kind that we’re used to. It was extremely undercooked and looked pretty disgusting to me), weird looking eggs, and baked beans. That was a bit ‘o culture shock for me!! Haha... But, all was well and I ate what I could manage to eat. Afterwards we met up with the group and began walking to the train station. Once we got there we had to wait to see which platform we were on. As we waited, I got my railroad card out so it would be ready to swipe as we walked inside. We saw that we were on platform 4 and I began to get all of my things together. At some point during that process, I must have dropped my railroad card. Once I realized this, I was extremely frustrated because I was literally just holding it! We all looked around for it with no luck. Fortunately, I was able to get a replacement for 5 pounds. So I hurried to do that. While I was doing that, apparently our train got pushed back to a slightly later time and we got upgraded to first class!! Yay! I got to the train after getting my replacement and my friend/roommate Larissa saved me a seat and I could finally relax!

First class-ing it up!

The view from the train was gorgeous the whole time we were one the train, and the first class seats were amazingly comfortable.

This and the following pictures are only a tiny bit of the beautiful sights from our train ride :)

The staff came by to bring us complimentary wine and food and we were all so excited and happy to be there.

I slept a lot of the way there, even though I wanted to watch the view as it went by. Every time I would be looking out the window I would somehow drift off to sleep, but it was alright, I definitely needed that sleep.

It took us about 4 ½ hours to get to Edinburgh, Scotland, but it went by fast because of all the sleeping that was happening. Now, I should inform all of you that you do not pronounce Edinburgh Ed-in-burg, or Ed-in-burrow. I was taught that the correct pronunciation is Ed-in-bur-raa. Say it with me now, Ed--in--bur--raa. Great Job! lol..

We finally arrived and walked to our hotel/town house/Carin Hotel. There were so many gorgeous buildings on the way and everything was just so surreal and exciting!!

We were lucky to have yet another adorable room. I didn’t get pictures of this room either! But believe me, it was very, very cute. The only problem with this location was that there were only 2 bathrooms for the 20-something of us. But, we managed just fine.



After settling in our new rooms we walked to go on a bus tour of Scotland. This bus ride reinforced how frickin’ beautiful Scotland is, but I got no information from the tour guide. I could not understand him at all. I decided it was because he was speaking too close to the microphone. I was slightly bummed that I couldn’t hear him, because there were bits and pieces that I could hear and those parts were interesting. But I was able to get some pretty incredible pictures of the wonderful city. Also, I think I’m in love with Scotland. More on that later.

After the bus tour we were free to wander the city as we pleased. A group of us wanted to go see Jekyll & Hyde which was playing at the Edinburgh Playhouse. I was so excited and happy that other people wanted to see that because what an amazing experience, right??

We had some time before the show started, so we decided to get some food and alcohol in our bodies. We went to a little pub/restaurant place near the theater and ordered quickly because time was running out. I ended up getting tomato soup again because apparently that’s everywhere now, and I’m a big fan of it…..usually. This tomato soup was pretty gross. It tasted like spaghetti sauce. Not what I wanted. Luckily, my drink was a different story! I didn’t know what I wanted, so I asked the bartender what he would suggest for me. He got me Strawberry Lime Cider. It was good, but slightly carbonated. I enjoyed it more than the soup at least.. We were running out of time and still had a lot of our alcohol left so we chugged as much as we could and headed out. That was a bit of a mistake because I had to pee like crazy for the whole first half of the show…hah!

We got into the theater and found out that our seats had been upgraded How lucky are we?? They weren’t like upgraded to the front row or anything, but we went from the top balcony to the slightly lower balcony. That was great. The show was incredible. I had never seen Jekyll & Hyde live and it is one of my most favorite Broadway shows! I’m so happy and thankful they were showing it that night!!

We walked back home after the show was over and I took advantage of the wi-fi in the lobby to talk to Mom and then I finally went to bed.