It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday! Yeahoo! What
a day! So today started out with an optional hike up to this place called
Arthurs Seat that overlooks a lot of Edinburgh. It’s one of Scotland’s seven
hills or something. Sounds exciting right? I didn’t go on it. Hahaha. I was up
super late last night so I opted out of that one. I’m lame I know! So really my
day started out with meeting the group on the coach after the hike to go to
Glasgow for OLYMPIC SOCCER! Weeeeeee! (all this after a lovely breakfast at our
hostel of course J)
So we got to see the womens quarterfinals! Sweden vs France!
This was the last match that will be played at Hampden park, all the rest of
them will be at Wembley in London! Crazy that it’s already gotten to that point
right? It was AMAZING to walk in that stadium. Oh my gosh. Sadly just like what
you see on tv it wasn’t full. That still blows my mind.. we literally got
tickets like two days ago. I don’t think that should even be possible but
whatever! Ill take it! Security was pretty intense. They gave us all clear
plastic bags and we had to dump the entire contents of our bags into it so that
they could see everything at all times. This all took place in the pouring rain
so that wasn’t too fun. Luckily the stadium seating was covered J not the field though,
poor soccer players. Also if you got any drinks they had to take the lid off
and pour it into a cup for you. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that one.
But the game was so fun! I was cheering for Sweden of course! Down with the
dang frenchies! Hate them! But it was so funny to see Sweden.. they are all so
Scandinavian! I felt like I was watching a million Gur clones! (made me miss
you guri L)
but sadly they lost even though I think they were a better team. They possessed
the ball at least 75% of the match but that’s not what counts I guess! Now
france faces the winner of brazil and japan on Monday in London! Cool stuff. I
got ‘lunch’ at the stadium. Unlike America they don’t have a lot of selection.
Every place you went only had one food item… pies. Yikes. And they were nasty.
I got the Hampden pie because it was named after the stadium so I thought it’d
be legit. It was a mincemeat pie and it was so gross. I don’t like remembering
it.
After that we headed back to Edinburgh which was like an
hour drive. We stopped in a little grocery store and although it was pretty
insignificant I have to take time to publicly state that I can officially tell
the difference between English and Scottish accents. I AM SO PROUD. Also, many
Scottish people are completely impossible to understand. And yeah.. I think that’s all I was going to
say. Haha
So then we got back to the hostel and we went up to St.
Giles cathedral on the royal mile. I can’t remember if I explained this yesterday
but the royal mile is basically the one main street that goes straight up to
the castle and is the center of all the shopping and eating and such. So we
went to this cathedral and it was beautiful. I have come to appreciate
Edinburgh’s beauty a lot more after today. The dark stone and architecture is a
lot more European-ish and not so English, but I like it. It’s really dark but
it makes it unique and you just kind of have to let it grow on you. I was able
to take pictures so I will post that when I can.
After that I went into total stress mode because I still
hadn’t been able to make my Disney thing work so while everyone went out to
explore the city and go to shows for the festival and stuff I had to go sit in
the bar in the bottom of my hostel and pay to use the internet. I was pretty
miserable haha I am glad no one was with me cause I wasn’t in a pleasant mood
at all. I was probably down there for like three hours and I had to download a
totally new web browser and it was super loud and there were a ton of drunk
people. The best was this guy that walked in a mini pink dress with fake boobs.
Yeah. Gotta love the festival going on here. Brings out really high quality
people. Nawt. But after a scary phone call to the dcp office which involved an
apology for the noise because I was in a Scottish bar because it was the only
place I could get internet (I’ll never forget that conversation) I got
everything sorted out and I am still going to Disney world! Yay ali!
After that I was terrified to go out into the city. Since I
had been cooped up all day I had no idea where anyone was so I was gonna have
to go out by myself. What’s worse is this place just straight up freaks me out
with all the weirdos running around for the festival. So my mom talked me into
going out. I’m glad I did! First I found some souvenir and wool shops where I
got some gifts. It was cool! Scotland really is a legit place. I wish I could
go to a nice town or something though because Edinburgh I feel is a little
different, but cool in its own way. I will admit tonight really made me
appreciate Edinburgh.
After that I went on a ghost tour! I’m pretty sure Edinburgh
is the most haunted city in the world. If you could just see this place you
could seriously assume that every single building is haunted. It is a straight
up creepy place. They have dozens of ghost tours but I just went to the one
that had a meeting spot I knew of. Apparently this was the scariest one in town
so I chose well! Keep in mind I was alone this whole time… so I was a little freaked
out. But then five girls from my group showed up to go on the same tour! Yay!
So that made it a lot better. The tour was great, our guide was an awesome
storyteller. First we went to some vaults and then to grayfriars cemetery which
we went into last night. He told some good stories but I’m not gonna lie.. I
wasn’t scared at all. It’s hard for me to believe that kind of stuff so
basically I convinced myself that everything he said was BS. Kinda ruined the
whole point but oh well! It was cool and I’m really glad I went. One thing that
was interesting, we went into this inner crypt in the cemetery that is only
accessed by this tour company. It was actually the first site of a
concentration camp. It was pretty eerie I guess. But they were holding a bunch
of people who eventually became martyrs and yeah it was a cool story I will
post later. I took a picture of the placard that explained it because I knew I
wouldn’t remember it. I also thought it was cool because it was the only story
I believed hahaha. Only because it had a little historical placard at the
front. I could talk a lot more about this and tell lots of freaky stories but I
am so tired. So if you wanna know more about the creepy history of Edinburgh
let me know.
After that we wandered around trying to find this place
called chocolate soup where they apparently have amazing hot chocolate. After
like an hour of searching we found that it has strangely disappeared. It was
the saddest. So then we decided to try and find milkshakes. Random I know. And
bad. I shouldn’t have. But we found this Italian place that had super good ice
cream. We went in and sat down and I saw that they had sticky toffee pudding. I
have been wanting to try a traditional English dessert so bad so I ordered it.
It was so good. So in the UK pudding means cake basically. So it was a warm
chocolate cake with toffee and chocolate sauce and whipped cream and super good
ice cream. SO GOOD. Warm cake and ice cream are my weakness. And yeah! That was
basically my day! Oh! We also walked past the end of the military tattoo so we
got to see all the super legit uniforms and hear the bagpipes. We will be
seeing all of that tomorrow and I’m stoked! I still don’t know exactly what it
is yet so I will explain tomorrow when I know more. Also we saw the fireworks
from tattoo so that was a fun way to end the night J
Also another thing I forgot! So I got off the elevator (or
lift if you’re feeling british) at the hostel, I turn to walk out, and there’s
my relief society advisor from BYU! Crazy right!?!? She actually went to sky
view so have a lot of connections! But it turns out the other byu London study
abroad program is here in Edinburgh as well! We had no idea! So that was fun to
see her. Dad- it was the doctors daughter you always talk to me about. Oh and I
also found schwarma for dinner. It was fine.. but not even close to taza’s back
home in London. Sad.
That’s my day! More Edinburgh adventures tomorrow! Hope
everyone is fantastic!
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