I heart Scotland--a lot.

For all of you who thought it was a safe bet I would come home at the end of this thing they call study abroad, you were probably right. Until I went to Scotland, that is. I am in love with a country. It is so beautiful and green and historical and crazy and I would have zero qualms living and dying there. Here's a rundown of my two days in the promised land, complete with pictures.

East Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat before the sun came out.

Early Wednesday morning (3:30, to be exact) I woke up and got ready to meet with everyone else at 4:15 in the classroom. Our train wasn't set to leave until 6:20, which shows you just how paranoid the professors are here about being on time. I guess I would have been more grateful for said paranoia if not for the ridiculously early wake-up call. But back to Scotland. We left the Centre in time to catch the 4:40 night bus to King's Cross--of Harry Potter fame--and, well, sat for an hour. The time came to board our train, which we did, and everyone tried to sleep, which I didn't. I was okay with not sleeping though, as the gorgeous scenery outside reminded me exactly why I came on this adventure in the first place. Picture in your mind the greenest, most patch-worked, sheep-y scene of England you've ever seen in a picture, add to that rays of early sun streaming through clouds and you may have a little idea of what I saw. Amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful. I would love to see it in the autumn when the trees change--after a fall wedding, perhaps? Haha...We followed the eastern coast up to Edinburgh (pronounced "Embra") where we arrived at about 8:30 am. Our small army of students and professors families trekked to our hostel on Blackfriars Street, just off the Royal Mile; we deposited our stuff and began a six mile "walk" that turned out to be a hike (glorious hike!) down the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle, past the Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace (the Queen's official residence in Scotland), and up the Salisbury Crags to Arthur's Seat.

Scottish marchers from the Palace, complete with bagpipes :)

Kristin and I on the Royal Mile
Holyrood Palace

Me about midway up the hike. Look behind me! Beautiful!

Kristin and I on top of the Crags. Don't look down, yeah?

Another picture from Arthur's Seat, this time the Forth of Firth

The hike: steep, rocky, long, and so worth the sweat. Once at the top, we could see in every direction for miles and miles: the Forth of Firth to the north, the center of Edinburgh to the west, and countryside every other way. I've never seen such vibrant colors. The best part was that the weather turned from being cloudy and stormy to sunny and clear by the time we got to the top. Having made the trek as a group, we were now set free to explore the city. Kristin, Makayla and I set off for the Royal Mile, having seen a number of shops we were dying to nip into.

Many shops, one delicious hot chocolate, and a fantastic burger dinner later, I found myself back at the hostel, settling in with Kristin to watch the football game (Rangers vs. St. Petersburg in Manchester).
My hot chocolate was so delicious after the hike.

But my night was not over yet...Carlos and James interrupted my football enjoyment to tell me we were going on a ghost walk. We had to choose between City of the Dead and Mary King's Close. For those of you who know my addiction to Ghost Hunters, Mary King's Close had the most appeal to me since they did an episode there. But ten minutes later I was walking through the darkening streets of Edinburgh towards the City of the Dead. In a nutshell, you know your ghost walk is going to be something fantastic when you can clearly see an advert for a "Jumper-Outer" when you pay for your ticket. Oh geez. So our guide took us around a little of the city, telling us stories and history, and finally to Grayfriar's graveyard where the so-called Mackenzie Poltergeist has pinched and scratched many a visitor. Right. Judging by my totally unscathed condition, nothing happened except I found out Carlos's miraculous swearing ability when the aforementioned "Jumper-Outer" made his appearance when we were in the tomb. It was so hilarious and we quickly made our way home after so as not to be caught up in the late-night "knife-culture" our professors warned us Edinburgh could be. Bed was a relief and I don't remember much between getting to the hostel and falling face-down on my comfy, albeit squeaky, hostel bunk.

Carlos, James, and Jared in their souvenirs from Scotland, haha.

Day two in Edinburgh will be forever remembered as one of the best and most perfect days of my life thus far. I woke up around 7, had some breakfast, and then headed out with Kristin, Makayla, and James for the Scottish Parliament. James had a connection with a BYU intern there since he just finished his own internship in Brussels (James will have been in Europe 6 1/2 months once this study abroad ends. It's crazy and awesome.).
The Scottish Parliament building, just across the street from Holyrood Palace, ironically.

My visitor's pass for parliament...it reminded me of V for Vendetta so I snuck a picture.

We arrived at the parliament building and were greeted by a Michael Wilson, who showed us around all the parts of parliament that visitors don't usually get to see. We met and spoke with an MSP--Member of Scottish Parliament--which was pretty awesome. He was a member of the National Party, which is the party pushing for independence from England. Something I totally support, by the way. So he was really nice, and even let us sit in his "thinkpod" in his office, which is a place each MSP has in his or her office to "get away" from the office and chill.
The MSP's "thinkpod" right behind his desk

Really cool. We ate lunch in the parliament cafeteria; really inexpensive + delicious= study abroad student's dream. The food I had in Scotland was the best I've had on this trip so far. After lunch we headed over to the main session room because Michael had gotten us tickets to the First Minister's Questions. The First Minister is the equivalent of the Prime Minister in England, and every Wednesday he meets with the rest of parliament to answer ANY question they put to him. There was a brief yet very heated debate about physical education; the policy is two hours in every school with a supervised and licensed PE instructor. So one MSP asked the First Minister when this would happen, and the FM dodged a straight answer by spewing loads of statistics, so all the MSPs freaked out and started yelling "Answer the question!" and banging their fists on the table. It was awesome. None of the polite garbage you see in the American legislature. Once the questions ended, we said farewell to our tour guide and began the 3 1/2 walk through the countryside to Craigmillar Castle.
Me on top of the castle :)

A stairwell in one of the castle towers. Wind-y and super steep.


The view from the trail to the castle.

The castle was deserted and beautiful. It was in ruins, but still intact enough that you could walk up into the towers onto the ramparts and see the surrounding area for miles. It would have been a fantastic place to spend the night, especially in some of the smaller rooms with no windows. That was cool to have the castle all to ourselves and just explore. We took the bus back to Edinburgh and New Town, where we went to the National Gallery of Scotland. I was pretty tired by this time and wanted to just chill at the hostel for a little while. After regrouping, Makayla, Carlos, Kristin, James and I went to dinner at this pub called The Royal Macgregor. In a word: delicious. I had bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes) and hot chocolate, of course. The atmosphere was warm, the food was great, our waiter was darling, and I was very content to just sit and talk with my favorite people. We're very funny, I'll tell you that. I have no problem admitting our hilarity ;) Okay, maybe I think we're funnier than we really are, but we do have fun together. Dinner was quickly followed by a group meeting and then bed--glorious bed. Our next stop on this four day tour was York, as in the Yorkshire Moors, which was to be another 4 am waking up. I was sad to say goodbye to Scotland, and I can't wait to go back again.