Keep Calm and Go To Scotland

So, I waited to write this post until we got back safely. You will soon know why...

We (Spencer, Laura, and me) did not make any plans for our first two "free" days. However, I was able to convince them to embark with me on a spontaneous trip by going to the local train station and asking them to book us on a trip to anywhere that was relatively cheap. He suggested that give Edinburgh, Scotland a try. Excited, we quickly booked our tickets and figured the rest of the planning would fall into place. Little did we know, some inconvenient event (called the British Open) was happening that exact weekend-therefore causing ALL of the hostels to be booked. We quickly realized the mistake we had made, decided we could sleep in a train station if need be, and agreed we wouldn't tell our parents until we returned :)

Luckily for us, Jill (much more of a planner) decided to join us after she researched and discovered we could book a campsite. We decided we could buy tents at the store, pack our sheets, and head out the next morning. We boarded the train at 6 AM and arrived 5 hours later in Edinburgh...

 We ended up having to change trains at King's Cross Station- home of Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter! Next door was a Harry Potter book shop.

When we first arrived, we took a "Hop On, Hop Off" bus tour around the town. It was nice to see the layout of everything and have a audio history of the places. Above are pictures of the countryside, Castle Rock, and one of the many crowded streets. 

After the bus tour, Laura and I decided to visit the Holyrood Castle. This is where Queen Elizabeth stays during the summer when she is in Scotland. We took the audio tour here too. It was very informative and probably my favorite thing we did while in Scotland. This is a picture in front of the castle.

Unfortunately, our evening did not turn out as lovely as our day. We arrived at our campsite and decided to race to see who could put their tent together first. We did not realize how lucky we would be to get our tent together at all! Below you can see our first attempt. Luckily for us, and after many strange stares and laughter, some friendly Scottish men decided to come over and help. I'm pretty sure they had the tent up perfectly within 2 minutes. After talking with them for awhile, we finally decided to go to bed. Again, we did not realize that the sun doesn't actually set there until about 10:30 PM--not that we got to do much sleeping. The temperature dropped to 50 degrees and our sheets weren't cutting it. We put on every layer of clothes we had and prayed we would make it through the night. When the sun came up, we decided we had all the cold we could handle and we were going to take very long, warm showers. We looked at the time- it was 4:45 AM. Apparently, the sun does not like to stay down long. The other picture is Laura and I freezing in our tent.

Day Two: 

We met a really awesome taxi driver named Tony the day before. He took us to the campground and told us to call him the next morning for him to pick us up and he would take us to his favorite breakfast spot. We arrived at Snaxs early, so he took us on a free drive around town. It was interesting to here a local's perspective. His tour was better than the bus tour! After an amazingly warm breakfast, we decided to tour Castle Rock. This tour was focused on Mary Queen of Scots and her reign. Below are: a picture of the castle from the bottom of the hill, one from the main gate, and of course a picture with a kilt-clad Scottish statue. 

 We meandered around Edinburg shopping at stores, eating lunch at Frankenstein's laboratory, and finally ending our day with the Harry Potter tour of Edinburgh. Below you can see the school with the four towers (inspiration for Hogwarts and its four houses), our tour guide pointing his wand at Tom Riddle's grave, the street view that was one of the inspirations for Diagon Alley, and The Elephant House Coffee Shop (where JK Rowling spent much time writing the series).

Afterwards, we boarded our train and headed back to Guildford. We arrived back around midnight. I am finishing this post and going to bed! We have class in the morning.