Short Trip to Edinburgh

Edinburgh (or as it's pronounced Edinburra) is one of my absolute favorite cities!!

I had about 4 days off in the middle of my time in Scotland and I love the history and nightlife of Edinburgh so I hopped back on the bus and booked a hostel near High Street.

My first night I went on a ghost tour of the city. There are so many of them around and quite a few rely on cheap thrills. They'll tell you ridiculous ghost stories and have dudes in masks waiting around to jump at you. I went on one like that the last time I was there and wasn't that impressed. This time I went on a Sandemans Tour (I love that tour company and have been on many of their free walking tours around other European cities.) The Sandeman Tours like to stick to historical atrocities and more plausible ghost stories. Think Burke and Hare and body snatchers and such. There is so much history (and most of it is so violent) that its still a thrill.

The next day, I walked up the Royal Mile and window shopped and poked around. I went into the Optical Illusion Museum and really enjoyed it. Its about 5 crampt floors of all kinds of random illusions. I've got a few pictures of me as a dude. (handsome, i think, but I don't know why my face got soooo skinny) and a creepy baby thing. The last part at the tippy top of the Museum is a camera obscura which is basically a very old device that uses a mirror and a dark room to project a moving image of whats going on outside and you can move the mirror around to point it at different things. It's basically a peeping tom's wet dream.

View from the top of the optical illusion museum

The actual camera obscura. The image was projected on the white table and you moved it around with the stick thing. 

Me as a dude, hot right?

Me as a creepy baby

fun!

Later that night I did one of the Sandeman pup crawls and had a fantastic time! I hung out most of the night with a really cool group of people. There was a dude from Germany and a few girls from Sweden and a random smattering of other nationalities. We got pretty drunkkk and I'm quite happy that we all walked back to our hostels together because after visiting 5 bars that night I might have had some trouble locating mine....

The next morning, while feeling a bit under the weather, I visited Edinburgh Castle again. It has so much history and is quite large. I spent the majority of an afternoon exploring around. The day was kind of meh and rainy but that happens.

 

This is inside the museum-y part. I'm not sure that I was allowed to take this picture, but hey, I'm a rebel.  

This is the room where Mary Queen of Scots (that woman fascinates me) gave birth to King James of Scotland and England

Look what I found in one of the Scottish gift shops! Shark teeth! You better believe I hit up this thing quite a few times! In this same shop is the Scottish Textile Museum which was quite interesting. I bought a bag of tartan scraps that I plan to use for various projects in the future....

I also spent some time puttering about some more on the Royal Mile and went down to Princes Street to do some shopping. I also wandered around to Grassmarket Street and found the coolest vintage shop. Basically I spent a bunch of money.

Later I met some guys (Dave and Kevin) staying in my hostel and we hung out and grabbed dinner and later went out on the town for some karaoke and ciders/beers. I busted out my Whitney Houston with "I Just Wanna Dance With Somebody" I didn'y quite know all the words in the middle bits but the DJ seemed to really like me anyway. (I might have fluffed my afro at him, haha) There were some questionable vending machines in the bar bathrooms....yikes. On this night a good time was had by all and nobody went overboard with the dranks so it was all good.

Who doesn't love a little karaoke? Sing it, Dave!

The next day was my last day and in the morning I headed over to The Edinburgh Dungeon which is basically like a walk through Edinburgh/Scotland's history and tall tales. You go through various themed rooms where actors interact with you and in some you go on rides. It was super awesome and I highly recommend it, but it's not for the faint hearted. At one point we were on a boat ride and the lights go off and a creepy actress playing the part of an urban legend of Sawney Bean jumped on the boat and touches you and whispers things at you and it's quite terrifying. On the tour was only me and a couple. The girl was so terrified at one point that she almost left in the middle of the tour. I don't know if I would have been able to go it alone, so I'm glad she stuck it out.

Eventually my time in Edinburgh was over and I caught my bus back to Oban and the aquarium!