Edinburgh

Went on another 3 hour walking tour today! This time in Edinburgh! It's already like 10:30pm and still bright as. The day was beautifully sunny, apparently not the usual weather, but I'm pretty sure we bring good weather since it's been amazing every day of this trip.  Edinburgh Castle is apparently the "Eiffel Tower of Scotland", and our hostel, Castle Rock is right here! Apparently the Queen is somewhere in the city, and Andy Roddick just defeated Djokovic (nooo!!) This city has such a different feel to France. This morning at breakfast I accidentally said 'merci' to some random Spaniard, and it looked like I couldn't differentiate the languages I was hearing! Just as I was getting used to it!

It isn't as beautiful as well I don't think, but everyone speaks English and walks on the right side of the road! Loving the accents - have been practising, and even mimicked the priest's "and with your spirrrrit" at Mass this morning. Wider roads, really friendly people (though I still love the French!) The hostel peeps here are also pretty cool and mostly Aussie, I'm actually separated from Caren and Carmelle, so I don't have to bother them too much hah. Also pubs are literally everywhere, the tour guide said there were something like one pub for every six people in the city. I love it, has that Aussie feel again., and sort of refreshing, though I've only been away one week.

J.K Rowling actually spent a great deal of time here, writing Harry Potter whilst she was still quite poor, and saving money on heating costs. There's this cafe called The Elephant Cafe where she wrote a lot of Harry Potter. They didn't jack up their prices just because of this though, which I thought was really nice. We also walked through the graveyard where she got a lot of her inspiration from her books for names. One is called Tom Riddell, and another McGonnagal, quite a few Potters, etc!

Speaking of saving money though, today I decided that I'd go grocery shopping for my food since I splurged on Haggis yesterday at the pub (traditional Scottish dish made of entrails, lung, stomach, etc. served with a whisky topping, Mash and Neeps (turnips) -surprisingly tasty, don't judge me!

But at the grocers I got some nice ready-made tagliatelle pasta because it was only 2 pounds :) My first microwavable meal, I'd better get used to it! But we couldn't find the proper fridge so instead I had an awesome "backpacker brainwave" and we stuck some ice in a bag and left it with the food in my locker. Thought I was pretty genius till we discovered all the fridges were just downstairs...

Five day highlands bus tour starts tomorrow morning, now we're talking!