Gothic and Green-Edinburgh, Scotland

On Friday October 29th the "mid semester" week long break (Oct. 29th- Nov. 7th) began! I had a big trip planned for this week- Edinburgh Scotland (staying with Tammy), taking a train from Edinburgh to meet Molly at airport in London for a flight to Berlin, Germany (staying with Cat) and then a flight from Berlin to Amsterdam, Holland (staying with Tess) and finally a train from Amsterdam to Bordeaux on Nov. 7th! I was in for a big adventure and mini Euro-trip! So I took full advantage of my time and hopped on a plane at 9pm Oct. 29th for Edinburgh, where I would stay for 4 days until 5am on November 2nd when I would get on a train for London Luton airport! I was flying on the Irish budget airline RYANAIR so of course my flight was almost 2 hours delayed and poor Tammy had to wait in the freezing Edinburgh rain for my bus to come into town from the airport because I had no way to contact her until i landed- 2 hours later than planned!! But after that little speed bump everything was amazing! It was definitely surreal to see Tammy! I've missed her so much while being abroad (considering this is the most time we've ever spent apart since we were  about 10) and now she's abroad also and we were together in a city across the world from where what we've always known- weird! I didn't get to see much of Edinburgh on my way in or even when I was walking the few blocks to Tammy's flat because it was almost 1 am and all we wanted to do was get inside the warmth and get to bed! The next day we woke up pretty early and Tammy made me her mom's amazing pancakes- I couldn't have been happier! We headed out to explore the city pretty early starting with Tammy's beautiful university of Edinburgh, which was close to her flat, and headed towards the Castle of Edinburgh and the downtown area- all hills and all by foot- quite the workout!

View from Tammy's bedroom window

Found Vinny in Scotland

I'll never get over how weird it is that they have bars on campus

Old town

Tom Riddle's grave!!!

Castle :)

JK Rowling used to write Harry Potter here!

beautiful

Jekyll and Hyde pub

our view from the bench where we had our lunch picnic

Atop Calton Hill

After being on top of Calton hill for about an hour we were frozen! So we headed to a small coffee shop to get a real sized cup of coffee (they had NORMAL sized coffees up here- not just espresso- I was sooo excited!). That night we went out to a few pubs for some Halloween festivities! I'm glad I was in a country that celebrated this holiday- otherwise I probably would have felt pretty homesick! Everyone in the streets was dressed up with face paint and pretty funny costumes- I don't think i've ever seen so many guys dressed up as girls in such a short period of time! It was really fun to go out and be able to speak English and just spend time with my best friend- it definitely made me feel like myself again.

The next day (Sunday, Halloween) we slept in a little bit and then headed to see the royal palace at the bottom of the "royal mile" (the road that runs in between new town and old town Edinburgh. It wasn't too cold on Halloween (which means I only had to wear my gloves for about half the day) so we were both in very good moods. We also had a "haunted tour" that went underground the old town buildings for later that evening which we thought was a good way to celebrate Halloween in Scotland. Throughout the day we also found a way to get 3 fudge samples (they have fudge shops EVERYWHERE up there)- and they were all amazing!

The Palace

Another view of Arthur's seat

The Royal Mile

yummmyyyy

Underground room where there was a supposed ghost

Tammy and I were really tired from our day of walking and exploring so we ended up spending Halloween night in- a little bit of a tradition change compared to our usual Isla Vista craziness (last year my house alone had 6 guests staying with us). Tammy had a class the next day (Monday) so we planned to go to Arthur's seat (the small mountain/hill in Edinburgh) and climb a little bit of it and explore the base of it -which was green and beautiful, especially since it was the middle of Fall and all of the leaves were changing colors! During Tammy's class I was going to maybe explore around her school some more and then meet back up with her but it was pouring rain when it came time for her to go to class so I just went to a coffee shop and had myself another giant coffee- I wanted to get my fill of them before heading back to France where "large" does not exist!

Really cool museum that was growing grass on it's roofs!

I officially love Scotland

REAL dog sitting in window

After Tammy's class, we went back to her place and drank tea and made dinner (and felt very Scottish :) ). We spent the night in again because now it was pouring rain and freezing- I had been lucky and had no rain up until my last night so I was very happy about that. I had to get up at about 5 am to make it to my 5:50 train to London so we went to sleep early and I was off very early in the morning! It was easy to navigate this train station alone since it was all in english and I got right on the train and fell asleep. I made it into London just in time to snap a few photos of the oh so famous English country side get from my train to a different one that could take me to the airport and meet up with Molly. Everything went smoothly and I was off to Berlin, Germany!! Berlin, to come soon- au revoir mes amis!