It's a little windy for a kilt, I'll go with jeans

Last Wednesday night we were all relaxing a bit in our flat when Linda mentioned she and her sister Mary, who is visiting from Canada, had booked bus tickets to go to Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday for the weekend. Being that I didn't have any plans for the weekend, and I had been wanting to go to Edinburgh, I got on my computer and had soon booked a ticket as well.

Thursday night we got to Victoria bus station, about a 30-45 minute trip from our flat, and of course I forgot my ticket at home. I tried to use my mobile phone to call someone back at the flat so they could look up my confirmation number on my computer, however, even though I had added £10 to my mobile account that day it hadn't gone through so I had to scramble to find change to use the payphone. Eventually I got ahold of Brittany who texted me the number and I was able to hop on to the bus just before it left.

The cozy common room of our hostel

An eight-hour overnight bus ride is not something I would recommend; however, it was cheap and got me to Scotland. We left the station and found the place we were staying, Castle Rock Hostel. The hostel had super friendly staff, was clean and in a great central location. After checking in at around 9:00 am and taking advantage of the cheap but tasty breakfast offered at the hostel, we went on a free walking tour of Edinburgh. Although I'm not generally one to walk around as part of a big touristy group, we were able to see a lot of the city and get some good historical background from our guide, a lively and knowledgeable girl who was also from the US.

The sun came out and I jumped for joy (photo courtesy of a patient Linda)

Early fall colors

Friday night I met up with Colin, who had stayed at Olov's apartment last weekend when Dave and I were there. Colin lives in Edinburgh and he was going to a friend's house party so he invited me along. The party had a summer theme with blow up palm trees and people wearing hula skirts and flip-flops. I was in jeans and a hoodie because I didn't know about the theme. The host of the party said it didn't matter since I'm part Hawaiian, although I think a better excuse is simply that Scotland is freezing cold.

The sun went down and we were out and about

Saturday and Sunday we walked to a few great sights on the outskirts of the city. We saw the Scottish parliament and then went on to Holyrood Park where we hiked up an enormous cliff that looked westward over Edinburgh. The view was really incredible, as one could look down and get a bird's eye view of the cathedrals and castles that appear so ominous when you're looking up from the street. On our way off the cliff we took a bit of a short cut and quickly found ourselves trying to navigate our way down a very steep slope. The cold wind was blowing as we were stepping and sliding down the slick, grassy side of the cliff. A couple times we weren't really sure how to continue without risking a pretty big fall. Things were made more challenging as the three of us couldn't stop laughing at the situation we had gotten ourselves into. Finally we managed to carefully inch our way down to the bottom safely.

Sunset high up on a ridge in Holyrood park

Autumn in Edinburgh brings wind and rainbows

Sunday evening we got our things together and got ready for another overnight bus ride home. After two consecutive weeks of traveling I was happy to get back to London; although I soon checked my email upon arriving home to see Dave had booked two tickets to Germany for Halloween weekend. So I've got one weekend in London before I'm off again to Germany (and maybe a small detour to Amsterdam).