Hello! This past Saturday (January 20th) I got to spend it in Edinburgh, Scotland. However, the adventure actually started Friday night. My friends and I took an overnight bus to get to Edinburgh that left Victoria Coach Station at 10:30pm and arrived in Scotland at 8:00am. We then had until 9:30pm to explore before getting back on the bus and coming back to London at 6:50am.
Let me tell you guys, National Express overnight buses are great in theory, but in practice trying to sleep on a 9+ hour bus ride is hard, which makes your ability to explore crash around 6:00pm. However, it was the cheapest option, and it worked with everyone's schedule so if necessary I would probably do it again. I was definitely happy it was an overnight bus as well because I think if it had been during the day I would have felt a lot more restless. Even though it was hard to sleep, I was tired, so I had my eyes closed for most of the time.
Anyway, back to Edinburgh. It was a beautiful city, but it was so cold and icy as well. We decided to climb up to the top of Arthur's Seat, and it was all ice, but we made it, and it gave us a beautiful view of the entire city and beyond. Getting back down, however, was quite the challenge and involved a lot of falling, which each caused a lot of laughs. Everyone on the hill was wondering what they were thinking trying to attempt this hike, but it was absolutely hysterical. At one point my friend just sat down and slid for a good thirty feet. I wish I were filming it, but there was no way I would have been able to hold my camera and try to walk/stumble/fall down at the same time. I left that adventure with a bruised knee.
From there we made our way to Edinburgh Castle. We got to see a canon fire at 1:00pm, a few different museums showing the Scottish military throughout the years, prisons, the crowned jewels and we got a free sample of whiskey, which we all ended up buying a small bottle of because it just felt like the right thing to do.
Next, we went to Calton Hill, which is home to a lot of different monuments and gives you another fantastic view of the city.
After that, it was about 6:00pm, and we were cold and tired, so we decided to the Grassmarket and found a Pub to get food and hang out until we needed to get to the bus station. 13 1/2 hours is simultaneously a short amount of time and a long amount of time. We may have been up to do a little bit more if it was warmer out, maybe we would have gone to the botanical gardens or something, but I still had a great time, and I would recommend doing some type of whirlwind trip like this.
BONUS STORY: HOW I GAVE MYSELF A BLACK EYE
This is so embarrassing, but it's also funny which is why I am willing to put it on the internet forever...
So, I already told you I bruised my knee pretty bad, and when I got back to my bedroom, my arms were sore from having my backpack on for so long. However, I also managed to give myself my very first black eye.
It happened on the bus ride back to London. I was leaning my head against my hand on the window. The bus hit a bump, and gravity took over, and my head slipped, and I bashed my eye on this tiny windowsill that doubled as an armrest. But the most embarrassing part: IT HAPPENED TWICE! You know that saying 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'? That's how I felt when I crashed down the second time, like how could I let that happen to myself.
I thought to myself that maybe it didn't bruise and it would just be a little red. That is very wishful thinking due to the fact that I am wicked pale and bruise if someone taps me too hard (a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point). When we were walking to the Tube station I could see out of the corner of my eye that it was starting to swell and knew there was going to be a bruise.
The good thing about it is that nobody has called me out on it and I can't tell if it's because they're trying to be polite or they just don't notice it/think it's a shadow. I had to point it out to my roommate the next day because she didn't see it, but today it's started to turn brown and purple so I think it's beginning to look a lot more like I got punched in the face.
I told my mom about what happened and she told me I needed to come up with a better story since this one is embarrassing. So naturally, I put a poll out on my personal twitter and apparently I got a black eye in a bar fight while I saving someone's life in a near robbery (All of the Above won the poll), which does make me seem a lot cooler than someone who lost against gravity twice in about twenty minutes.
Somebody, please tell me you have hurt yourself accidentally in a similar manner! Comment below so we can all benefit from each other's fail moments.
