Abi & Wes in Amsterdam: 2012

Our first proper trip with friends was to Edinburgh with Lindsey & Justin. Quite exciting as we hadn't been any where with anyone else for a full weekend.

It was also our first time flying EasyJet, which we were a bit nervous about given some of the horror stories that you hear about discount airlines in Europe. We nearly didn't make it out of NL because of severe weather in the UK. In fact most flights were cancelled but fortunately ours wasn't. We were literally the last people into Scotland on 8 December. Fortunately we had a travel rule to fall back on here - if we land after 22.30 (that's 10:30pm for those of you following along in America), we get a hotel as close to the airport as possible. And fortunately for us the shuttle to the hotel was still running. I think we actually got into bed at about 2am UK time. Yuck.

However, there was one good thing about the weather. Mark was also in Edinburgh for the weekend but he had planned a tour to the highlands. Because of the weather the tour was cancelled and he hung out with us instead!

After breakfast the next morning we took the bus into Edinburgh from the airport. We had a great chat with a fellow who was going to Glasgow for a lunch with the football team. People in Scotland have much different personalities than the Dutch, meaning that people will just chat with you for no reason other than you're standing next to them. It's a lot like NC, so it felt really comfortable for us. Or, may be, this guy just liked to chat. =)

We had found some tours that we wanted to take in the afternoon but needed to kill some time before they started so we checked out Our first stop was the Scottish History Museum.

Awesome handpainted ceiling.

Our tour was through Mercat Tours and was of the Royal Mile and then a tour of the Underground Vaults. Our tour guide met us at the Mercat Cross, which is where all of the tours start.

We wandered up and down the Royal Mile and even into the Scottish Parliament (no pictures allowed unfortunately).

Great stained glass window!


Statue of James Braidwood in Parliament Square. He founded the world's first municipal fire service in Edinburgh in 1824.

Parliament

The Heart of Midlothian was the nickname of the building which once stood in this spot, officially referred to as the Old Tolbooth Prison. It was Edinburgh's first prison, opened in 1386.

Our guide took us into several of the closes and wynds in Edinburgh. What's the different? a wynd could fit a cart and a close could not. The city was build on an extinct volcano - meaning that the buildings are much much shorter on the street side than they are on the back. These narrow alleys are how people got around.

Our next tour was through the vaults under the South Bridge. For around 30 years, the vaults were used to house taverns, cobblers and other tradesmen, and as storage space for illicit material, reportedly including the bodies of people killed by serial killers Burke and Hare for medical experiments. They sold the bodies to the medical school. Our guide talked about the ghosts...

Justin found a great apartment for us!

After dinner and drinks at the Red Squirrel, we woke up to this....the first snow of the year in Edinburgh.

And because we're a bit silly...we decided that it would be fun to climb Arthur's Seat anyway...

While really pretty...this was not the best idea ever.

When we got 90% of the way up, a fog swept in. Wes decided to climb the rest of the way but he couldn't see anything. Oh well...

I slipped at least 27 times. I couldn't even carry the camera after a while because I was afraid of landing on it.

We decided to follow a trail down the back towards the road rather than risk going back the way we came and falling to our doom.

Wes told me later than he figured it out, but we realized after a few minutes of walking down the street, when we saw this guy, that his giant snowball had made our path. He was making a snowman for his kid...who was either 2 days or 2 years old and hadn't seen snow...I'm not sure which was more plausible...

Lindsey is so nice!

Lunch at the Albanach- here's Justin with his whiskey flight.

We went in St. Giles Cathedral afterwards.

Wes as tour guide.

Lindsey trying to dry her trousers.

Then, Edinburgh castle, of course. We walked up but didn't visit until the next day.

Arthur's seat from the Castle.

Lindsey & Justin did some shopping while Wes, Mark and I visited the National Portrait Gallery...mostly because we wanted to get out of the cold! We tooled around the Christmas market afterwards and had some cider and pretzels. The German Christmas markets have great food.

We ended up not having a proper dinner because everyone had snacked at the market but instead got appetizers, drinks and desserts at Maison Bleue - except for the fondue, which was not a great choice. Everyone tried haggis here because it came fried and in small portions.

The next morning we went to the castle. Here's a view of the city and the Christmas market we visited the night before.