Edinburgh

On September 14th I flew out of San Francisco to Edinburgh for my EAP Orientation. I had connections in Chicago and Manchester and basically had the flights from hell. Thankfully, however, all my luggage made it with me to Edinburgh. After finally settling into a hotel not far from the city centre, I arranged to meet up with another kid who was in my orientation program- Andrew. We ended up getting lunch at a local pub and having our first proper drinks in the UK. As a side note on the food- I had kept hearing about how the food was so bad in the UK but all of the meals that I've had have been really good. Although there's some differences- the first meal in Scotland, I had a hamburger that was supposed to have bacon on it. Apparently their form of bacon is some type of turkey or ham. So that was on the hamburger. Kinda weird.
Andrew and I just ended up exploring around the city centre afterwards. The weather was actually really nice- especially since I expected it to be constant rain. The most that we got while in Scotland was light rain for a couple hours. Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous and almost what you think of when you think of old British towns- cobblestone streets and breathtaking architecture. I wish I had had more than two days there. That night I just went back to the hotel and ended up sleeping 15.5+ hours.

Tuesday September 16, 2008
I had to go check into my hotel for the orientation and when I got there, I ended up running into Andrew and another girl from the program- Stephanie. They were nice enough to wait for me to get my things together and we all went to lunch together. Ended up going to a little Scottish pub down the street. I had always wanted to try haggis so I ordered that for lunch despite being somewhat nervous about it. By the way, for those of you that don't know...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis

And no, mine wasn't served in the intestine/stomach lining. They served it with mashed turnips and potatoes and it was actually really good. I'd liken it to a sort of spiced ground beef. Afterwards, we explored the city more and took a look at the University of Edinburgh- or at least part of the campus. The portion we were at had some galleries so we spent some time there. I wish I had pictures but no pictures were allowed. I did get to see a table that Napoleon used for dining and/or meetings which was really neat. They didn't even have it in a sort of glass case- it was just out in the open.

Later on the in the afternoon the group [9 of us total] had to meet up and we were shown our study abroad office in Edinburgh. The coordinators took us to dinner at French Bistro [after having a sort of bonding session beforehand complete with half pints] and then gave us free time for the night. Most of us ended up checking out the local pubs.

Wednesday September 17, 2008
After a meeting at the study abroad office and lunch, we went to see the Edinburgh Castle. I ended up doing a guided tour and then was free to explore on my own. There's pictures on my flickr if you haven't seen them yet:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26126374@N06/

I ended up being able to see the Crown Jewels, a war memorial that they had there, and their prisons of war exhibit- complete with some of the actual prisons used. Afterwards we went on a hike up Arthur's Seat- a volcano in Edinburgh. It was pretty muddy and rocky but the view at the end of it all is basically a panoramic view of all of Edinburgh- definitely worth the hike. Also, when we got to the top, there was a kid from Rhode Island playing the bagpipes. Apparently he is studying at the university and just had the urge that day to hike up and play. Our group got lucky as they've never had anything like that on previous hikes. Afterwards, we had a group dinner and had free time for the night. Since it was our last night in Edinburgh, we all went to The Tron- a pub right across from our hotel. The pub closed around 11pm- which was another sort of culture shock to me. I suppose the pubs close a lot earlier here, unless they turn into a club at night. Afterwards we just got ready to head to Leeds since a lot of us had trains out in the morning.