Edinburgh

I learned, just before I left, that I'd been pronouncing the name of this city wrong the whole time I've been here! It's something like "Edinburg-brah" and I hear it's a bug grind on the local population when we pronounce it incorrectly.
Go figure.
This morning I was the first person awake in my hostel dorm. It had 13 other girls peacefully sleeping away, but the first of the Scottish light crept in through the window right about 4:30am and jerked me awake, making me think for sure that I'd slept in til noon. I went back to sleep until 7, then got and packed my bags. Breakfast was a quick thing, and afterwards I went back to touring the streets of Glasgow. Those streets were surprising busy for being so early in the morning. I stumbled across one of the universities they have in the area and was really surprised at how dirty and non-cool it looked. It was more like an older, dirty office building than how I imagine a university to look.
I walked to the top of the city hill and then back down. Scottish streets are no easy business. I was huffing like a smoker by the time I got to the bus station for my hour-long bus to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous. I get the feeling I'm going to use this phrase repeatedly over the next few months. The bus ride was a showcase of straight-from-the-artwork rolling green hills, peaceful sheep farms, and flowers everywhere. As we approached the city limits, we passed by some of the strangest house designs I've ever seen: directly whee one house ends, another begins, to the point where the fence to one person's backyard cements into the far wall of his neighbor's home close living indeed! The bus dropped me off in city center. Again, like Glasgow, the middle of the city was alive with people walking about.
It has a historically old feel to it, like buildings are these old peaceful giants who have sat down for a long rest whilst the populace is fury of ants creating a hill between the giants' toes. I didn't feel like someone was watching me, but I felt like immense history was sleeping in all the bricks in all the buildings around me. I took so many pictures of monuments and I'm sure none of them will mean anything to me in the end, but for today they were breathtaking.
The first place I went to was Edinburgh castle. Or rather, I tried to go the the castle. I ended up hiking up the hill behind it for the better part of two hours, recklessly ignoring all the signs declaring that there was no entrance to the castle from that side. In the end, the signs won and I rather disdainfully stepped off the dirt path and hiked up the street to the real entrance to the castle. For my reward, I got to see William Wallace in all his face paint glory on the way! I stayed up there for a good bit, enjoying the view, before the rain forced me to seek shelter.
The weather! The weather there was something insane! It literally went from bright, brilliantly sunny one minute to storm cloud downpour the next, and the bizarre thing is that two minutes later the good weather returned. It cycled through that good-rainy-windy-good weather cycle my entire day. The rain forced me into the National Library of Scotland, but I left once it slacked enough for me to walk around outside. Then it picked up again and I stepped inside the National Museum of Scotland, where I stayed for two hours, getting drawn in by the exhibit about modern Scots.
At about 2pm, I headed back out, headlining towards the University of Edinburgh. It didn't disappoint like Glasgow's did, but a good bit of it is being excavated right now so I didn't stay long. I hopped across the street to a pub advertising free wifi and there had my first real conversation of the day.
His name was John...something, and he's a 50-something year old London man who moved to this city about 10 years ago and now fully identifies himself as a Scot, to the point of scoffing at the rest of the English. We talked for a good bit and he directed me to walk up Arthur's Seat, a large hill to the east of the city. We also made plans to meet again and watch the game together with a friend of his, as tonight there was some very important football match to be played.
I left the pub and headed towards the Palace of Holyrood, behind which was Arthur's Seat. It's an enormous hill, twice as high to the top as you imagine when you start walking up from the bottom. Along the way, I ran into an Aussie who is my age, Tim, and we hiked the hill together. I was huffing and puffing so terribly by the time we got to the top that I could hardly even breath, but the view was phenomenal! Again, I took so many pictures that, in a few months, will probably look like nothing special but today! We took turns taking each other's pictures -- but when it was his turn, and he was standing close to the edge of the mountain, the wind suddenly picked up like a devil! I couldn't hold the camera still enough to take a picture and he was literally almost blown off the mountain top by a great big gust. He'd taken off his wind breaker when we got to the top, that's how nice the weather had been just moments before, and the wind lifted it, carrying it tint to the edge! He chased after it and barely managed to nip it out of the air before the wind dragged it over. The wind was so terrible that we had to crouch over and I grabbed a handful of turf to keep me steady. One it died down a little, we ducked out of there, heading to the bottom as quick as possible.
And then, just like that, the wind died, the sun came out, the weather became gorgeous again. Since that hike had only taken an hour, and since I had about 2 1/2 hours before the game, I suggested taking a hike up the hill besides the first one, to a higher spot. I was going to go with or without him, and he trailed along. This hill was even higher, I was huffing even worse, and at times the wind would come and try to pick us off the mountainside. But in the end, we had an unparalleled view of the city and even caught sight of a rainbow.
We reached the bottom about 2 hours after we'd initially started hiking up, but it felt like a lifetime later. Tim and I parted ways, me telling him which pub I'd be at if he wanted company later on since he, too, was traveling alone. He never showed up, though, which is the way life goes.
As for John, he and I met up again and grabbed some food while we waited for his friend to arrive as well. This friend thought very little of the place we were at, and so we took off and arrived at an outdoors beer garden where a massive screen was broadcasting the event and an even more massive crowd had gathered, cheering so loudly we heard them clear at the other end of the road. It was Manchester United vs Barcelona and (spoiler) Barcelona won 3-1. By the time the game ended, I had a little over 30 minutes to get to the bus station and catch my overnight ride to London, so we regretfully parted ways. He gave me his email address, urging me to return in the fall before my return flight home to catch the Edinburg Festival, promising me and my sister a couch to sleep on in the middle of downtown if we did. He also promised to get in touch with some Austrian friends to ask them to put me up, should I find myself in that part of the continent.
So here I am, on the bus to London. It's 11pm local time and we should be arrived at 7:30. I've got arrangements to stay in the south east side of London for the first night at least, at a place about 20 minutes outside the city, far enough away to not be bothered by the noise. I'm not sure anymore how long I'll stay there. I find myself really enjoying the smaller town feel and I might head to Brussels by the 1st. Who knows. It'll all depend on how I find the place.