Tale of Travels (pt. 2)

Sorry about the delay! After many hours spent relaxing, making French toast, and doing anything that didn't involve studying, I decided that it was time to prepare for finals. (They're only 80% of my grade. No big deal.) But they're over now. So now it's celebration time/write a new blog post about my winter travels time. Yay!

Kay, so we left off with the Girlfriend and I traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland after having visited Cambridge and Oxford. We took two trains to get there, totaling about 6 hours overall. I'm not complaining, though: the scenery was beautiful, the seats were comfortable, and I had lots of time to do homework or sleep. (But mostly sleep. [In fact, it is entirely possible that 5 out of 6 hours was spent sleeping.]) We arrived in Waverly station, and spent the following five seven nights in the West End Hotel. During the days, of course, we explored one of the most amazing cities in Scotland:

The city centre at night (click to enlarge);

that's right, Edinburgh has a ferris wheel

The National Gallery, which included several Vermeer paintings!

Girlfriend in traditional clothing at the National

Museum of Scotland

The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling drafted Harry Potter

Interior of Elephant House

Bridge! And church.

Greenhouse at the Royal Botanical Gardens

Gazebo in the Royal Botanical Gardens

My weird Scottish duck friend 

Well... you can sorta see the castle. Right?

Here's a better one.

Highlight of Edinburgh: Just walking around. Holy frick, it was neeto.

Edinburgh was one of our favourite places on our entire trip. The city was absolutely stunning, and so full of history. The girlfriend and I also appreciated the fact that the Scots knew what snow was. They also knew that salt and snow plows made it go away. (This is such a problem in England!) When we were not visiting *free* museums or art galleries, the Girlfriend and I walked around the gardens, or just played cards back at the West End.

Our hotel/hostel was a bit strange in that it seemed to be more of a businessman accomodation. Allyson and I were the only students. We did meet an incredibly knowledgeable, eccentric man who upraised art for a living. He told us about his years in Mexico and the far North. Most of the time, we couldn't understand what he was saying because his accent was so thick (and varied). But it was good to meet him, and he was our only roommate (in a 12-person dorm) for our five day stay.

Right. Well we only intended to stay in Edinburgh until the 21st, at which point we would fly over to Ireland and take a bus to Wexford, Ireland. So the we packed everything up, checked out, caught a bus to the airport, checked in our baggage, went through security, and waited at our gate for several hours. We then were told via intercom that due to "adverse weather conditions" in Dublin, our flight was cancelled. Now there were some pretty bad snow storms around Europe, most notably around Heathrow Airport, which actually shut down for a few days. But this was potentially problematic. We had planned to be in a certain hostel on Christmas, because that was the only one open in Ireland during the holidays. (Just kidding, but it WAS one of the few).

So we headed back to the West End, checked in again, re-booked our flight, and attempted to cancel our Wexford hostel reservations. (Alas, to no avail. I wasted about $60 on that one. CURSE YOU, CANCELLATION POLICY!) But anyway. We decided to stay in Edinburgh until the 23rd. (Unfortunately, so did some loud, smelly Polish people.) Even though everything was quite frustrating, we actually didn't mind being in the city a couple more days. In the end, it was all good. Yo.

(See above process.) This time we got on our plane without any trouble. It took about 50 minutes to fly to Dublin, during which time OUR PLANE GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. FRIGGIN. WHEN DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Ryanair: With flights this cheap, you can AFFORD to pay for the bathroom!

Oh, the joys of traveling. *chuckles knowingly* We survived, though. No structural damage to either us or the plane. And finally. We were in Ireland!

Well that's all for now! Look for part three in the next few days. I'll go into great depth about the awesomeness of Ireland. But right now I have to prepare a presentation. Or something.

Here's a picture of a gin and tonic because they're SOGOOD.

You can just FEEL the summer vibes.

Next stop: Kilkenny, Ireland