Edinburgh Trip 1

I suppose I should blog about occurrences relatively close to the time that they happen, so look at me, I went to Edinburgh yesterday and I'm blogging about it today. Pat on the back for me. Anyway.

So yesterday morning, I met up with Marlee, who is a girl from Brown who is going through the same program as I am (the Penn/Brown/Cornell consortium thing), and with Sabrina, who another study abroad girl from Boston, and we went to Vanilla Black, the cutest coffee/pastry shop ever, for breakfast. (After we roamed about for about 30 minutes looking for my stupid bank and not finding it, but that's a story that's not pleasurable for anyone.) Vanilla Black has very good tea and coffee, and amazing pastries, the most amazing being the sparkly meringues. They are literally these huge meringues with glitter worked into them. I have yet to try one, but I think it must be because I am in awe of their splendor. After said breakfasting, Marlee and I walked to the bus station and got on the Megabus (which was actually a citylink bus), and headed on over to Edinburgh at about 11. I should mention why we were going to Edinburgh--one of the ladies who is in charge of our study abroad program over here had called a meeting for all of the students studying in Scottish universities. We were to meet her at the University of Edinburgh from 3:30 to 5 for an informational session. We glaswegian students were NOT compensated for our travel costs, if I may mention. (point of contention for me.) Anyway, Marlee has a friend, Laura, also from Brown and the program who is studying at University of Edinburgh, so we were to meet her and hang out with her before and after the info session.

Ok, so back to the order of things--we were on the bus for an hour or so, not so bad, and then we got off on Prince street and walked over the Royal Mile, which is a shmancy streets with lots of nice things and shops and lots and lots of tourists. Side note--it was interesting to return to Edinburgh and see all the things that I had visited before, like the Sir Walter Scott Memorial, the St. Giles Cathedral, etc. Anyway. It was a beautiful day in Edinburgh, sunshine and gorgeousness and quaintness as only Edinburgh can offer. We met Laura on the Royal mile, and went down one of the side streets to a cafe that she had wanted to try. It was really cute. It was themed with sunflowers, and was all warm brown woods and stonework and such. Laura and I split the best waffle I have ever eaten. It was a belgian waffle with (british) bacon and brie on top, drizzled with maple syrup, and the waffle had little morsels of sugar throughout it. Delicious. After our wonderful luncheon, the three of us went back to Prince streets and shopped around a bit. Marlee is on a search for the perfect pair of black tall leather boots. I am on a less dedicated search for the perfect pair of black leather boot-ish shoes to wear all the time here. Anyway, neither of us reaped much, but we did run across the craziest heels ever, which were crazy and really exciting to look at. All in all, I enjoyed it. Then we walked over to the park that kind of makes a gorge in between Prince street and the Royal mile, because it's really low-lying. We sat on a bench, ate some apples, and did a crossword puzzle, which seems like one of the best activities one can partake in, in my opinion. There was a fountain, and beautiful flowers all around, and a view of the Edinburgh castle up on the bluff behind. It was very pretty.

After a while, we headed on over to the University of Edinburgh to go to our meeting. It was a lot of climbing up a hill of cobblestone. Along the way we ran across THE BEST STORE IN THE WORLD THAT I NEVER WANTED TO LEAVE. It was called Still Life, and we went in even though it made us a tad late to the meeting, but it was SO AMAZING. This tiny little store was stuffed full of antique dishes--china and pottery, old books, and paintings. It was so so cool. And I wanted to own every plate and cup in there. There were lots of pretty patterned teacups, ceramic bowls and vases and such, some really cool handmade glass mugs... If I lived in Edinburgh, my house would be completely furnished by this shop. And the man who ran it was an older man who, when asked the price of a piece, would answer and then ramble on about where and what age it was from, etc. I LOVED this shop. Anyway, we sadly had to go on to our meeting.

The meeting wasn't really exciting or mentionable, just that I met the lady who's been sending me oh-so-many emails. And I saw the two kids from Penn who I know, they're both going to the University of Edinburgh. Their names are Laura and Alexander. It was exciting to talk to Alexander, because he's an art major at Penn as well, so I got to tell him about GSA, etc. So that was nice. We also met up with the other glaswegian student in the program, who is Megan, a student from Penn who is studying engineering at the University of Glasgow.

Then we went back to Laura's flat for a bit, regrouped, and figured out where we were going for dinner. We decided that we wanted Nepalese food, which Marlee and Laura had had and really like d and I had never had before. We googled one up, and walked over. It was called The Everest, and if you're ever in Edinburgh, I would recommend it. The food was good and relatively cheap, and the wait staff was amazingly helpful and friendly. We shared three dishes, and I couldn't tell you what the things I ate were called, but it involved mushrooms, lentils, bamboo, spinach, cheese, potatoes, cauliflower, etc. And naan of course. Gotta love the naan. Then unfortunately, Marlee got a really bad stomach ache, so we took her back to Laura's flat and let her lay down for a while. We hung out a bit, because it was almost time to catch our bus, which was at 10:30. When the time came, we caught a taxi to the bus station, got on our bus and shipped ourselves back to Glasgow.

The day was incredibly satisfying, and I really like Edinburgh a lot. I think I'll say though, that I'm glad that I'm studying in Glasgow. While Edinburgh is more picturesque and classically European, it's much more touristy, and feels like it has less going on. Glasgow seems more home-y, but also more city-y, with great music and shopping and museums etc, and less tourists. Also all the native Glaswegians are amazingly friendly. It's been really nice roaming around here so far. Anyway, that's all for now.