Breaking Free in Scotland! Day Two

Wednesday 18 May


Preston and Carolyn had this absolutely insane idea of hiking up the mountain to see the sunrise. If you remember from reading my last post, sunrise in Edinburgh is at 4:57 AM. So we all woke up at 3:30 and left the hostel by 4:00, all because Carolyn wanted to get some good pictures. We were getting out of bed about to go hiking when the other girls in our hostel were just coming home from the pubs.

I was not too keen on the hike to begin with. I'm not exactly 'physically fit', and I knew I would be way behind the rest of the group. But since everyone else was planning on going, I decided to suck it up and go anyway. I figured the view would at least be worth it, and I was so right! It was absolutely gorgeous, and I took a billion pictures, too many to post on here. It was really hard to pick out which were my favorites, but here's what I've posted:

I have about a billion more pictures, like I said, and eventually they will all be on facebook.

After we'd climbed all the way back down, Preston stopped us and proposed another hike right that minute. It was to the top of a dormant volcano, a place called Arthur's seat (we asked Preston why it was called that, but he doesn't really know...he did tell us a good story, though!)

It was the highest point in the city, and was not exactly easy hiking. The three girls who were staying in a different hostel than the rest of us opted out, deciding to get some sleep before we went to the castle later that day. Against all reason, I opted to join Preston, as did everyone else. So the nine of us set out towards the top, taking our time this time since we didn't have to race the rising sun. We ended up breaking into three groups of three, and I was of course in the last one. Preston and Carolyn were nice enough to hang back with me, but also enjoyed not rushing past the beautiful scenery. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we reached the top.

Proof that I did it!! Haha!!

 It was an absolutely stunning view! It was so insanely windy on top, though, and we were almost afraid we were going to fall over. We hung around up there for a while but hurried down when our fingers started to go numb. We soon discovered that Scotland can be a very chilly place.

I took more pictures on the way down and back to the hostel. Here are a couple of them.

Ruins that I spotted on the way down

The queen's residence in Scotland

When we got back to the hostel, we had breakfast and laid down for a short nap. That short nap turned into two hours, however, and we had to hurry to Edinburgh Castle before moving on to our next destination. The castle was really cool to see, but were I to do it again I wouldn't pay the fifteen pounds; seeing it from the outside was enough.

Anyway, the twelve of us split into two groups of six after going to the castle. Preston, Andrea, Amy, Casmin, Liz,  and Carli headed to the airport to go to Dublin for the rest of the week while Kiersten, Kristen, Chelsea, Meisha, Carolyn and I headed towards the Orkney Islands in Scotland!

We caught a train at the Edinburgh Waverley station and rode for four hours to the station in Inverness (near Loch Ness). We then waited an hour before catching another train to go even further North to the coast, stopping in a little town called Thurso four hours later.

When we got off in the tiny railway station, Kristen said in a distressed voice: "Where the heck are we!" We all couldn't help but laugh. We kind of were in the middle of nowhere, but it was in preparation to get to the Orkney islands the next day. We were blessed to get to our hostel just before the sun got down, and definitely felt we were being watched over.