Edinburgh, Scotland

So this is Edinburgh, Scotland!!! (Pronounced ed-in-burough) The most beautiful place I have ever seen in my whole life!!! We decided to take the bus from London to Edinburgh which was great because not only was it a lot cheaper than flying but the scenery on throughout the trip was amazing! Pictures don't hardly show it but I it truly is amazing!

These are some pictures of the bus ride.


These signs were everywhere and I could never figure how any sense could come of it! If you have any insight at all I'd love to know:)
The Edinburgh castle and amazing gothic cathedrals behind us.
The museum of Scotland, which is one of the largest museums in the world! It was 7 stories! I'm not huge on museums but this one was pretty cool!

Museum of modern art

So Scotland is supposed to be the "spookiest" country in the world! So they have haunted houses and graveyards open all the time!
And here is the "Creepy Wee Shop in the Graveyard!" :)
And here we are as ghosts, kinda or just kinda cheesy, ha ha I know! :)
We went hiking up to "Arthur's Seat" to overlook the city!


The view was totally worth it!

So this was our very first experience with couch surfing! All we did is made a profile on couchsurfing.com then looked at people who might lend us their couch and we found Gemmi. So we wrote him and asked if we could stay with him. He said he would love to have us stay...so we showed up at his door a couple weeks later! He was so nice and gave us a key and said I have to go to work but go in and out as you please.
So in this picture: obviously on the left is Matt then Marie, Gemmi, and Aurelia. Marie and Aurelia were also couch surfing and they are from Germany! Two fun and very sweet girls. This is their senior trip actually! :) I wish I could have gone to Scotland on my senior trip!
There are really a lot of benefits to couch surfing. You get to meet locals and learn all about everything. We learned what tv shows were hip, what the culture is like, what's sports are most popular. Gemmi also told us all about the government situation between England and how they have a small partial govt that is controlling part of Scotland. Also in this case we were able to meet fellow travelers. They made us some german cuisine and we had a picnic in the living room and hung out and watched Scotland's most famous soap opera :) It was really fun getting to know them all! They were awesome!!!
These two pictures (above and below) are the central square!
Here is something I wish I could see in the states!
This is the gothic cathedral look! Beautiful, huh?



These are pictures of the Edinburgh Castle.
We followed the river that goes through the city.


It was probably the best walk I've ever had! :) We had an amazing time in Scotland! Then we packed the suitcase of food into our day packs, and the couple t-shirts that we brought into the other pack and were off to Ireland...:)