Edinburgh and Paris... unplugged...

Ok... so even though it's spelled Edinburgh, it's pronounced "ed-in-bur-ugh." The Sunday we left, I spent the entire day in London, carrying, no, lugging my stuff for the week around with me. This was NOT fun. Martha rode in with me and got off at the Victoria Street Station and I went on to my first Christmas choir practice at church, then church, then hauled my ass off to the tube line to meet Martha. Steve, who was supposed to meet us, made us crazy because he almost missed the bus, but he made it. We got a seat at the back of the bus and were immediately annoyed by a stupid Scottish girl giggling loudly... almost the ENTIRE way there. I'm sooo annoyed that my ipod isn't working (it hates my windows vista at the moment).

When we got there, I was a little annoyed (not getting a lot of sleep will do that to a person) and we found a McDonalds and had some breakfast, cause we were starving. So everything is smaller in Europe, so we had 2 breakfasts and found our hostel down the road. On the way there, we stopped on the bridge and took pictures of the sun coming up over the castle. It was magical cause the sky was pink and purple like at the end of Sleeping Beauty. Awesome.

After showers we wandered out to Edinburgh castle. It was built around 1100ad and is a traditional fortress castle, which means, it was built for protection during war, not to be a disney resort. It has 6 gates, each of which will do nasty things to you if you try to get in when they are locked. A really cute Scottish soldier gave us a tour and flirted with us a little bit. At this moment I'm going to add in that Scottish accents are very cute, rivalling the English accent for me. Maybe I'm used to the English accent now, but Scottish... I lean in a bit when they speak--it's very cool.

Post-Castle we did some shopping and found a quasi-cool pub for the night where we played cards and didn't really talk to anyone. ( In case you don't know, the best part of pubbing is meeting new people).

Next day we hopped on a hop-on/hop-off bus tour and saw the Palace at Holyrood (built on a Medieval Abbey) and it was beautiful. This is the place that Mary Queen of Scots lived a lot and where her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth and the royal family come every summer for her annual garden party. I TOTALLY want to get on THAT guest list.

After that we shopped more and found the most adorable rocketdog shoes... one is rainboots with dinosaurs on them, one has owls on them... I'm getting both, that's all there is to it. That night after gorging ourselves on Chinese Buffet, we found a pub that was doing karaoke and totally joined in... at a shot per song, it was totally worth it.

Next morning I left and was on my merry way to Paris where it took me an HOUR to figure out how to get from Charles de Gaul to Gare du Nord. I finally had to ask for help in English... but as I stayed there my French got better.

The hostle we stayed in was a bit crazy. The owner's whole theory is that we should never leave the bar. So he wanted the bar tenders to be more interesting than the Eiffel Tower... ugh...ok.

I waited the whole day for Matt to join me and we walked around for ages. My feet still hurt from how much I walked around Paris... for real, 10 hours a fricking day.

Next day we were joined by Keith and Katie after we saw Notre Dame, Le Sacre Coeur, and a ton of other monuments.

The next day we took a walking tour (for 3. hours) and saw a ton of stuff. Did you know, for example, that the Eiffel Tower could have also been a windmill or a giant cyclops... I totally voted cyclops, but I guess the world fair people didn't buy it at the time. We also hit the Louvre museum and saw the eiffel tower, which lights up and sparkles on the hour (which explains some of my weird pictures on facebook).

Other places of note are the Pere Lachaisse Cemetery where Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are burried... both say hi btw. Oscar's grave is covered in kisses... people LOVE him.

Culturally, I think I like Edinburgh better than Paris, also Paris is a bit expensive... and the people are a bit... spikey and rude, impatient, etc. The city is huge and beautiful, but it has no time for rookies. Edinburgh you feel at home and everyone is friendly. It's also beautiful, but more medieval beauty. Also my favorite thing in Paris to eat was crepes with nutella and bananas... OMG whoever invented nutella is amazing... and my best friend and awesome.

In Edinburgh I bought a kilt and a kilt pin... and some miscellaneous Christmas presents for certain people who shall remain nameless till Christmas. Since I don't have a clan, I chose Isle of Skye (purple and green) for my tartan and a thistle (symbol of Scotland) kilt pin... they kick ass and I look cute. Huzzah!

Good travel tips... if you want to drink in Paris, don't go to a bar, go to a grocery and buy your own and get trashed by a quay (it's fun).... bad idea, drinking 8/9ths of a bottle of Malibu in 2 hours and then repeating yourself for the next 3 while you sober up (let's play the "everytime Jenny repeats herself she takes a chug of water" game). Thanks to Keith and Katie who made me drink a ton of water so I didn't pass out, barf, or have a hangover the next day. Don't worry... Passion Fruit Malibu, I still love you... just not a whole bottle at a time.

It was obvious that I had to do one stupid/embarrassing thing on my trip... that was it. For those who aren't on facebook and want to see my photos, the links are below:

London:
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030881&l=8d911&id=55300903

Cambridge:
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031065&l=5ed85&id=55300903

Edinburgh:
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032863&l=8d0bb&id=55300903

Paris 1:
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032867&l=d3b8e&id=55300903

Paris 2:
http://messiah.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032869&l=ebff3&id=55300903

I miss everyone and I hope you are all doing well. Please let me know how you are doing.

Cheers!