More on Scotland

The people in Scotland seem a lot happier than they do here in NY. I'm not sure if that's because I was in such a good mood, or if they really were incredibly happy people. Everyone there was ready to help us with everything even if they didn't have to, or if they weren't getting anything in return. The woman who ran our B&B was so friendly and helpful. She gave us so much advice about where we should go and what we should definitely see before we left. She also refilled us with plenty of tea.

And I don't know if it's just because I love the accent so much and I also love kilts, but the men in Scotland were so much more attractive than anyone I have ever seen around where I live. I usually never find anyone attractive, but I fell in love about 50 different times while in Edinburgh. The number one love of my life was this bartender who we saw twice. He was honestly one of the most attractive people I have ever laid eyes on, and I'm certain that I am going to go back to Edinburgh one day and we will be married. With my luck he probably already has a girlfriend. He was that good looking.

The food was also great. I enjoyed the food in Scotland more than the food in London, but that might be because we sampled a lot more than just Indian food. We tried haggis of course, which was really not as terrible as I was expecting it to be based on the way it was described. We liked it enoough that we ate it twice. My all time favorite thing that we ate has to be shepherds pie. It was so good. I was not expecting it to be the most amazing thing I had ever had but it really was. I can't even describe the way it tasted. I have had shepherds pie here in NY and it doesn't even compare

Highlands

We didn't just stay in Edinburgh, we also explored the Scottish highlands. Believe it or not there are free tours that take you around. The only thing they ask for in return is a donation, and for the most part we were more than happy to pay it since we had such a good time. At first I didn't want to go on the tour because I was worried that it would take time away from our stay and there was so much that we hadn't explored yet, but in the end I am so glad that we went.

The scottish highlands are beautiful. It's the most naturey I have ever felt, if that makes any sense. We also got to see highland cows which are the cutest things I have ever seen in my life. I didn't even know these things existed until we got to scotland, but I fell in love instantly, and I would like to have 10 of them as my pets. Alas I don't think you're allowed to have Highland cows in NY. Anyway the cows were so cute and stumpy and hairy. They call them hairy coos, which makes sense since they really do have a lot of hair.

I'm amazed by how small scotland seems to be since we were able to do a highland tour and also get right back to Edinburgh all in the same day. The one thing I regret not doing while we were there was a ghost tour. Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, and I love spooky stuff. If I ever went back this is definitely something I want to do. I want to go into the vault and also visit mary king's close. Unfortunately all of these things are really expensive, which was probably our main reason for not doing them. We had already spent so much money buying stuff in London that we were trying to save a bit when we got to Edinburgh.

Holyrood Park

The thing that amazed me most in Edinburgh was Holyrood park. This was just this massive piece of real nature right smack in the middle of a city. We went to Holyrood to climb up Arthur's Seat which is what most people go there to do. We were not prepared for the fact that climbing up would mean you would have to be certified in rock climbing or something. It was the most exhausting, difficult, and scary thing I have ever done.

I am not kidding when I say that there were several times while climbing Arthur's seat when I actually thought that I was going to die. It was so windy and I am really small, so I thought that I was honestly just going to fly off the side and tumble all the way down. Getting to the top was worth it though. You can see the entire city from the top and it is incredible. If I lived in Edinburgh I think I would climb it every week. When we left we had to laugh at the fact that there is a really easy field we could have went through to get to the top instead of climbing along the side and almost dying. Oh well, we'll remember that for next time.

We also got to go to the castle which was great because of the amazing scones that we ate in the castle cafe. This was the first time I had ever eaten a scone before and it was seriously delicious. The caslte itself was not that amazing because it was mostly just a bunch of museums about war, so I thought it was really expensive for what you got inside, but the scones and tea that we had made the entire thing worth it. To this day I still think about that beautiful scone, and I don't think that I am ever going to have anything that tastes that amazing.

Scotland Scotland

Being in Scotland was like being in a fairy tale land. It was everything I could have ever hoped for and more. I went to the UK thinking that I was going to be in love with London, but I really think I left my heart in Edinburgh. Scotland felt so much more foreign than London did. I know a lot of things like having people play bagpipes and having tartan all over the place was just a way to please the tourists but it totally worked on me. If there is one place that I would move to in the blink of an eye, it would be edinburgh. In fact I constantly find myself trying to devise any sort of plan to move there, although I think it would be really difficult.

Edinburgh was really beautiful. As soon as we got off the train we saw the castle right in the middle of the city. Navigating Edinburgh was not so beautiful, and the weather was horrific. Even though we were there in the summer, it was cold enough to be a NY winter. I knew that the weather in Scotland was supposed to be bad, but I really wasn't expecting it to be as terrible as it was. We were so happy to be in Scotland though that the terrible weather hardly put even a small damper on our moods.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast which was really nice and close to the old town city center. We were right next to everything that we needed to be next to. Old town was my favorite part of Edinburgh. I love how everything felt like something straight out of Harry Potter, which shouldn't have been surprising since JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter there. The funniest thing was all of the cafes which claimed that JK Rowling had written inside of them.

From London to Scotland

Our time in London was great, and I enjoyed seeing all of the famous sites. At some points it became a little bit overwhelming because there was so much that we wanted to do and not enough time to do it. Even now, I feel like I had just scratched the surface of London and I would really like to go again and explore more. The problem with me and my friend traveling together is that I come from a walking city and she comes from a driving city, so while I'm pretty much okay with walking everywhere and exploring, she always felt the need to have a properly laid out plan. I really just wanted to wander around and see things organically. I think next time I go to the UK I would want to go by myself, or with someone who enjoys walking as much as I do.

One of my favorite parts of London were the parks. They were so beautiful. There was one park, which name escapes me at the moment, which really made me feel like I was in Pride & Prejudice or something, just waiting for Mr. Darcy to spring up out of no where.

I loved the way London felt at night as well. Unfortunately my friend was always ready to retire early when I really wanted to stay outside and see as much as we could well into the night. I really need to go back and do more.

Once London was done we hopped on a train and headed to Edinburgh in Scotland. Now this was the part I was the most excited about because I really had no idea what to expect about Scotland. I was really excited because I couldn't wait to hear some real life Scottish accents, and I was not let down when we stepped out of the train.

UK food

There was a lot to love about London but I think the thing I loved most (besides the tea) was the indian food. Holy moly. I love Indian so much, and I knew that brits were also crazy about Indian food, so I was excited to see if it would compare with anything that I had already eaten at home. It was better than anything I had ever expected. My friend who had never eaten indian food before became instantly in love with it.

We vowed that we would try a lot of different food while we were in London, but we ended up eating Indian food essentially the entire time that we were there. Anytime we were thinking about what we should have for dinner we would just succumb to the urges of the chicken tikka. I don't think there was ever a happier moment than when we were in those restaurants eating the Indian food.

Aside from Indian food, we also tried fish and chips at a pub. My friend loved it, but I absolutely hated the fish. I generally do enjoy eating fish, but the fish that came with the fries was so bland and I really hate tartar sauce. I was very disappointed with it since it's such a staple of English cuisine.

I don't think we tried anything else exciting while we were in London since we spent so much time eating Indian food. I did have a falafel which wasn't any better than any falafel I have eaten in New York. It was still quite good, and the man who made it for me was incredibly nice, so I think that service helps food taste even better.

Oh yeah, we also had delicious italian pasta in a proper italian restaurant. I usually don't go crazy for pasta, but the pasta I had at this restaurant was really really good.

To Kettle or not To Kettle

I love drinking tea, so now I am wondering if I should buy a good tea kettle. I always thought that tea kettles were stupid, because I didn't understand having a separate piece of equipment just to boil water. I used the microwave to boil water. Almost all avid tea drinkers would shake their heads at something like that. It wasn't until I went to Europe last year that I finally started to understand the fine art of tea drinking.

I stayed in London for an entire month and drank a months worth of tea. It set a fire in me to learn everything that there is to know about making great cups of tea. It wasn't even until recently that I started to learn that different types of tea require different temperatures to steep at! How could I have possibly known about this? And I had been boiling my water in a microwave all of this time. I think I am starting to become a bit of a tea snob. Ha!

Anyway, I have started to research different tea kettles, and I didn't realize there was such a large variety of them. I could go for a boring old standard 20 dollar water boiler, but I'm really drawn into the tea kettles that have lots of different settings for different kinds of teas since I am so interested in exploring different kinds of tea making, I found this site Teapot and Kettle which I used to help me get started with some tea kettle reviews and it helped inform me a bit more about different kettles. I'm starting to understand more about what I want, but I definitely need to research more since the nice ones can be pricey. I'd like to buy a teapot too.

Would it be silly to buy something so expensive for something so simple as water boiling? I do think I will use it all of the time. I think I may just go ahead and buy it. It's a good investment for me. Uh oh, here we go!

London apartment rentals

Apartment rentals abroad are the best discovery I could have made before traveling to the UK. Before I started researching where we would stay, I had never heard of renting a temporary apartment. After perusing a couple of travel blogs, I found so many different sites where you could find people who were renting their entire apartments, or even rooms within their apartments. Doing this was so much more cheap than it would have been to stay in a hotel. The entire stay for a room in an apartment came out to 300 pounds total. That's 2 people for an entire week. I never thought we would find a deal like that.

The apartment was not in the most amazing neighborhood in London, but we were right next to the tube station, which was perfect. It never took us very long to get anywhere in the city. The apartment itself was actually pretty great. It had one of the nicest kitchens i had ever seen. Our room was the only bedroom on the first floor so we basically had the entire place for ourselves.  The only problem with it was that the toilet was in a completely seperate room than the sink and the shower which was a bit strange. I had never seen anything like it.

My favorite part of the apartment was the abundance of free tea in the kitchen. We were set for the entire week we were there, and boy did we become addicted to drinking tea. I always liked tea, but I can't imagine it not being a daily part of my life after my stay in the UK. We drank several cups of tea in the morning and then another few cups of it at night. We could not get enough of it! Now I'll have to go make myself a cup of tea since I'm getting thirsty.

London trains

Arriving to the UK was amazing. As soon as I exited the plane in Heathrow I had a huge grin because there were Union Jacks everywhere and signs that had those soldiers with the black hats on. I had finally arrived in the place I had always wanted to be. The only downside to this was that the people who worked in the airport were incredibly rude. Every time I asked for help it was like the last thing they wanted to do was deal with me. This is an issue with every airport though, so I'm not going to hold it against them.

My friend and I were travelling from different states, so we met each other in the airport. We were both so excited. As soon as we got together we bought our Oyster cards and hopped on the underground to get to the apartment that we would be temporarily renting. Riding the tube was so surreal. It's really strange to do something that you've seen so many times on television. It was like I had already done it before even though it was my first time.

Now most people would probably find things like trains incredibly boring, but the tube was the thing that I was most impressed about in London. I was amazed by how quickly all of the trains arrived. They were a million times better than anything I had ever experienced on the New York Subway system. We never waited more than about a minute for a train to come the entire time that we were in London. I don't know if it's like that all over London, or if it was mostly because we remained within zone 1, but it was amazing.

The last thing I ever thought I would be most impressed about London is the trains, but I have to say, they were really great.

My time in Europe

I am in love with Europe. For the first time in my entire life I got to leave the country and travel the Great Britain. This is something that I have wanted to do for longer than I can even remember. I had never left the country to go anywhere before this. So I thought I would make a blog to talk about my time there. I was there for several weeks and it was the most amazing experience of my life. At first I was actually worried that I was going to be disappointed because I had hyped it up so much in my brain but I definitely wasn't.

I went with my best friend in the entire world which made the experience even more fun. I couldn't imagine doing something like this with anyone but her. We had always talked about traveling together, but we could never make it work because of other things going on. We either had work, or school, or not enough money. But finally all of the stars aligned perfectly in the sky and we made it happen at last.

I can't stop thinking about my time there. Being back in the states is pretty depressing. I feel as though I was meant to be living in the UK instead. I loved all of the vibes that I felt being there. It's so much better here. It's funny that I want to move to another major city in another country when I already live in one of the United States mosts popular big cities. THE big city to be exact. But nothing compares with what I experienced when I spent my time in England and Scotland. And I will use these blank spots on this blog to document my time there.