Edinburgh

 I arrived in Edinburgh late in the afternoon after a huge rainstorm. My first impressions of the city were dark and foreboding in a good way. I had to find a hotel so I could drop my stuff and explore the
city. Now the Scots have a reputation for being a bit crusty. I like crusty. I actually find crusty to be very funny and trust me, the Scots do not disappoint.

I found a hotel online but I am always a bit reserved to enter my credit card info over a WiFi network. I decided to stay at the Royal British Hotel. I rolled up with all my stuff and noticed an older woman smoking a cigarette outside the hotel lobby. I assumed she was an employee, and tried to strike up a conversation with her.

Me- "Hi! I was wondering if the rooms here were nice and if they are affordable?'
Woman- "hgdrjyhtdkjtydfkmghfj!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Me-" I'm sorry I didn't understand that."
Woman- "htgfdnjgrd LATE ROOMS.COM!!!! GET A COMPUTER!!!!"

The hotel was pretty standard fare. It did have a big bath tub, this was becoming more and more important. The little handheld shower spray thingys weren't funny anymore. I need to soak off the road and that meant gallons of hot water.

The next morning I set out for the first day of sight seeing. The old town is filled with narrow streets that twist and turn up and ancient volcano.You can easily see how JK Rowling got her inspiration for Harry Potter.

You get to meet a lot of interesting characters here. I stayed in a great hostel called the Light House. My host John rebuilt the place himself, and was always up for a pint. Here is a link to their face book page.
www.facebook.com/LightHouseHostel

I also met a former tour guide from Grey Friars. He had tons of great stories about people scared out of their minds on midnight tours of the graveyard. He himself never experienced anything, and seamed to think everyone fear was psychosomatic.



The stay in Edinburgh was great, but the next stop is London!