the search for nessie.

now that i had been over quite a bit of england i was super excited about getting to see a new country! still part of the uk, but something very new. the minute i told anyone i was going to scotland they always asked about the lochness monster. it was so funny! so thursday morning we headed to our earliest train that we darn near missed because we left a bit too late from st. johns. most of us were not awake on the train ride up, the travel was really startin to get to us.

the view from the train.
when nate yelled at me to wake up lol.

about 2 hours later we arrived in edinburgh to a completely new scenery! it was so gothic and dark and daring, very cool. we split 2 smaller groups again because 13 people are wayyy too many to try and wrangle together. we started off heading up the street to the castle where the queen stays when she comes stay in scotland. i couldnt get over how different it all looked from england and that there werent nearly the amount of people as the last few days. it was actually quite nice and allowed us to slow down a bit.

 once we made it to the top of the hill we decided it was time for lunch! i was hungry already (surprise, surprise) but we couldnt decide where to go. i was all in for the rave reviews we heard about jacket potatoes, i was dying for some carbs in my life, but the place didnt have seating so we would have had to sit outside and it wasnt the warmest day ever. we ended up at an "american" place that had quite the variety on the menu, for sure an american thing, but it still tasted uk-ish haha. i was so hungry though it didnt even matter!

i did see this very stylish hat on the way:)

afterward we headed to the top of the street to see edinburgh castle which was gorgeous and had a fantastic view of the whole city! the castles there were much bigger and taller than the ones in england, so interesting. also at the top of the hill was the scarf factory where they invented plaid!! I was so super excited because I seriously love plaid if you didn't know. it was really cool because all the different patterns and colors stood for different clans that each family hailed from, I never knew that! you could even have your own kilt made there:)

the view from the castle.

seriously huge!

soo cool. i heart plaid!

not far down the road and around the corner was another harry potter place i had to see. the elephant house, as in where jk rowling went to write the original harry potter books!!! she's even rumored to have a flat or home near there. we vintages shopped nearby for awhile to pass some time and so amanda could show us some of the places she went to while studying abroad. i realized while browsing that i am not a good vintage shopper lol. the things just don't look right one me haha.

nerd alert!

ahhh!

we headed back to princes street the big shopping street to browse for souvenirs and head back to the train station. i purchased my nessie stuffed animal and magnet for my parents, turns out we were much too far south to see her. after picking up some authentic shortbread and actually finding the shirt in richards size i had looked all over york for we needed to meet our group to return to durham. i could have seriously spent a few days there but we had to get back for the rehearsal!

he played so beautifully!

everyone was passed out asleep not long after the train left the station and it was a great 2 hourish nap back! we returned to st johns to drop our stuff and headed to the church. alyse and i finally realized why nate was always huffing and puffing while walking anywhere with us on the phone, cause holy crap the hills there are steep! once we reached the church we were glad for a break.

the church was beautiful and was actually celebrating its 900th anniversary this year! it was freezing inside but the pastor had us laughing and the whole wedding party buzzing while we were there. i sat back with alyses super nice husband brad and took loads of pictures of course, which turned out to be a good thing because we couldn't saturday!

once finished tearing up we were free for the evening and amanda and i headed back running into alyse and brad who i joined for a drink at the pub. the next day was pretty free and we could actually sleep in and and the nap had helped so we stayed out a little getting to know each other. it was so nice to sit down with such normal people my age and not have any cares other than we're going to have another drink or not. 1 was all we ended up drinking and then heading back to st johns to turn in. it was a great day :)