Edinburgh and the highlands

In Edinburg from April 19th to the 22nd...

So, now you find us on the wonderful discount bus...The Megabus...heading for Edinburgh. To be quite honest with you, nothing could have prepared me for what we saw when we pulled into the city. It was magnificent! It was so old and beautiful. You could just feel how old the city was and all the history there. We were very excited to get out and explore.
This was the first city we have been to up until this point on our trip where we hadn't arranged any accommodation before we arrived. We wandered for only a short time and found the High Street Hostel (part of Macbackpackers group which made me happy!). The girl at reception was so friendly and welcoming that we decided to stay here. (There was, however, a very odd smell throughout the hostel that I never found the source of??) This particular hostel had loads of people living in the hostel and working there and other places, so it was very active and lively all the time. We cooked pretty much every night there and made an Australian friend, Karen, in the process. We ended up bumping into her in the kitchen for breakfast and dinner almost every day and later in our trip, we will into her on the streets of Dublin, Ireland. Small world!
Our first night in the city, we wandered around for a long time, just checking the place out (this is what we do in most of the places we go to...it's becoming our habit) We ran across an advert for a ghost tour that leads you all around the city and even beneath it to the underground city and vaults that people lived in back in the day. We decided this would be a great way to introduce ourselves to this gothic, slightly morbid, but beautiful and interesting city. The tour started at 9pm, so it was good and dark for all the ghost stories and stories of witch hunts, plagues, torture and so on. Our tour guide turned out to be a bit scary herself, both in appearance and in her dramatic reinactments of stories and events. She was quite an actress. She even used me as an extra at one point and killed me. She told us lots of cool things about the city and what it used to be like. We learned a couple new Scottish terms...the only one I remember off hand was "GARDI LOO!" (don't know how to spell it) This is what the citizens of the city yelled out their windows at 10pm every evening when it was time to dump their sewage out the window. This happened every night at 10, so it was not a good idea to be on the streets at this time. There was another phrase you could yell back up at the window, just in case you happened to be on the street, that would make the person wait a few seconds before pouring and you could take cover.
The best part of the tour was definately the vaults. It was crazy to see this network of stone caves underground that people actually lived in. There was no light and you couldn't have a fire cause there was nowhere for the smoke to go. So, it would have been totally black and thousands of pour, homeless, criminals, and low lifes lived here...basically all on top of one another. There are so many ghost stories to go along with the place because, as you can imagine, there was tons of death and so many horrible things that happened there. The guide was successful, I think, in convincing even the most skeptical and level headed of us with some of her stories. At the end of the tour, they had another guide hiding in the vaults and she jumped out at us at a "key" moment, so as you would expect a group of 15 who have just spend the last 30-45 min. underground being told ghost stories, we all JUMPED a mile in the air and screamed. She then took us through the exit of the vaults that led into the most haunted pub in the city. There we found a very small pub with a delightful Scoucer (guy from Liverpool) playing the guitar and singing a little tune. We sat and talked to our guide and a Canadian couple for awhile and then headed off to bed. It was a brillant tour!
For our first full day in Edinburgh (Fri.) we decided to take a short little hike up Arthur's Seat (which I continuously called Arthur's couch). It is a bit difficult to describe what this is..it's kinda a little plateau right on the outskirts of the city that gives you an awesome view from the top. (If I ever get to upload pictures...it will all make more sense) From the top of Arthur's Seat, the view was great! We spent some time looking around and just sitting looking out over the city. It was a pretty clear day, just a little chilly.
After we climbed up Arthur's Seat, we explored the city a bit more. We went and saw the famous Edinburgh castle (we didn't go in, however, because of course it cost too much...about 11pounds/$22) That night we cooked Mexican food, cause we were craving it and hung out with our new friend, Karen, at the hostel.
For Sat., we had arranged a tour through a company that would take us up into the highlands on an all day trip. We chose the Loch Ness tour, so we could go in search of the ever famous Loch Ness Monster (affectionately called Nessy by the locals). That morning we climbed onto a huge yellow bus with our two guides and the driver. Overall, the guides were nice and told a few good stories and we learned some history, but the best thing about the day was just seeing the highlands. They were breathtaking and just massive! The scenery reminded me so much of Alaska (just a little less snow) and it made me a little homesick. We went through all kinds of Glens (valleys) and past so many Lochs (lakes) and Moors (mountains). Every one seemed better than the last. We stopped in one small village where there was a fantastic bakery and Shane discovered steak pies for the first time. He had two and was in love! It was basically roast beef and gravey in a pie shell. He was quite happy that day. We arrived in Fort Augustus (this is where Loch Ness is) and we had 2 hours to explore, eat and look for Nessy. Well, sadly, we didn't see Nessy, but I did see a great sticker that explained why. It said, "Nessy's the name, elusiveness's the game. I though it was quite cute. We did, however, learn that there are about 17 unidentified creatures in Loch Ness (so there is not just one Nessy) and although tons of scientist have tried to study and explore the lake and it's creatures, hardly any progress has been made. I didn't understand the science of it but, below something like 2 feet, you can't see ANYTHING. The loch is actually pitch black and light cannot penetrate it. So, this makes exploration difficult. I can't wait to show you all the pictures of the highlands. They were fantastic!
Now we come to Sunday, and we left Endinburgh to travel up to Aberdeen. Once again, we found ourselves on the Megabus (thanks to the help of my dear friend, Susie)