April 7th, 2014

This morning we had our continental breakfast at theCaledonian Backpackers Hostel. It wasn’t anything too fanc but it was good. Then we packed up our stuff and checked out. We still have tons of time until our flight so we decided to go see Edinburgh Castle. Since our CitySightseeing tickets were still valid, we walked to the nearest bus stop to catch the bus up the hill (we didn’t feel like carrying all our stuff up the hill).

Edinburgh Castle is absolutely spectacular! Set on top of a dead volcano, it overlooks the city. There is so much history in it and the architecture is spectacular. You can see the entire city, all the way down to the bay, from the castle walls. There really aren’t words to describe it, so here are some photos…

On our way back down the hill, Franny and I stopped in front of her grandparents old house for a photo. They lived in Edinburgh for 5 years some time ago and they are literally the last house before you reach the castle, it was incredible!

We had lunch in the old city at a nearby pub. We were both craving nachos so we stood outside the pub until it opened. We found out later that the pub opened late because the power had been out all morning. The nachos were amazing! Definitely hit the spot!

We still had three hours before we had to be at the airport for our flight so after lunch we walked back to St.Andrews Square to catch another in our line of bus tours, the Majestic line this time, which would take us down to the port to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, the queen’s old sailing vessel.

To get to the Royal Yacht, you have to go up to the top level of a mall in order to cross over to the ship. It was so cool to see it. The Royal Yacht Britannia was home to Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family for over 40 years, sailing over 1,000,000 miles around the world. It hosted several honeymoons as well. It was beautiful inside, exactly what I would expect from Her Majesty’s Yacht.

On our way out of the mall, I had to run into a Build-A-Bear Workshop because I saw a Merida costume, something not yet available in Canada. As she is my favorite princess, and we are in Scotland I couldn’t resist! Then it was back on the Majestic Tour bus back to St. Andrews Square, then on to the Airport Shuttle to get us to our flight.

Going through security was a little more hectic this time. You can be a model citizen and security will still make you feel like you’re a secret terrorist or something. Franny even had to go into the full body X-ray!

I was struggling with some of my stuff (I bought a lot of souvenirs) so in the airport I decided to buy a bag with “Scotland” all over it, and on the way to the cash register I found a super cute change purse with a bunch of different cities and locations on it, including Ayr and Dundee where my ancestors are from, and Edinburgh and Loch Lomond where I visited on my trip. Unfortunately, my purchases forced us to have to run for the plane, it was on the other side of the airport and we didn’t realize it. Oh well, we made the flight all right.

We arrived in Dublin around supper time so on the way out we stopped at a little café for sandwhiches. We had to ask the information desk how to get to Galway from there (Galway is on the opposite side of the country from Dublin) and they told us not to worry, there were a couple different buses that would take us there in 2 ½ hours.

The bus ride was long and kinda boring, we took the most direct route so we didn’t get to see any of the beautiful spots in Ireland. Franny and I actually slept most of the way there. When we arrived, Franny’s friend Mel was waiting for us at the coach station. They both go to the University of Ottawa and both are on an international semester at the moment. We told her we were still ok carrying around our stuff so she took us to a local pub to meet up with her roommate (Gill) and a friend (Shelby) for some drinks and for some traditional Irish music.

It was a lot of fun, very cool to be in a traditional Irish pub, listening to Irish music, with Irish people in Ireland. There was one Irish man who was very fun, an older man, he was quite enjoying his whiskey. He asked us where we were from and where our families came from, and he swore up and down that I was nothing but Irish. It was very entertaining. We also met a couple who recently moved back to Galway from London and they were telling us of all the amazing places we needed to go in London, especially places that they weren’t able to get to.

I also found out that Galway is the home of the Claddagh rings, which is the ring that Loring gave to me before I left for my semester here.  Claddagh rings are traditional Irish rings given representing love, loyalty, and friendship (the hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty). The design and customs associated with it originated in the Irish fishing village of Claddagh, located just outside the old city walls of Galway, now part of Galway City.

After drinks, we caught the last bus back to the girls apartment. Basically just hung out for a few hours, trying to decide what to do tomorrow. Franny and I both wanted to do a day trip and there were two really good ones we had to decide between. We could either go to the Cliffs of Moher, or AranIslands. Both were stunningly beautiful, rich in history, and locations of movie scenes. After asking a bunch of people over Facebook who had done both, everyone was telling us to do Aran Islands, so that’s what we decided. It meant we had to be up and in the city centre for 9 am to buy tickets and catch the shuttle bus.

We spent the night at their place, sleeping on their couches. I slept on the loveseat and it wasn’t too bad.