We ran out of underwear today. For this reason, I took a jaunt down to the Launderette after breakfast at our hostel while Brian stayed behind and did some work. Our hostel, by the way, is Castle Rock Hostel, an old, well-established haunt right at the bottom of the stairs to Edinburgh Castle. There are some really long-term guests here, and we feel a little out of place when we’re in the common areas. But our room is comfortable enough, and the showers are not as bad as the last hostel in Skye… but, I digress. After the laundry was done (5 pounds, 40 pence later!), I came back to the hostel and we set out to explore the city. Our first stop was a guided tour of Mary King’s Close, the only part of old Edinburgh preserved from the 1500s. In the mid-1700s, the houses in the area known as Mary King's Close were "decapitated" so that the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers) could be build on their foundations. The old streets and houses have been more or less preserved under the Exchange building since then, while the surrounding area has been almost completely demolished and rebuilt. Below, an existing "Close" (read: narrow passage between buildings):
The tour was not as scary as we’d hoped, but it was definitely interesting. When it was over, we walked down into the “new” town. In this case, “new” means 1700s and after—this second part of the city was built in response to the overcrowding (and consequent disease) in the old town. Today, new town has more of the designer fashion stores and high-end shops (yippee!). We sat down for a cappuccino (me) and that deceiving brownie (Brian), and then took a few hours to stroll around the shops. Clothes here are pretty cheap, but we’re even cheaper, so there weren’t many purchases.
We found a bar boasting 2 meals for 7 pounds, so we stopped there for a dinner of bangers and mash (with peas and onion gravy). We continued our walk into the evening, venturing into Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, a creepy old graveyard with stones and “mortsafes” from the 16 and 1700s. According to Wikipedia, it’s one of the Sci-Fi channel’s “Scariest Places on Earth”, and it’s supposed to be haunted. It was admittedly pretty unnerving.
Leaving the graveyard, we walked toward the hostel, as most of the shops were closing and the weather was looking a bit menacing. Brian spent most of the walk home trying to convince me to get drunk because the liquor is so cheap here. It didn’t happen. We’re winding down now, and planning to hit up a café in the morning for coffee and a better breakfast than the one offered here (seriously, there was about a kilogram of whole nuts in my muesli this morning… sounds good, but really isn’t). After that, we’re going on a free, three-hour walking tour at 11am, and then spending the rest of the day making sure we’ve seen and done as much as possible before we jet off to Dublin (New accents! New money! New food! New scenery!) on Saturday.
Thanks for following us—keep checking in! We promise to take better pictures of Edinburgh tomorrow, ones that will give you a better sense of the kind of city it is (and it's a freakin' . For now, here's something you'll only find funny if you're as immature as we are:
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