So. It's been nearly two weeks since I got back from Scotland, so I figured it's about time I told you about it. I will discuss in chronological order.

MONDAY:
Go to school, really empty there since it was fall break. Everyone in the junior and senior art class, as well as two teachers, pack their stuff in the art room. Total 13 people went on the trip. Sit on train for an hour. Switch trains. Sit for a few hours. Switch trains again, sit for a few hours again, get to Skavsta Airport where we flew with RyanAir. The passport checker man said something to me, but I couldn't hear him since there was glass between, so I asked him to repeat it, like five times. Finally I realized he was asking me where I was going, and I was so flustered by not hearing him that I just sat there, completely blank. Took me like thirty seconds to realize that, oh yes, I was going to Edinburgh, which I told him with an accidentally horrid accent. He looked at me with pity in his eyes, and asked me, "Are you ok?" in a super sympathetic motherly tone. I just love making the passport checker dudes think I am mentally handicapped. Not. The RyanAir plane had creepy classical music before takeoff, and then when we landed they played some sort of happy trumpet thing and then ranted about how perfect their on-time record was. Kind of scary. And weird. It was late by then, so we rode one of those awesome double-decker buses, then walked the rest of the way to the hostel (Budget Backpackers). This place was crazy. Stairs up, stairs down, random uphill in the middle of the corridor for no reason followed by another step down, crazy murals on the walls, walls painted in multicolored fashion. The juniors, six of us, slept in the same room, there were three bunk beds. Showers were moldy (I was for once thankful that I can not see anything without my glasses) but considering how cheap the rooms were it was pretty good. I went to bed quite early, as did Emma, the rest were outside running around in the local graveyard.

TUESDAY:
Pouring rain. Got up (I was the last one up, tired the entire trip and headache, got some sort of bug on the plane) ate brekkers, then went on a promenade through Edinburgh. Everything looks like a medieval city, grey stone buildings, totally awesome. We passed the endless stairs, and a 70 year old deliveryman who sang "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go" etc etc etc very loudly and very off-key. It was quite charming. Went to the National Gallery of Scotland or somesuch pompous place, looked at paintings for a few hours. Then we got the afternoon off to do what we wanted to, as long as we were back at BB before six. Emma and I ate Chinese lunch with the teachers, and then promptly got lost. Or rather, I got lost because I fail at reading a map, and Emma was too tired/headachey to take over. So we wandered around in the rain for three hours before we finally discovered the way back. Did some souvenir shopping on the way. Also discovered a little tea shop that was located above a souvenir shop, just a little sign outside the door that Emma saw, I would have completely missed it. Decided that we would eat lunch there the next day. When we got back to the hostel, we cooked dinner in one of the guest kitchens and ate together. I got kicked out of the kitchen when Emma mentioned how hazardous it was to let me near boiling water or knives. Camilla (one of the teachers) dumped so much pepper in the pasta sauce that a lot of people could hardly get it down. Poor Emma. I ended up finishing hers, hehehe... I think my cold dulled my senses a bit. I went to bed at 8, due to headache, and didn't wake up at all when everyone else showed up several hours later.

WEDNESDAY: Up last, again. Received a few comments about how much I was sleeping. I can't help it if my head feels like it's going to explode. Luckily I was smart and packed a lot of ibuprofen. We went to the Dean Gallery and National Gallery of Modern Art or whatever it was called. Weather was absolutely gorgeous. The modern art was weird. Apparently, putting a dead sheep in that biology preserving liquid, i forget what it's called right now, f-something? formaldehyde, that's it, I think. anyway, that apparently counts as art. Kid of grosslich. Like the day before, we got the afternoon off, and emma and I decided to go find that tea shop. Meaning we got lost again, but it was ok. We did some more shopping, and went into a bag store to find a bag for Emma. The salesman was one of those foreign dudes, and he saw Emma looking at a back and ran up and said "That very good bag, I give you very good price, put it on your shoulder and feel it, you like it I give very special price, just for you!" I barely understood what he said, but he ran off to check the price, supposedly, and then came back saying £20 as a special favor to Emma. We said she was going to think about it, and left. Then we realized that £20 was indeed a very good deal after loooking in other stores, but we couldn't find our way back and that dude was scary anyway. Then we got to the tea shop and went upstairs. Four old ladies in a corner, and no one else. We were the only tourists there. I don't usually like tea, but I drank this peppermint tea that was absolutely delicious. And the best chicken salad I've ever tasted. We sat there for ages, it was too good and too cozy to leave. But leave we did, to return to the hostel, where everything gathered and went to a local restaurant. The tables were small, so the waitress was going to push them together since we were 13 people, but Lina didn't realize that and stood between two tables, therefore in the way. in Swedish one of our group told her "Get out of the way, she's moving the tables" and Lina turned around, and aplogized to the waitress in English, who said in SWEDISH "Oh no problem". Lina's expression, absolutely priceless. It was fun to see a Swedish waitress in a Scottish restaurant. No, I never did eat haggis with neeps and tatties, although it was on the menu. But headache returned halfway through dinner, so Emma and I paid separately and walked home, where I lay down on the bed for a bit just to get rid of the headache. But then i fell asleep on accident, and nobody wanted to wake me up. Apparently I looked too peaceful or something. So I wake up right when everyone else is turning out the light. Had to get up and change to pajamas, rather awkward in the dark, and others found it funny that when they go to sleep, I get up.

THURSDAY: Got up last, per usual, eliciting yet more comments about my ability to sleep. Rode doubledecker bus again back to the airport. Travelled a bunch again, lalalalala, got home late so I slept at Emma's house which is five minutes walk from the train station (my house is an hour's bus ride away, plus everyone shared a bag with someone else to cut down on fees, and I shared with Emma so we had to go unpack her stuff anyway). Got home Friday morning finally. Dead tired, still headachey, but probably one of the best trips I've ever taken.

The entire city was a rollercoaster, up and down and up and down, so clumsy little Anna was tripping constantly. As yu can probably see, I took a lot of pictures, although I only uploaded about a third to DA. My memory card is only a measly 128MB, so I ran out of memory pretty quick. I might be getting either a new camera or a new memory card very soon though, which is pretty exciting I think. Umm... let's see, did I miss anything about Scotland? Emma, you can fill in the omitted details, you have a wonderful memory. Whew, now my wrists hurt from typing.