BRUH idk how to use substack. apparently i posted this on my account and not my newsletter so here it goes again. hopefully it makes it to your inbox this time…
Hellooooo. I’m coming to you from a farm in Murhtly, a tiny village in Perthsire, Scotland, but I’ll tell you about this later. I spent the first four days of my adventure in the beautiful and bustling Edinburgh. It happened to be during student move-in weekend, so I didn’t feel as ridiculous as I had on the subway in New York walking around with a massive bright blue backpack on my back and a smaller bright green one on my front.
The first day was a haze of excitement and exhaustion. I walked around the Old Town and went through every close (alley) I came across and got my bearings. I bought a down jacket from Uniqlo (it’s already 45 F here aka 7 C (I’m trying to learn Celsius)). I walked through Princes Street Garden. I decided I think bagpipes are beautiful, contrary to what iCarly taught me to believe.
Somehow I managed to go to bed at 11pm, despite getting MAYBE 4 hours of nap on the plane the night before. I think my body knew it was supposed to be 6pm. The hostel I booked was one of the pod ones, so my twin bed space was completely closed in besides a small opening that was drawn closed by a blackout curtain. I put in my earplugs, but sometime in the night I woke up in a panic of claustrophobia and ripped them out, which seemed to help. Overall I’d say it was a very solid first hostel experience, with almost pristine facilities, but almost no social mingling, maybe because the kind of privacy it offered attracted older adults and introverts.
The second day I had a mission to hike around Holyrood Park, recommended to me by my friend Lucy. Actually most of my itinerary was designed from a PDF she made after studying abroad in Edinburgh. I went to this breakfast place allegedly (by the pdf) good for its Full Scottish Breakfast, but after much deliberation and fear of haggis I went for the veggie kilted eggs, so I got to try FAKE haggis and black pudding. It was really good. Then I set off for Holyrood, only a 15 minute walk to the entrance from my hostel.
I passed a starkly modern building that turned out to be Parliament as I approached the park. The trees ended and gave way to the vast greenery that lay right in the heart of Edinburgh. Arthur’s Seat, the “hill” inside Holyrood, loomed upwards into dense fog. Having no knowledge of the trails, I followed a couple that walked up a steep dirt path diverging off the main gravel one. Within minutes the city had faded into the fog beneath me and I was climbing a ridge that continued upwards a distance I couldn’t see. I wanted to go even more remote, so I took the first left turn I saw, which was a path of trampled grass that I decided looked trustworthy. I kept walking until I could hear almost nothing but the wind in my ears. At one point I got nervous that I was going in completely blind, both in knowledge and in visual information. I could barely tell which way was up since the fog obscured everything. After a quick flash imagining getting injured or trampled by a deer and being left there to die, and a quick check that I still had service, I decided I was probably fine. I stood still in between rolling hills and dips and listened for nothing. The peace was exhilarating.
Soon after I carried on the seemingly middle-of-nowhere trail, a dog ran up from below, which instantly dissolved my lingering worries. I guess that’s where everyone regularly takes their dogs and goes on hikes. I took the next steepest path up and finally made it back to the ridge, only this time it dropped off in a rocky cliff. I got right up to the edge. My pants were soaked from walking through the grass. Good thing I got waterproof shoes. Someone had a Target dog whose bark later down in the valley boomed as it resonated off the hills. Down in the valley, I chose a path that went through Hunter’s Bog. I didn’t see much of a bog but it sure was muddy, and the mist made it feel magical. I came out the other end almost where I entered, and checked out the 11th century church ruin before I left. There was a woman taking self-timer pictures of herself posing in front of it for most of the time.
I went into Holyrood Palace after, which was beautiful of course, and interesting if you’re interested in royal history, which I can’t say I am. I skipped through most of the guided tour, except for the part where it took you through a plotted murder scheme that happened in Mary, Queen of Scots’ bedroom, complete with sound effects. Later in my twin bed pod I pirated Mary Queen of Scots (2018) starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. The sun came out as I was finishing my walk through the Palace gardens, for the first time since my arrival.
That night, I met up with a friend I danced with in high school who’s living in Edinburgh at the popular student bar. The spot had a lot of character. Just shit everywhere, it was visually screaming at you — a ceiling dripping with gloves, a dinosaur and volcano scene suspended upside down on a beam, menu full of sexual innuendos, flashing colorful lights. The friend’s girlfriend came later and brought her friend, named, you’ll never guess, Lucy, but she was Scottish. It was tons of fun. Right as we were going to leave, I saw a different person I danced with growing up, completely random. I guess Cambridge follows you everywhere.
Okay this is getting long. Since that’s the end of my Day Two I will leave you with this and finish the rest later this weekend. You can look forward to seeing my vlog in the next post. Oh one more thing:
Sorry if you hate that thanks for reading love you xx
Love, love, love. Your writing. Bagpipes and iCarly. LOL. Someday maybe you will get to hear the Galician version in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, at the end of the Camino. Otherworldly.
i want to meet scottish lucy