One last night in Scotland

I decided that before I left Scotland that I would spend one night in Edinburgh before leaving for Ireland. It was another long trip, nearly 12 hours, by the time the bus pulled into Edinburgh after what felt like the longest bus ride of my life (because the bus seemed to stop at every single little town along the way). Now that I was on my own, it was just me and my bag. Weighing in at about 14 kg (according to the scale at the airport), finding my way around town quickly and efficiently was essential. Traveling to a new city has become a race to find a place to drop my bag as quickly as possible. I got a few strange looks as I walked around with my massive pack. It's not the biggest bag you can buy, but it's not that wide, so it's tall, and it looks very big on me. However, it doesn't add any width to me, so I can maneuver around without too much trouble. I had plotted out my route on the map while on the bus, and felt pretty sure I would be able to find my hostel without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Each city I've seen has a slightly different street naming conventions and ways of showing what street you're on (if they decide to tell you at all). In Edinburgh it seems to be common for streets to change their name part way through, and the streets are not always marked. So after walking around aimlessly for a while since I couldn't find the street I needed to turn on, and sitting down with the map and pouring over it again, I finally walked on a street, where I could see my hostel, but it was on a street far below me. Ah, so close, and yet so far. After a bit more walking, I finally figured out how to get down to it, and was very relieved to check in and drop my pack. I was checked into an 8 bed mixed dorm. I decided to go for dinner and found a pub with decent food called Frankenstein's (yes, after the monster). I had a giant yorkshire pudding with sausages and veggies that was very tasty. By then it was getting dark, so I went back to the hostel and hung out until 9pm when they had a pub crawl. I thought it would be a good way to meet some people, so I went along. I did meet some really interesting people, several of whom, had just come from Ireland and gave me some good tips for my upcoming trip. I went to three pubs, had 2 drinks then came back to the hostel since I had an early morning. I went to bed, and couldn't sleep. Though the hostel was not that noisy, and the guys in the room didn't snore all night, I barely slept at all before getting up around 7am. I had breakfast and left, and took a slightly less circuitous route to the bus station. On the way I took a couple of pictures of the gorgeous Edinburgh Castle, which sits very imposingly over the city.

When I got to the bus station, I saw on one of the screens that bus 900 that I would be taking to Glasgow was (I thought) leaving at 9:15. So I went to the bathroom, and came out to find my bus pulling away. Apparently, I had misread the screen and looked at the arrivals not departures, and my bus left on time, without me. I was mortified, because that bus connected in Glasgow with another bus that would go to the Ferry to take me to Belfast, so I thought my whole day of traveling had been ruined. I asked one of the bus employees what I could do. He called the office and said I should still be able to make the connection by taking the next bus. It was a tense ride, but the bus did indeed make it in time, and I finally relaxed when I made it on the next bus and settled in for a long ride. We arrived at the ferry, which was delayed 30 minutes and had a very long wait (about 1.5 hours). I finally boarded the ferry to Belfast, which was a big fast ferry with lots of food outlets, casino machines, a gift shop and even showed two family movies (I caught the end of Eragon). After the ferry arrived, I jumped onto a bus that would take me to the main bus centre in Belfast, just 10 minutes from my hostel. Luckily, I had no trouble finding the hostel, and checked into a 4 bed female dorm, but was able to upgrade to a single room the next night.

More on Belfast next time....