CASTLES!!!

My goal is to update as often as possible, but situations like yesterday, which will be explained, prevent me from getting it done daily. Bear with me.

First item of business: I wanted to correct a misspelling I had made in my last post. Hookah is known as shishaw, not shimshaw. Too many foreign words.

So anyhizzle, we left London around 8am and began our trek to Wales. It was a nice train ride and we arrived around 1pm. We took a taxi to the hostel and met Ken and his wife, who are super awesome people. After telling us about the local sights (which pretty much consist of castle and beach) Ken kindly offered to give us a lift to the beach, which we accepted. That was when we got our first glimpse of CASTLE!!

It was totally awesome. There was a pretty laborious hike up there, but it was so worth it. It isn't the biggest castle and its only ruins, but we spent at least 2 hours romping about. And it was soooooooooo awesome. The grass was really green and you could climb up all these little alcoves and look out onto the coast. Words can't describe. Needless to say I have about a hundred pictures of this castle. Oh, its Llangsteffan castle, btw. After we walked into the village which is pocket-sized and super cozy. We chatted a bit with the local shopkeeper (yes, one village shop that is a post-office, grocery, restaurant, and gift shop) and then headed to the beach. After stopping at the cafe for a cheese and tomahto sandwich I strolled on the beach for a few and we headed back to wait for the bus.

The bus came about 20 minutes later and dropped us off at the lane below the hostel. Yeah, if we thought the castle hike was bad, this was ridiculous. It just went on and on and on. There was a sign for the hostel like every 50 feet so we kept thinking we were almost there. LIES! Anyway we made it back and made our nutritious dinner of frozen pizza and nuggets. Of course, being the geniuses we are, we totally forgot to get any sort of dipping sauce and thus had to settle for the "American Mustard" in the cabinet.

I really like the place we stayed at. The people were so nice, I kind of felt like I was staying over at a relatives. We ended up watching a British soap with them and their kids and chatting about traveling and such. I even got to hold their super adorable 5 month old boy (so cute!). We had issues using our phone to call a cab in the morning so Ken totally just called around for us. He's awesome.

We left Wales around 8am and it took a good 8 hours to get to Edinburgh. We stopped in a place called Crewe for a layover, if you will, and the guy doing the announcements had the most awesomest voice ever. It kinda reminded me of the caterpillar from O.G. Alice in Wonderland, but also of someone else. Really nasally and hilarious. We giggled everytime he made an announcement. The train from Crewe to Edinburgh was SUUUUUPER packed. It was ridiculous. My luggage was in the aisle for a good hour and a half. It was nice to see the countryside, but I wish I was here when it was green. Kel, you would love it, LOTS of sheep and horsies with t-shirts. Also, you would like Wales, cause they have lots of sheep and cats.

So we arrived in Edinburgh and after a little confusion found the hostel and immediately went to see about catching the Paranormal tour. We found the place and booked instead the GHOST HUNTING TOUR!!!!! We didn't even know this existed, but as soon as she mentioned it I put my credit card on the counter. Since it was only 6pm and the tour wasn't until 9:45, we began our search for food. I got caught up in taking pictures of the buildings and somehow we ended up chatting with this old Scotsman for a good 15 minutes or so. He was funny and posed for a picture.

We finally settled on a place called Deacon Brodies and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We tried Haggis for the first time and it was AHHMAZING. So good. It was gone in like .2 seconds. We also tried varying forms of Scottish beef: I had the rump steak, Emily had the steak pie. Really delicious. All of this was topped off with an apple and rhubarb crumble with ice cream. The whole thing was super delicious.

We wandered a bit after that, somehow were recognized as Americans on sight because some guys approached us on that assumption. They also assumed that given our nationality we would know where to get some marijuana. Strangely enough, by the end of the evening we totally did. Who knew?

We went to the tour rendezvous point and conversed with this young couple from Manchester while we waited. Then began our tour. Sophie, the tour guide, was super awesome and totally got into character for telling us these scary stories. I loved getting all this history of the place and being creeped out at the same time. She eventually took us down into the underground area which was funsies. I wish the tour had lasted longer, but what can you do?

So, now I am back at the hostel filling you all in.

Oh, and when I get back, my legs are gonna be freaking amazing. Europe so far seems to be all hills. We've ranked them according to their hellishness. So far: 1)Prime Meridian, 2)Wales Hostel, 3)Victoria Street (the small street we took in Edinburgh to get to Royal Mile, 4)Llangsteffan Castle. More to come I'm sure.

Tomorrow (or Today I guess since its almost 2am) we're off to find Nessie! Cheers!