Day 35: Dublin to Edinburgh

Waking up this morning and realizing I had to leave Ireland was a really sad feeling. While I've loved all the other places I've gotten to visit so far, Ireland has definitely topped them all. From the experiences we had as a group, to the people we met, and just the overall atmosphere of the country, it is definitely somewhere I hope to come back and visit one day.
Once we all got up and packed, we headed to the airport for our flight to Scotland. The flight went smoothly, up until we landed and were trying to get from the airport to our hostel in Edinburgh. They wouldn't allow us do anything online without printing out receipts, which isn't an easy tasks for those traveling as often as we do. But we, well mostly Michael, figured it out and we finally got a bus to the hostel. As we arrived in Edinburgh, we all immediately had this eery feeling just from the gothic structures, cloudy weather, and overall feeling of the town. While some of the architecture was similar to Dublin, most of it appeared much older and the town itself was obviously much smaller.
In Edinburgh, we stayed in a place called KickAss Hostel, which we then realized another group was already staying in and later found out the house moms were staying in, as well. As we saw the other group who were then heading to Whales, they gave us some recommendations on what to see and where to eat, and we first headed to a place called Oink, as recommended from the guys we met in Dublin the night before. Oink was a cute little pulled pork place about the size of a closet, but the food was great. After Oink, we decided to walk around and get the feel of the town. We visited the graveyard for a bit and saw the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowlings wrote Harry Potter.

After walking around a bit more, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. We ate dinner at a pub directly across the street from our hostel where I got traditional Scottish haggis, beeps and tatties, which was very different, but also very good. After dinner, Rachel and Michael went to sleep to prepare for their highlands tour the next day, while Sheley, Amy, Loren, and I decided to head to a bar for a little bit. There they all tried different Scottish whiskey and I tried Ginger Grouse, which was a ginger beer with a hint of whiskey, as well. After we all hung out there for a bit, we headed back to the hostel to for bed.