Kilt Kountry Part 4...Edinburgh & Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

The next morning, after many attempt from Terri, Tiffany and I sadly shot down the idea of hiking over AND up to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.  It literally looked like it was miles in the distance and it seemed like the only way to get to the top would be by helicopter.  Okay okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it didn't look close that's for sure.  So instead, what do 3 girls do on their last day in a historic beautiful old city?  Why SHOP of course!  In Texas we don't have stores such as H&M, TopShop, and Next which are three trendy clothing shops.  So we browsed up and down the main strip of shops on Princes Street.  I bought a leather wallet at Top Shop which I needed badly since the last time I bought one I think I was in high school.  It was genuine leather and only set me back 15 Euros which I think is a pretty good deal.  Next place we go to is H&M but I don't buy anything here.  Tiffany bought a couple of cute dresses and I think Terri just perused the store.  Last place we hit up was Next where I bought a sailor print top and some jeggings.  I love those things.  They are tights/leggings that look like denim jeans thus forming "jeggings!"  We also made our way over to the newer area of town where some high end stores were.  We found a store similar to the US' Abercrombie & Fitch but it was even more overpriced than A&F.  I think it was called Jack Wills.  In here we took a little nap on the Great Britain flag couch.

While strolling down George Street we happened upon a restaurant called Browns that Terri had eaten at before.  Feeling a little parched, we decided to peek our heads in and walk towards the bar area.  Come to find out it was happy hour pricing on selected drinks.  We sat outside on the sidewalk and each had 2 cocktails and gossipped about nonsense.  Just before leaving we took a gander at the dinner menu and decided we wanted to come back that evening for supper.  Afterwards we did some final souvenir shopping and I mailed off postcards to a few friends.  Poor Terri bought a cover for her ipod and it didn't fit.  It was a bit too small and she kept trying to cram it in, only to find it getting more stuck.  Back to the flat we went to relax before getting ready for our last night out.  Grabbed a taxi back to Brown's for dinner.  Wish I could remember what I had to eat but I guess that shows you how memorable it was.  Next we decide to go have some cold ones for our last night in the big city, which was a Monday night.  After getting lost and backtracking a few times we finally found the piano bar Terri was telling us about....and it was shut down!  We were then forced to just go to any place that happened to be open.  Went to a traditional pub first for one beer but it was quite the snooze fest, not too much going on there so we hit the pavement again in search for our next venue.  We happened upon a few promoters handing out flyers for free cover and 2 GBP vodka and red bull's.  The name of he place they were promoting was Shanghai.  We were a bit weary so Tiffany proceeded to ask one of the guys, "So if you weren't promoting club Shanghai, where would YOU go on a Monday night?"  And as any good promoter and loyal employee would say he replied with "Shanghai, of course!"  So what do we end up doing?  Going to Shanghai.  Once inside Shanghai we found that this place was a haven for the youngsters.  Not that any of us three are "old" but the average age of the clientele here was between 18 and 21.  Apparently Edinburgh has several universities and is somewhat considered a college town.  The girls were wearing next to nothing, but here's the kicker...it was FREEZING outside.  I mean I'm all for looking cute but these girl just looked like morons cause it was so cold outside.  While in Shanghai we did chat with a few friendly people and danced around a bit.  After several vodka and red bulls we were feeling good and we too felt 21 again!

Somehow we managed to shut down ol' Shanghai and we took a taxi back to our place.  We had a fairly early train back to Aberdeen so we pretty much passed out.  Woke up the next morning, got to the train station and slept most of the entire way on the train.  I can't recall if we grabbed any lunch but I do know we went fairly quickly back to Terri's place to rest up a bit more!  I played around on the internet (big surprise) while the others dozed off.  Found out that Terri's co-workers were to play in a soccer match later that evening so we conjured up a plan to figure out where they were playing and to surprise them.  We ate dinner at Pizza Express first.  Terri had a coupon voucher for an appetizer, glass of wine, and pizza for just 12 GBP which was a helluva deal.  We each got our own pizzas and they were delish.  We then walked over to the guy's soccer match.  They were pretty surprised to see us and they actually won their game.  We only caught the tail end of it, but that 15 minutes was enough for me.  Andrew, Terri's co-worker gave us a ride back in his car so we didn't have to walk which was great.  Andrew dropped off Terri and Tiffany because Terri had to work the next morning and Tiffany had a 4:30am wake up call to get ready and be at the airport around 6:30am.  Andrew drove me around Aberdeen for awhile showing me some places I hadn't seen while walking around. We went by an area that looked somewhat like Putt Putt Golf & Games, went by the lighthouse (who doesn't like lighthouses?!), showed me a "dogging" spot which apparently is a place where people will drive to, park their cars and wait for others to come knock on their window for a quick hookup!  That is just crazy but I guess to each their own!

                  

                  

Overall I had a fantastic trip in Scotland!  The countryside is absolutely beautiful and the people and towns are great.  I will definitely have to return to the country one day and maybe head over to Inverness to see if I can get look at the legendary Loch Ness Monster!