Wanderings on the rocks: Scotland edition

Hello from Bonnie Scotland from your favorite traveling Bennies. We know you are as excited as we are that we finally had a trip together, so get ready for an eventful recount of our weekend. This week, our travels took us to Edinburgh, Scotland—the perfect fall getaway destination.

Edinburgh is the kind of place where you can’t walk five minutes in the tourist-y areas without encountering a guy in a kilt, and we will be the first to admit the constant bagpipes do make you feel slightly patriotic about a country you’re not even from.

The city itself is like something out of Harry Potter (which makes sense considering many things from Edinburgh inspired locations and characters in the books). The streets are cobblestone, winding and approximately 90% uphill. It’s as if they designed the entire place as a practical joke for unsuspecting tourists with bad shoes (and if you’ve been following along each week, you already know that Summer is this tourist).

Kayla arrived in Edinburgh late Thursday night, when the only thing open for dinner was Taco Bell. She has never felt more ashamed and American in her life and can confirm—it’s definitely not the same. To add insult to injury they don’t even sell Baja Blast in the UK…unacceptable.

Because Summer has class on Friday mornings, she arrived in Edinburgh the day after Kayla. Usually, the train ride from London Kings Cross Station to Edinburgh Waverly station takes about four and a half hours. Due to some unexpected train delays, Summer had to take the tube to a different train station, wait an hour and get on a completely different train. This train took nearly seven hours to arrive because of a slower train in front of it, so Summer’s plans to arrive at 8 p.m. turned into her arriving close to four hours later.

Kayla had a joyous and relaxing train ride where she watched The Batman and journaled. Clearly, Summer was not so lucky.

After her arduous train experience, while walking to meet up with the rest of the group, Summer ran into a guy on the street playing “Piano Man” on a tiny harmonica. Naturally, she stopped and had a little moment reminiscing about home. And finally, after a long 36 hours of being apart, Summer met up with Kayla and all the separation anxiety went away. Tears were shed, laughs were shared. You had to be there to get it.

We spent the night running around with new friends Kayla had picked up along the way from our fantastic hostel (one of which was also from Minnesota, small world) and dancing to music in an outdoor venue that had a table with swing seats (Summer thought this detail was important).

After a late night out and resting peacefully in the hostel we woke up the next morning for some breakfast at Hideout Cafe. This place was home to the best sandwich that both of us had ever had in our lives—this is not an exaggeration.

The sandwiches here were all named after music artists, and the best one by far was “The Brie-tles” …get it? It included focaccia bread, chili jelly, brie cheese, salami and some other ingredients that honestly don’t even matter all put together. It was perfect and we are still thinking about it. We tried to get another one the next day, but they were out when we went back. Tears were shed in this moment as well.

Of course, no trip to Edinburgh would be complete without a visit to the iconic Edinburgh Castle. Perched atop a rock, and up a few flights of stairs, it’s a marvel that makes you wonder if they just built it there to get away from all the bagpipes (a failed attempt, you could hear them wherever you go).

As we wandered through the grounds, and into different areas of the Castle, we couldn’t help but imagine what life in medieval times was like. The entire thing felt very Game of Thrones and we may or may not have been playing fairytale scenarios in our heads.

After the castle excursion we naturally went to the famous Victoria Street, which inspired Diagon Alley from Harry Potter (we told you this city was full of those references). Colorful buildings welcomed us, and we knew right away that our wallets were going to be hurting. We returned here probably about five times, looking at souvenirs, scarves, art galleries and swords (Yep, swords. One of the Johnnies traveling with us just so happened to buy not one, but three swords and got them internationally shipped home).

After shopping it was time for the main event…purse making at Islander Workshop. We know you all have been waiting at the edge of your seats for this, so we are excited to deliver.

We entered the workshop space and immediately knew that this was going to be everything we had been wishing for. Rows of different colored purse materials stared at us, and that’s when we quickly realized that we were in trouble—never tell two girls with anxiety that they need to decide on five different customizable options for a permanent accessory unless you want serious distress.

We did arrive 30 minutes early to allow for time to pick our components, but it still wasn’t enough…both of us went back and forth and made multiple FaceTime calls to our mothers to try and help us, but this still resulted in the worker having to tell Kayla to sit down and make a decision because she was holding up the class.

This entire experience was actually a lot easier than we thought it would be, considering how difficult the design selection process was. These purses are made with an outer flap of Harris Tweed in a pattern of your choice, a famous wool cloth that is handwoven in Scotland and is actually waterproof—perfect for UK weather.

The workers made the steps extremely simple for us, and one short hour later we walked out with brand new fully customized purses that by coincidence (or intention, you decide) matched the new tartan scarves we had bought four hours prior. See attached pictures for the result.

We think it is worth noting that this trip was incredibly exciting for us for a few reasons:

Reason number one: Kayla’s grandfather is of Scottish descent, from Clan Campbell. The Campbells are actually quite disliked in parts of Scotland for siding with the English during one of the Jacobite rebellions and helping to ambush another clan.

Think “Red Wedding” from Game of Thrones level betrayal. Yikes. We’re really killing it with the pop culture references this week—horrible and unfortunate pun absolutely not intended.

But regardless, not all Campbell history is so controversial, and visiting places with connection to family history is an incredible gift. Kayla was luckily safe to buy Campbell clan-themed items in Edinburgh without this historic grudge becoming too much of an issue. Her granddad had warned her to not flaunt his family name any farther up in the highlands where they still haven’t forgotten the transgression…noted.

Reason number two: Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to visit the setting of some of Summer and Kayla’s favorite movies and TV shows…hello Brave, Braveheart, Outlander. We didn’t get magically transported back to 1700s Scotland by touching ancient stones, but we’ll get ‘em next time.

And finally, reason number three: There is literally no place else in the world in our opinion that is this magical in the fall. Edinburgh is one of those places that is almost better when it rains, so you secretly hope all day the sun will disappear, and the spooky and cozy vibe will get even better. Visiting in the beginning of October meant the leaves were just starting to turn and it was cold enough for jackets, scarves and boots. Chef ’s kiss.

Edinburgh really knows their strengths and leans into this fall vibe, which we decided to take full advantage of.

We spent one night making “potions” at The Department of Magic, where you get beakers and vials full of ingredients to make yummy drinks that are all, you guessed it, Harry Potter themed. There’s also a chocolate store called Knoops that lets you customize your hot or cold chocolate drink with over 15 different percentages of cacao and tons of add-ins to choose from for the perfect fall drink.

To try and give ourselves a bird’s-eye-view of this fall weather, we woke up at a crisp 5:30 a.m. one morning to hike up Arthur’s Seat, the ancient extinct volcano that towers over the city. We were told by other friends that there were two ways up the mountain: a steeper route and a nice little grassy slope.

It was 6:30 at this point, so we were tired. We thought we were being smart and had navigated to the easy route, but we were mistaken.

It was pitch black and the road we blindly selected turned steep and slippery from the rain in about two seconds. Between a serious train mishap and this, maybe this week’s moral should be “nothing good comes easy.”

Although the sunrise was damped a bit by the rainclouds, it was still a bucket list item, and the city view was beautiful. Kayla said, “this feels like Lord of the Rings,” about ten times on the way up to distract herself from the cold wind, once again proving that pretty much everything relating to this trip can be a movie/TV show/book reference.

One weekend, lots of new lambswool scarves purchased and a few days of breaking in the new purses later, we returned to London safe and sound with thankfully no more train issues.

This was one of our favorite destinations so far, and we’re seriously considering returning to Scotland for the Christmas Markets that Edinburgh is famous for. Either way, it’s a must visit at some point in your life. Stay at Castle Rock Hostel with a perfect view of the Edinburgh Castle, eat the “Brie-tles” sandwich and please, do the Islander Handbag Workshop. Five stars from us all around.

Enjoy your fall break, Bennies and Johnnies, and good luck on your midterms. We hope you are beginning to enjoy the autumn vibes all around campus.

By the time we chat again, we’ll have beaten some of our homesickness by welcoming visitors from Minnesota here in London and have something to share about a few midterm break travel adventures…stay tuned.