We woke to find our bus skimming through a white world of snow. Northern England sped by outside the windows, and soon we were sliding down snowy hills into Edinburgh. We alighted and stepped out into a foot of snow, and into what was immediately apparent as a wonderful city. We hiked through St. Andrew's Square, laden with heavy backpacks. We scaled the North Bridge and crossed the Royal Mile, proceeding down Nicolson Ave. to a vast open park called The Meadows, on the far side of which, in a sleepy little street called Argyle Place, was our hostel Argyle Backpackers. I should add here that this is a fantastic, clean, comfortable, fun, affordable place with a perfect quiet location and when not laden with bags it is pretty close to the center of town.
Anway, we dropped our bag, ate, with relish, the pork pies Yan had given us, and set out into the city. We got hot chocolate and hot lemon with ginger (a fantastic drink I had never tried before) at a trendy cafe called the Black Medicine Coffee House, filled with bottles like an apothecary and very cool people. Then we set out to get a grasp of the city, and ended up walking miles of its snow covered streets. The Scottish accents that surrounded us were wonderful and almost overwhelming. We walked up the Royal Mile (the high street of Edinburgh) and walked the icy paths on the cliffs around Edinburgh Castle. We didn't go into the castle, wanting to save it for morning, but instead climbed up the steep hills to look down on the city from the castle's base. Then we explored an old textile mill for making classic tartan scottish regalia, and a few "Scotch Shops" selling ridiculous trinkets from swords to kilts to bagpipes to shotglasses. Then we continued to stroll through the streets, the sunshine blasting down onto the snow, the sky clear and unblemished as we watched a man blast triumphantly into his bagpipes on a streetcorner. There was also a girl singing a very beautiful rendition of Rufus Wainwrights Hallelujah, framed by ancient architecture and pure snow. Finally, exhausted by snow and sunshine, we headed back to the hostel. After wolfing down some homemade fare (super-peppery spagetti) we made friends with our dorm mates, which included two Canadians, two frenchmen (named, of course, Julien and Geoffrey), two girls from Chicago, a girl from Sweden, and a girl from China. All were amiable good company and we made friends quickly, especially when we offered to go out and get movies from blockbuster. Predictably, we chose cartoons (Ice Age 3 and Madagascar 2) and fell asleep giggling to these wild romps of movies. Madagascar was much more enjoyable since it wasn't set in the snow (Ice Age was far to reminiscent of Icy Edinburgh). It seems that cartoons are a running theme on this gap year, and I am perfectly fine with that.