
Scotland is officially one of the beautiful places I've been to in the whole world! We all met up early at 5:45 to walk over to the train station- except poor Audrey was running late but we all managed to pull it together and make the 6:30 train to Edinburgh. The ride was around 6 hours with one train switch so I slept for most of the way except that during the last 2 hours the train was absolutely slammed with people traveling to the city for the weekend to go to the British Open. We finally made it to Scotland and with our backpacks in tow we walked from the train station, through the park to our hotel. Despite the heavy bags and difficult-to-walk-in-hunter-rain-boots, the walk was absolutely GORGEOUS! The park there is so well manicured with the most beautiful flowers- mostly colorful geraniums and roses- with Edinburgh castle overlooking the park. And there really were bagpipers and kilts everywhere! We were all very camera happy. Kathryn did a fabulous job booking our hotel- we stayed at the historic Caledonian hotel (built in 1903) on Princes Street across from the castle. After throwing our bags into one of the rooms- and being very thankful we weren't staying in a hostel- we asked the concierge for a lunch recommendation and walked over to Brown's. Kathryn had the largest glass of cider I have ever seen- and finished it I might add- and after drinks we decided to find an open top bus to tour the city. On the way, we stopped at a local bookstore and grabbed some coffee and some new reads and hopped on one of the tour buses. I am so thankful we did! We got to see all of the city which included views of the countryside and also some more modern buildings (like Scottish Parliament which is the craziest building I've ever seen and looks like it is covered in hairdryers). It was exactly what I had expected- a gorgeous, historic Northern European city with a little eclectic thrown in. Our tour guide drove us through part of the city where most of the large churches had been converted into bars. Naturally, after walking through the city (which included a hike up 129 steps- yes, i counted), this was our next stop! We found a super interesting one- a large old church converted into the themed Frankenstein's bar. Jane got a "Dr. Frankenstein" cocktail that was green and black and honestly, a little scary. So we drank pints and watched the Open until it was time to go shopping cashmere and then grab dinner at a sushi restaurant (not the best customer service experience ever to say the least- Audrey ended up eating fried tofu that no one ordered...). We found out that the rest of the group was at Frankenstein's so we headed back to the bars and then late-nighted at Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde's. Drew was hell-bent on taking their "7 Deadly sins" challenge, a shot for every sin, but after finding out there was no t-shirt involved, and being lactose-intolerant, that some of the shots contained milk, decided against it. Anyway, turned out to be a very eventful fun night and it was very difficult to get up the next morning for the Open!
The next day, we woke up early and headed to the train station to catch our train to Fife/St. Andrews. We were all bundled up and in our Hunter boots thinking that we were going to have a very cold, blustery day on our hands. Catching the train turned out to be super complicated, as they had a secret hidden line for the train to the Open hidden behind the restaurants with no signs or anything! So that's how we lost Alison. One down. Anyway, we hopped on the train and all got a table together and let Jane entertain us for the ride over. To our dismay they do not allow cameras OR cell phones so not only do we have no pictures from the entire day but we were so worried that we were not going to be able to find Alison who had talked into coming with us. Luckily after we got there, we headed straight for the food pavilion and found Alison! It was unlike any event I have ever been to. I was expecting something close to the Byron but this put that to shame. St. Andrews is gorgeous and the set-up for the tournament is just spectacular. Everything is so well manicured with large pavilion tents and big screens to watch. We grabbed burgers and pints from "The Open Arms"- the beer garden- and watched the golfers on the big screen. After a few pints, we had fun checking out the Lexus tent with all of the new 2010 cars AND getting in the cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side. After souvenir purchases at the merchandise pavilion, we found out that you could actually walk around with beers so we decided to see some golf in action. We got to see all of our big names- Tiger, Phil, and Jon Daly- who was wearing red/black tiger stripped pants which I was convinced was for the Georgia bulldogs. We had absolutely beautiful sunny weather- with a few random drizzles here and there- and got to walk the entire course so we definitely got the full St. Andrew's experience. The countryside and the course there are absolutely breathtaking. As we walked out, the entrance had become sort of a "screen on the green" where everyone had setup blankets on the ground to watch the players play the final holes on the big screen (and they played until 9:30 because it stays light for so long!)

After 7 hours, we hopped on the train and headed back to the hotel to shower and then grabbed dinner at Deacon Brodie's Tavern (named after the man who was the original inspiration for Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde), traditional Scottish bangers and mash. The girls bought a bunch of crazy Scottish and Haribo candy for a slumber party and watched Wimbledon- not the match, the terrible movie with Kirsten Dunst. We had had a crazy travel weekend so we all slept in the next morning and hopped on the train back to Oxford.
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