It was our last day of the trip, other than travel, today. It was nice to be able to spend some time relaxing and exploring to wrap up the trip.
I started the day by getting ready and heading back to the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling wrote the start of Harry Potter. I had some great food with great friends in a cute and awe-inspiring room. It is super crazy to me that such a normal looking cafe could have started one of the largest franchises of all time, and something that is so near to my heart.
After breakfast I stopped in a couple cute stores by our hotel and finished up purchasing souvenirs. Then, we went to Princess Park that is where the old loch used to be that acted as a barrier between the world and the castle. Today it is a cute park with lots of pedestrians wandering about.
Since I had a large breakfast, I didn’t do too large of a lunch. My group stopped and got some scotch eggs (again!) and chilled out for a bit before we had a meeting of the entire class.
We met in the French Embassy again and discussed our favorite parts of the last couple of media visits and what we will be taking away from the trip as a whole. We then went to dinner at a place near our hotel called Howie’s.
At Howie’s, I ordered the haggis as my appetizer and have never had so many people look at me while I was eating. It seemed like everyone was too scared to order it themselves so instead they opted to take a couple bites of my portion.I had never had haggis before but was excited to try it since it is such a big deal in Scotland and I figured that I could have a salad anywhere. Honestly, the texture was similar to stuffing and the taste similar to meatloaf, I didn’t hate it!
Once dinner was over, we gathered for something I was very excited about for this whole trip – a ghost tour! We went with the Mercat Tours group and it was amazing! We started off in the street talking about torture and then began to go into the little closes (read: alleys) that peppered the main road.
After this, the best part of the trip so far happened. We actually got to go underground into some of the vaults and passages under the city! It was so cool to go down somewhere with so much history and to hear some great ghosts stories.
Now I am finishing up packing to spend the day traveling home tomorrow. While I am super excited to be coming home to see friends and family (and my cats) I will miss Edinburgh. In fact, I will miss all of the cities I have seen and the experiences that I have gained from this trip. I never thought I would have so many emotions when coming home from a trip and cannot wait to travel to my next destination.