Lincoln, York & Edinburgh

Last Thursday our group took our final field trip. In the morning we went to Lincoln, and then we spend the afternoon in York. Both places were beautiful and I wish we could have spent more time there!
We left for Edinburgh from York. It was a beautiful train ride, and I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery (despite the gentleman sitting next to me who smelled of sweat, whiskey and fish!). We got off the train and started walking to our hostel, and I was suprised by how many hills there were! The rest of the UK was relatively flat, but walking the streets of Scotland was a decent workout! Once we hit high street I fell in love. There was a fun, lively atmosphere stretched out across a street of restaurants and shops, with beautiful views of Scotland all around.
That night we went on a ghost tour of the city. We heard some interesting (and yes, cheesy) ghost stories, including one that was supposedly Shakespeare's inspiration for Macbeth. After hearing some stories, we actually got to go under the city and explore the vaults. This part was awesome, and a little creepy!
The next day we started the morning by going to Edinburgh Castle. We wandered around here and went through a very interesting war museum (couldn't help but thinking how much my dad would have enjoyed that), and got to see the most incredible views of Scotland! We then wandered back down high street, met up with some friends, and spent part of the afternoon hanging out in the most beautiful park. I was amazed that I was outside in the afternoon, in the middle of the summer, enjoying a perfect day with fantastic weather. That just doesn't happen during Arizona summers! I could have stayed there forever!
After dragging ourselves away from the park, we found the Elephant House, a cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. It was really interesting to sit in that little room, knowing she had sat down and started scribbling the story on napkins. Once I get home I decided I will be on the lookout for my own Elephant House! Next we wandered over to Greyfriars Cemetery, a beautiful cemetary where Rowling actually found names for some of her characters. We spent the next hour or so shopping on high street, and then headed back to the train station so we could get home and finish all our final projects for classes!
The train ride home turned out to be an experience in itself! My friend Hannah and I made a couple of Scottish friends. It was interesting to hear their thoughts and comments about America and the random topics we covered. They were all appalled that neither of us had been to New York, and couldn't understand why we didn't have trains that could take us there. I recommended visiting California, but one of the guys didn't want to go there because he wouldn't be able to see the ocean. When we told them we lived in Arizona, and they figured out that was in the desert, they were shocked and couldn't understand how people could actually survive there! I found out that some people really enjoy American accents, in Europe country music is called "redneck music," and when you tell someone your name is Michelle, sometimes they just can't help but burst out in their own rendition of "Michelle My Bell!"