I woke up early again to some Scottish breakfast and packed up all my stuff. We were leaving Edinburgh to go to Stirling for the night. So, I got all my stuff together and got on the coach for even more driving.
We stopped at New Lanark. This is the remnants of an old cotton mill. The man who used to run the mill introduced a lot of groundbreaking policies for the time. We were there for quite some time and had a tour of the place. It's located right where this beautiful waterfall is and is within this gorgeous valley. I think my favorite part was just the location, it was so pretty. There are still I think 150 people that live in this mill and make wool things and run the tours. They had this old candy shop where I got some really good black licorice candies. So good. I also got some chicken, leeks and I think corn soup. I don't know, really. But whatever it was... it was delicious! New Lanark also had some random ride that reminded me a bit of a disneyland ride--like the haunted mansion, just like a billion times less cool. It was about some random girl/ghost that they made up that lived in the mill. Super creepy. Yes it was.
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| This was after that Disneyland-esque ride. The girl in the left corner is the creepy one I was talking about. |
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| beautiful waterfall at New Lanark |
After our stop at New Lanark we drove some more to get into Stirling. Our coach pulled up to this super old building within this cemetery. Yup, a real cemetery. Guess what that building was. If you guessed our hostel, you would be correct. Haha. We get our room assignments and drop off our stuff before heading up to Stirling castle. Then we went to Stirling castle and it was so pretty. It wasn't nearly as big as Edinburgh and not as much to see, but the views over the valley and of the William Wallace monument were breathtaking! I ended up climbing these rocky cliffs within the castle walls to get higher up and get a better view of things. I'm glad I did that because it was beautiful. After the castle we went on a man hunt to find something to eat. Stirling is just like every other place---everything closed at like 6 besides pubs and some restaurants! So, we found this Australian pub/grill. I got some good pasta. They sold Kangaroo burgers! How sad. My friend tried a Kangaroo steak. She said it was pretty good. I just wouldn't be able to bring myself to eat a cute little animal like that. But, I guess they are overpopulating Australia because they were really promoting eating this kangaroo. Sad. This pub was cool, there was constant Steve Irwin/Crocodile Hunter episodes playing and inside the bathroom there was a life size poster of Steve Irwin and a crocodile. It was awesome! Haha. I guess Scottish people like to decorate their bathrooms? Maybe?
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| Entrance to Stirling Castle |
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| View from Stirling Castle |
After eating, literally everything was closed and I was exhausted so we all headed back to the hostel. Oh man. Prepare yourself for some great reading ahead. So we cross through the cemetery and walk up the stairs (no lifts... aka elevators here). We get into our room. 4 to a room. 2 bunk beds. We find out quickly that there are no towels, no soap to wash our hands with. Nothing like that. The toilet room looks like one from a tiny trailer--with that kitschy wallpaper. Haha. There is a sink with a sign above it that says, "Not drinking water". Awesome. So we sit on our beds and feel the blanket. You know those sheets that are plastic for bed wetters? Yeah, that's what our blanket was, with a duvet cover over it. If you moved the blanket at all, the crinkle and noise it made could probably start an avalanche. There are random stains on the sheets and on the carpet and some questionable body hairs, too. Just wait, it gets better.
So, we do have a deck of cards and a group of us gather into our room and we play some games. I probably played the funniest game of Egyptian rat screw poker of my life. I kept on slapping all the doubles and I think my roommate, Emily was seriously going to kill me/punch me in the face because we were getting so into it and I kept stealing all her cards. I was laughing so hard. So that was a good part of the night. Anyway, we decide to head to bed and we get talking about why the water would be labeled, "not drinking water". Our first thoughts are since it's such an old building it's probably because they are lead painted pipes. Anyway, then I got thinking. We are in a cemetery. The water must run through it. Yeah. Put 2 and 2 together. It was dead people water! So I say that and Emily starts laughing and Jaynann starts freaking out and I'm saying "I'm certain its dead people water!". Anyway we are laughing so hard. Then the girls across the hallway come into our room and they see the sign above our water and they say, "Our sign says it is drinking water!" And then we tell them about the dead people water and they start freaking out because they drank the water earlier that day. Basically it was this huge hysteria and we were all laughing so hard. Anyway, they go back to their room and we are all getting into our beds for the night. Then we hear this scream across the hallway and the girls run and knock on our door. So Katie goes to open the door and they are shouting something about their beds having bed bugs and ours do too (Earlier there was a small outbreak at the centre so everyone has been paranoid about those bugs). Anyway, after hearing that all of us scream and jump out of bed and start freaking out and those girls from the other room are laughing so hard. Emily says, "if you guys are joking I'm going to be so pissed off and I will kill you." And we all just start laughing harder and the girls say, "No, we're serious!" and they have us go inspect. I don't go into the other room because I don't want to get those bed bugs! Anyway, one of the girls picks up what she thinks is a bed bug and they are looking at it, and then all of a sudden it jumps/disappears out of her hand and all the girls in their room run back into our room, screaming, and we start freaking out and the girl that was holding the bug puts her hand under our faucet and then realizes it's the dead people water and starts freaking out more. Anyway, everyone is just out of control but we are laughing so hard. I seriously almost peed my pants because I was laughing so hard. I was crying, that's for sure. Anyway, then we check our beds and Jaynann finds black specks and starts freaking out even more. Then another girl that actually knows what bed bugs look like and where to look comes in and checks our beds. Yeah, we didn't have them. It was just a bunch of fuzz from the crackly comforters! Haha. So we started a bunch of hysteria and were just so loud. I don't think I've laughed that hard in so long! It was a bit ridiculous. Needless to say, none of us slept really well and it was so HOT. I seriously felt disgusting waking up in the morning, in those gross beds. Ugh. It was like living in a cave, but worse! I was sure glad to leave that place in the morning!
*The blog post title is an exclamation concerning our hostel. It was called the Stirling Youth hostel. haha.
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