I've actually gone on a few trips since my last post - my biggest one was a trip to Northern Spain which I apparently never wrote about. The sad thing is I created all the posts ahead of time and then just... never wrote them, so that trip will never be remembered properly. Instead, I have come to share my latest trip I took which was a family cruise to Northwestern Europe on the Holland America cruise line.
My trip started in Toronto (which is where I have since relocated). I met up with my parents at YYZ and we took the flight together from Toronto to Amsterdam, which was where out boat was leaving from. We left on the evening of August 4th and arrived the morning of August 5th in Amsterdam where we also met up with my brother who had arrived a week earlier. We got on the boat at around 1pm, and the boat officially set sail at 5pm.
I'm not going to talk too much about the boat, but overall it was a nice boat. The food was good overall. The buffet had a lot of options for both breakfast, lunch, and in terms of dessert, and the dining room menus were always pretty good. The best thing about the cruise? They had more TV show and movie options! The last time I was on a cruise I was 12 years old and I remember watching the same 3 movies again, and again, and again, and again, and again (The Golden Compass, Ocean's Thirteen and Austin Powers along with Do You Think You're Smarter than a 5th Grader... yes, I still remember). This was not the case. Thank god because the boat had no wifi and I'm not really the type to join in on the various activities the cruise had so really, I only had the TV to keep my company (and my trusty ereader).
So, that is all to say that thankfully we did not spend too many days on the boat. After setting off, we spent the first day on the boat and then arrived in Edinburgh on the morning of August 7th. We stayed overnight, which meant we got roughly 1.5 full days in the city. We docked in Queensferry which was just outside and had to take a bus, or taxi, into the city which took ~30min each way.
What can I say about Edinburgh? Overall it's an alright city. It's easy to walk around. We were there at both a bad and good time though because it was festival month, which meant lots of things to do, but also so many tourists and tour buses etc. It felt like a tourist city. But, is it a bad city? No. I think it's left more of an impression on me than other European cities I've been too.
So, what did we do? The first day we arrived we got a bit of a late start and didn't actually arrive into the city until around lunchtime. We got off near Edinburgh castle in the hopes of having a quick lunch and seeing if we could get into the castle. Unfortunately we underestimated how busy the castle would be, weren't able to get in, and decided to switch plans and go for a hike instead to a hill just on the border of Edinburgh (right by the university actually) called Arthur's seat. It was a nice hike, super windy, but I realized that my knees and ankles really are terrible after living in such a flat city as Toronto.
After our little hike we went back to the Old Town to find a place to eat dinner and happened to come across what appeared to be one of the most popular and busy Italian restaurant in the area which I can't remember the name of at the moment. It was pretty good to be honest. I had beef ravioli, not bad. They also apparently got an award for ice cream and I will admit, their Peach flavoured gelato and my hazelnut gelato was very good. The place was seriously super busy though. We stood at the entrance for at least half an hour and we were lucky to get in because everyone behind us got told that there was no more space in the restaurant unless you had a reservation, so we just squeaked in. Also, there only seemed to be one guy taking orders, and when it came time for us to get dessert it took us forever because the guy was so busy. But, thankfully we weren't in a rush so that was nice. Also there was wifi, so that was also nice.
The second day, my brother went off skateboarding while my parents and I went to check out the Scottish National Museum, which I personally really liked. I never really have a strong impressions of museums - I like them in general as a thing, but I rarely like specific museums, but I really do like this one. It just felt like a comfortable place. It had a central main entrance that was open-air, really bright and spacious. It had a science/technology wing that had all these interactive games. It had a section to learn about Scottish history which was cool if you want a quick brush up on your Scottish history. There was nothing super impressive or interesting at the museum, but I just liked the layout and how accessible it felt. Like, it was a museum I could see myself visiting again, and again, and again, and I don't think I'd ever get tired of going, even if I was seeing the same things. It just felt like a nice place to be. If I compare it to museums like the British Museum, I prefer Scotland precisely because it wasn't too grand, it wasn't too magnificent, it felt just right.
Anyway, after seeing the museum for a couple of hours we actually met up with a family friend of my dad's and had lunch at a pretty good Chinese place nearby and then met up with my brother to go back to the boat. Queensferry actually seemed like a really cute town that would've been nice to walk around. Unfortunately we weren't able to because we forgot to tell the taxi to stop and he drove us right up to the boat and we didn't really have the time to walk back and forth, so that was too bad. But just driving by, it did seem like a cute little town.
Also, Edinburgh had quite a number of Harry Potter merchandise stores. I just have to bring this up because I'm a huge Potterhead and it made me really happy. It's really silly. I've been to London twice. TWICE. And it never occurred to me to buy Harry Potter merchandise, mostly because I never saw any stores and I never really thought about dragging my family around to indulge in my own personal interests. I didn't end up buying anything in Scotland, but I was able to see a lot of wands and I've made it a personal promise to myself that when I have a proper job and more cash on hand, I will start collecting ALL THE HARRY POTTER STUFF. ALL. OF. IT.
*cough*.
Inverness
Anyway, moving on. So we spent roughly 1.5 days in Edinburgh and then afterwards the cruise took us to the Scottish highlands - or really, just the northeast section of it, Inverness. Which is on the opposite side of Glasgow. My parents, who have been to Scotland previously and took an entire bus tour around the Scottish Highlands said that the Glasgow/Northwest side looked a lot nicer. I guess all I have is their own word, but our tour guide for this trip insisted that Inverness was the most beautiful part of the highlands. Hmmm....
Oh right, so for our trip around Inverness we joined a small private bus tour. Our tour guide was lovely, but unfortunately if you put me on a bus I will pretty much just fall asleep instantly and that is what I did.
What can I say about the Scottish Highlands though. It was.... nice? Very.... hilly. Much hills. Many hills. It was cute. I'll admit, it was nice and refreshing to see shapes and greenery in the horizon after living in the flat gray deadzone of Toronto city. The word I guess I'd use to describe what I saw was... quaint. It was very quaint. We stopped at a lookout called something like the Million Dollar View. We stopped at salmon crossing area where you could see salmon jumping up a river to go back home. We stopped at a castle and saw this really cool falconry show which was super impressive, I got photos of an owl up close and it was so cute!! Drove around the area. Stopped in a small town to eat lunch and where my mom was able to buy a little souvenir for herself. We saw sheep. We saw cows. We saw seals. So many animals!
So. Overall it was enjoyable. It was nice. I loved the fresh air. Our tour guide was lovely (I really did try hard to stay awake and listen to what she had to say). The food which we did try was good, nothing terrible. Nothing super out of this world. We did not try haggis. Lol. So yeah. Nice place.
Next up? Iceland!
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