Days 9/10 - Bristol and Edinburgh, Scotland

Hi again!
So, after our last entry, we in fact did not go out anywhere cool for dinner/drinks. We went back to our room and fell asleep at about 5 pm and didn't wake up till 9(pm again)! We both contemplated just sleeping straight through the night, but Nyssa needed to get some work done and I was hungry so we went to the cafe downstairs, got a small bite to eat and both did some reading for a few hours, then off to bed around midnight. That morning we woke up pretty early, had the awesome breakfast feast again, then headed to the train station for our ride to Edinburgh. It was a long trip with one change in Birmingham- we left at 9:30 am and then didn't get in till 4:30 pm! While in BIrmingham, we had about an hour layover so stopped into one of the station pubs for some tea and a muffin. I jokingly asked Nyssa if she was going to get a 'morning beer' as it was only 11ish, but then noticed we were actually the only ones in there NOT drinking some form of alcohol! Apparently Brits are bigger drinkers than we thought... During the ride later in the afternoon I started to get hungry and got a sandwich- it was Christmas Eve, which is the day my family usually ahs our big dinner, and i actually found a sandwich with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce inside it!! I thought it was pretty funny anyways. We got there and had a bit of trouble finding our hostel, since it was already dark and the directions on our sheet were wrong, but finally did get settled into our room with about 8 other people mostly from Hong Kong. We went down and hung out in the bar for a bit, and during our drinks decided to have a shot for Jesus(which was pretty funny), and then went to bed reasonably early at 10ish. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, and then left for a free walkign tour around the city. It said on the voucher that it was open 365 days a year, regarless of weather or holidays, so we figured that would be one of our only fun options to do on Christmas. They were having a big holiday party at the hostel, but it cost £25, which is about $50, and frankly at this point in the trip neither of us had that much to spend! The walking tour is through the same company that we went on in Amsterdam, and the guide did a really really good job. We learned all about the history of the city and Scotand in general, about William Wallace(and how Braveheart isn't really historically accurate- for example he didn't live in a humble little hut in the forest, he was actually a duke or something with loads of money! But, still did awesome things for the country), about all the witchburnings that used to go on there, the famous bodysnatchers Burke and (Haige?), saw where Harry Potter was written and the building that inspired Hogwarts, learned a lot about famous writers that lived there, and of course went up and saw the beautiful castle and all the different views from it. We stopped for a break for lunch in the middle, and the pub we went into had free santa hats and those crackers with little presents inside, so that was pretty neat and made me feel all Christmas-y even though I wasn't at home. After that there wasn't really a whole lot else to do, so we went back to the hostel to do some much-needed laundry and watched the Grinch(the one with Jim Carrey) on TV in the lounge room. I had gone out earlier to make some phone calls and saw that the only place around open was the Chinese buffet, so we decided for dinner to celebrate Christmas Jewish-style and go there! Buuuut when we got there, they obviously knew they were the only game in town and were charging £20!!!! for dinner that is usually half that! (that's 40 bucks, which is absolutely ridiculous- not very much in the Christmas spirit if you ask me!) Neither of us wanted to pay that much for dinner, so we instead wandered around trying to find somewhere- even the kitchen at our hostel was closed because of the Christmas party, and we though for a while we would have to buy chips and candy from one of the little stores that were still open! Luckily we came upon an Indian place, and had a pretty good(albeit still quite pricey) meal there. After that, we went back home to watch some TV and hang otu a bit more before calling it an early night- we weren't really even that tired, but since there wasn't anything else to do we figured we might as well go to bed! But, overall, a pretty good Christmas!