Chapter Eight

Scotland! Another country ticked off the bucket list. My friends and i went up to Scotland for a quick weekend trip to explore two of their major cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh!

Day 1
We arrived in (a pretty rainy) Glasgow just past noon and wanted to start exploring right away. We were quite close to the Glasgow Necropolis which was actually really eerie with the light rain and fog but once we got to the top gave pretty amazing views of the city below and the Cathedral that was right next to it. While we were hiking back down we decided to stop in at the Cathedral. The Glasgow Cathedral is actually a medieval church which has some of the most stunning stained glass windows in the country. I also noticed on the map that near the cathedral there was an old police box! And of course now that I've seen quite a bit of Doctor Who I had

to take a picture with it! The police box was actually converted into a coffee stand but unfortunately it wasn't open while we were there. Across from the cathedral was a small museum and we decided to check it out. The St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life & Art was a great addition to our day and we had so much fun! There were deities, religious objects and works of art from almost every religion. We even saw a Ganesh statue right as we walked in as well as a huge Nataraj sculpture! After the museum we headed out for a pizza dinner in the city centre before heading to bed quite early.

Day 2
If I'm honest this was the day I was the most excited for - Edinburgh! We were out super early on an 8:00 am train and arrived in Edinburgh around 9:30 am. The friends that I travelled with weren't very interested in Harry Potter, but they left the planning up to me so basically I was dragging them to every coffee shop, street, and

graveyard with any references to Harry Potter! With that in mind our first stop was The Elephant House, a coffee shop. It's said that J.K Rowling wrote the first couple of chapters in the coffee shop overlooking Greyfriars Kirkyard and with Edinburgh castle in the distance. As it isn't tourist season the cafe wasn't that busy and we were able to get a table to enjoy some warm drinks before heading back out into the cold. I was also told to go check out the bathrooms as thousands of Harry Potter fans have come from so many different places and graffitied the walls of the bathroom. After we got warmed up we headed next-door to Greyfriars Kirkyard on a bit of a scavenger hunt to find the graves of people who inspired some of the names of characters in the books. I was able to find Tom Riddell who of course is the namesake for one of the biggest characters Lord Voldemort (Spoilers!). I also found William McGonagall and Elizabeth Moodie who are said to have inspired Minerva McGonagall and Mad- Eye Moody respectively. The next stop was the City Chambers. Outside the city chambers they have the handprints of people who have made significant impacts to the city. Of course I had to take a picture of J.K Rowling's!

After the City Chambers we took a stroll down the Royal Mile towards The Palace of Holyrood House, the Queen's official residence when visiting Scotland. After that we walked back up the Royal Mile and stopped in for lunch when it started hailing(!) quite hard. The weather cleared up after lunch as we continued up the Royal Mile towards The Writers Museum. The museum featured 3 of Scotland's most famous writers. Robert Louis Stevenson one of the authors featured actually wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island! From the Writers museum we went towards Victoria Street, which is said to have inspired Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter

books. Our last stop of the day took us up to Edinburgh castle. At the opposite end of the Royal Mile from the Palace the views were spectacular! We spent almost a half hour at the castle before getting cold, so we headed for the National Museum of Scotland to take in their interactive exhibits while we warmed up. The Museum was actually a lot of fun and we enjoyed the hour we spent there.