Day 1 Edinburgh Saturday 4th January 2014:

After enjoying a great night sleep I made my way downstairs to the hotel’s breakfast bar and had a lovely breakfast at 8 am.

To start my first full day in Edinburgh I went for a walk from my hotel and explored the city centre at 10am walking past all the shops in the city.

As I explored the city I found this amazing souvenir shop Heritage of Scotland.

The Heritage of Scotland had so many Scottish souvenirs including: scottish kilts, scarfs,scottish gifts and shortbread!

After purchasing some shortbread and souvenirs from a super friendly scottish girl, I made my way back to my hotel at lunchtime and relaxed for a bit while I chatted to my Scottish friend Emily as we made plans to meet later this afternoon.

I had first started talking to Emily about 9 months earlier on a penpal website called Interpals, which is simliar to Facebook where you can meet new people from all over the world to learn about different cultures.

We had such a great friendship learning about the differences between our 2 countries talking on Interpals and Skype including hearing her accent for the first time!

After some planning we met up in Edinburgh at 2 pm. It was such a great experience to meet this friend from the other side of the world who I had been talking with for all this time!

After meeting up Emily showed me around Edinburgh and we walked to The National Museum Of Scotland.

This was such an interesting museum with lots of interesting exhibits including Natural Science, Art and Design and Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit.

As we made our way through the museum I learned all about the history of Scotland as we explored the Scotland History and Archaeology Exhibit!

After such a interesting time at the National Museum of Scotland, Emily and myself decided to make our way to Starbucks and have a coffee together while we had a travel talk about all the interesting places we had experienced including my time in Europe on Contiki.

We had such a great chat about our lives in our different countries until Starbucks closed at 5:30 pm.

After Starbucks had closed Emily and myself walked back to my hotel and before we said farewell she surprised me with some homemade shortbread she had baked for me!

This was such a great surprise something I wanted to find was some homemade Scottish shortbread!

After such an amazing afternoon together exploring Edinburgh, we said our farewells for the day and made plans to spend the day together on Tuesday which was my final day in Edinburgh before flying back to Australia on Wednesday.

After saying farewell to Emily I walked through the Christmas Markets and purchased some dinner and made my way back to my hotel room before relaxing after a such a great day of exploring Edinburgh.

As I had such an amazing day I Skyped with my family back in Australia, who I hadn’t talked to since New Years Day to tell them all about Edinburgh before heading to sleep to be rested for another day of exploring in Edinburgh tomorrow.

Safe Travels!

Campbell 🙂