The True History Of Edinburgh

Today was a rare beautiful, warm and sunny day in Edinburgh so B and I decided to go for a walk.  It was during our time in our old favourite hang out - The graveyard, that we overheard a Harry Potter tour guide spreading the word of Harry to the masses and we realised that we actually had an abundance of our own Edinburgh fun facts!  We located Lord Voldy's grave and began sharing our fun facts with one another and before long we knew, we really knew that we needed to share these hidden gems with the masses.

Tom Riddell's grave

Firstly we need to take you back to 1996 when two kiwi travelers came to Edinburgh and decided to take part in the graveyard ghost tour, one of them was heavily pregnant at the time.  As it turns out the ghost tour was all a bit too much for the pregnant lady and she went into labour and had to give birth to her daughter in the graveyard gift shop.  She give birth over a cauldron of silliness and decided to name her child after her favourite book character who's name was inspired was a graveyard resident!  She named the baby Lorde, after Lord Voldemort (The E made it more feminine).  Now every Easter - which is the Lordes birthday, Lorde returns to Edinburgh to have a private birthday bash at The Elephant House cafe.

Dorota and Blair namespiration

Speaking of The Elephant House, this is also when a cult classic book series, which then progressed onto a screen series, was written.  The book was, of course, Gossip Girl.  Written by Gillian Flynn, who fun fact: got name inspiration for some of our beloved characters from names on the gravestones in Lorde's cemetery and also from some Edinburgh
streets. 

Blair Waldorf Stree

And on the subject of Gossip Girl, did you know that Leighton Meester was the namespiration for one of our fave character? Meester Chuck!  Before we move on from the graveyard you might be interested to know that it is the favourite hang of Nina Dobrev, she's spent Spring Break here for the past 4 years and she rated it a 10/10, the best graveyard she'd ever visited.
Anyway, if you walk back towards the Royal Mile you'll come to the Grassmarket which you may be interested to know is the most thrown up on street in Edinburgh!  And the grassmarket is just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Royal Mile where if you're lucky you'll see Niall Horan perform a balancing act in between the human statues and buskers. 

Hive is an Edinburgh must see.

So now onto the castle, which some people think was the inspiration for Hogwarts, as you ascend the steps toward the castle you might be interested to know that this was the spot where many famous fictional A's (Amy Pond, Amazing Amy, A from Pretty Little Liars)were named.  As you huff and puff your way up the steps you'll be in the same position as many famous writers and as they lost their breath's and fought off their asthma the inspiration just hit them! "huffff, ahhh, pufff, ahhh, ahhh amyyyy!"

So there you have it, Edinburgh has a lot of hidden gems to offer, just be careful you dont wander too far and end up crossing the Edinburgh-Japan border.  Also don't forget to stop to get a picture on the steps of the Met! 

Queen G and L on the Met steps

A Spontaneous Hike To Watch The Sunset

Saturday February 7th 2015 continued 

As you may remember on Saturday the 7th Queen G and her cohorts set off on a magical adventure to feed the most soothing of all gods creatures, the ducks.  Now i bet that since reading that post you have been absolutely dying to find out what happened next, it's probably kept you up at night and you have felt an emptiness deep within your soul.  Fear not, because I am now going to give you the answers you have desperately been seeking!

The story left off with Queen G feeling so happy to have spent the late afternoon feeding the ducks with two of her favourite friends L and B.  However in the words of one of the most influential television characters of all time, Cyrus Rose, this activity was simply

Gazing to the sky the 3 girls noticed how beautiful it looked and they were suddenly struck with a fantastic idea, they would climb the mountain that stood before them to watch the sunset.  Due to the last minute decision to watch the sunset the girls suddenly realised that they were in a race against time as the sun was setting fast and they still had a whole mountain to tackle!  They mutually decided to go rouge and leave the official path. They didnt have time to wind their way around the mountain track, thy would have to head straight up even though the climb might kill them!  G instantly regretted wearing her Ugg boots as they left the track and began squelching their way through the long grass and rabbit droppings!  Aware of the time limit on their mission they began to run, which was hard for G because she was 90% sure she had asthma. The climb was hard but they made it, just in time to see the most beautiful view of the year so far!

The girls contemplated how even after hundreds of years when they were dead and gone Edinburgh would still be there and there would still be beautiful skies and sunsets and a million other lame things such as that (B may have even shed a tear).  Then G introduced the girls to prancercise and taught L how to descend a mountain without falling on your butt.  Then of course like in any 21st century fairy tale they concluded their spiritual journey with a photo shoot

It was on their way back down the mountain that the real troubles began.  You see everyone knows that 3 girls alone on top of a mountain surrounded by bushes and shrubs is the setting of like 73% of horror movies out there.  G, L and B were certain that there were cannibals in the bushes, or at least G was and her anxieties were rubbing off on her cohorts.  They walked swiftly back down the mountain, again not sticking to the official paths because yolo.  Suddenly they came face to face with a sheer drop, one wrong move and it would be certain death!  They were in quite a situation as they could not climb back up the mountain otherwise G would surely have an asthma attack but they also didn't want to fall off of the mountain.  B and L cautiously scaled the mountain side eventually making their way safely to the bottom.  G was still stuck, she carefully maneuvered her way down the slippery rocks, just when she thought she had made it her foot feel away from under her.  She came crashing down the the ground, it was a downfall that outshone even that of the classic 2007(ish) Lindsay Lohan downward spiral.  Anyway, the real moral of the story is always wear sturdy footwear for you never know where the day might take you.  Sturdy footwear for a sturdy soul

Until next time, over and out

xoxo,

Queen G