Day 16: My Scotland trip started off at 6:45 am with a bus ride to King's Cross (Harry Potter anyone? 9 3/4 platform is supposedly there) and like most people know, I got a bit motion sick...driving in London is crazy! But thankfully we got on our train and it was smooth sailing from there : ) As we headed from England to Scotland the landscape went from green hills, to the sea to fields filled with sheep.
View from our windows...so green, I love it!
Train and hostel mates (Lisa & me, Stacey & Mary)!!
After 5 hours on the train we arrived at Edinburgh...a booming Scottish city filled with tons and tons of brutal and adventurous history, some of which I would expect to find from a Sherlock Holmes book (by the way the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes is from Edinburough, so is the woman who wrote Harry Potter). We were greeted by our tour guide...how did we know he was our tour guide you may ask? Well he was wearing a bright green and blue kilt! At first I thought we were going to be best friends, but he turned out to be a wee bit of a butt head (or arse as they would say in Scotland). Oh well, he had great stories and clearly was passionate about his country, he just though Scotland had the "World's best you name it" and pretty much was the best country in the world.
After arriving in out hostel, we took a walking tour of Edinburgh and saw the old town (pictured below) as well as the new town, we heard stories about Deacon Brodie and his wild escapades as well as Scotland's "first in the world" skyscraper. Some of the girls and I explored a neat church with awesome stained glass and after shopping for some souveniers headed back to our hostel and fell asleep at 8! Needless to say we were tired : )
Day 17: Our journey to the Highlands started out with a stop in Sterling to visit the William Wallace Monument (now I need to see Braveheart!). This trip allowed me to use my rainjacket and umbrella for the first time because it was rainy almost the whole trip...our "wee" (as our Scottish tour guide described it...ya right!) treck up to the monument was a bit muddy but so pretty!! On top there were great views of Sterling and us girls started our new tradition of band pics...introducing Black Licorice! ha
Back on the road we made a quick stop to visit Hamish, the famous Scottish bull...well that's about all there is to say about that. Pretty soon we entered Highland country and it was GORGEOUS! The scenery is absolutely amazing, probably one of the prettiest places I've ever been to. We visited Glencoe known by the massacre that occurred here in 1692...a clan by the name of MacDonalds were punished by William of Orange for not signing his alliegence treaty, so they had to allow any traveling clans to stay in their homes hoping this would drain all of their resources and make a difficult time for them. Another clan named the Campbells came to stay at the MacDonalds and started a massacre of the town, still to this day places in Scotland will not accept people with the last name of Campbell and they have a saying "Never trust a campell"...that would be rough to be a Campbell today! The scenery of it is gorgeous, but it definitley has a grim history. Mary and I tried to lighten it up with a jumping picture of course...
Next we drove to the Lock Ness...famous for Nessi the Lock Ness Monster. The water of the lock is so dark, almost black it is sort of creepy! But it is one of the biggest fresh bodies of water so props to Lock Ness! We went to this place where they had a real replica of what a typical Scottish family would live in, Mary and one of the other boy students got dressed in typical Scottish wear for the day (I also learned that when men wear kilts they don't wear underwear...yikes!) and we were also shown some of the weapons the clansmen would use. It is interesting because this country was filled with plaid, plaid and more plaid! Apparently each clan had different patterns, but most of them were all the same colors because they had limited amounts of materials to die them with like berries and copper so they would dress their hats with different feathers and leaves to distinguish between the different clans...I thought that was interesting!
This is what Mary would look like had she lived back in old Scottish times...nice hair mer mer!!
Look it's Nessi!!
We finally ended up in Inverness and made our way to a very nice Italian restaurant. The people were great there and the food was even better, such a nice change from typical eating experiences I have had so far!
Day 18: Our treck back to Edinburgh started with a visit to the Culloden Battlefield where the Government slaughtered the Jacobites who were rebelling against them. It was a very somber place to visit because hundreds of men were killed in that very field. There were stones throughout the field symbolizing different clans of men who were buried there.We finally ended up in Inverness and made our way to a very nice Italian restaurant. The people were great there and the food was even better, such a nice change from typical eating experiences I have had so far!
Next we headed to the Balnuaran of Clava, which was a prehistoric cemetary. Apparently these rocks date back before stonehedge and the pyramids...that's a long time ago!! There were three stone circular buildings with other stones standing around the outside of them. It is crazy how these have maintained for so long, how men back then could lift these heavy rocks and how unpopular of a sight it is...we were the only ones there! The moss growing of the rocks and trees just shows its old history still teeming with new life...it's great!
Our last stop of the day was at Blair Castle...at that point we were so hungry it was hard to enjoy our walk through it because at the end was food! But, the castle was amazing and we got to see the burial sights for many of the Stewarts who lived there centuries ago. Arriving back in Edinburgh we stopped to see the "World's best bridge", enjoyed some dinner and a few of us went and saw Eclipse!! It was nice to have a relaxing last night in Scotland.
Day 19: Before heading back to Kingston we took a tour of the Edinburgh castle which holds the Scottish crown jewels. There were amazing views from the castle and canons still sit there today looking over the city and in the background you can also see the river.
View of Edinburgh from the castle...amazing right?!
Our trip would not be complete without some more souvenier shopping of course! 5 hours later on the train we arrived back in London, made our way through the maze of London's rush hour underground railroad traffic and finally to our train home to Kingston!
This weekend was filled with so much laughter...thank you Lisa for singing about everything (Romaaaaa!), Stacey for adding yo to the end and or beginning of everything (Yo! Look at them sheep), Abby for being my bus buddy and speaking like English children with me (but mummy, I want the nuggets, not the burger!) and of course Mary Ellen for being my bestie and trip partner!
I'm exhausted too...time to rest up for class tomorrow!
WAWAWEWA your rain jacket is cute!! or maybe you're just cute and I am distracted by the rain jacket!? haha love all the pictures....sounds like the best weekend ever! seriously! miss you!
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