I'm cheating on England with Scotland... (Day 2)

Alright... if you're just joining us, make sure you have read the post below this one as it is the beginning of the journey... this is Day 2. Day two was my favorite day... yet looking back I realize it was mostly driving. Driving was not the cool part, it was WHERE we were driving that made the difference, for this day my friends was spent in the HIghlands. Now for those of you who weren't aware, God did some of His BEST work in the Highlands. Seriously breathtaking!!!
But before you partake in the sights of northern Scotland, we will begin our journey, rightfully so, with one great man, who plays a vital and undeniably momentous role in Scottish history - William Wallace (are you happy now Jeannette? hehe). Our first stop after boarding the bus at 8:30am was to the Wallace Monument in Stirling.
William Wallace himself... he actually would have dressed like this instead of the Highland garb as depicted in Braveheart, which I desperately need to watch yet again.

I have discovered something about Great Britain that I never knew before... everything is uphill. Edinburgh, in spots, was almost a vertical grade in the sidewalk... the Wallace Monument was no different, but when you reached the tower this is the view
These are all the students JUST from Royal Holloway...
And the girls
After trekking back down the mountain of the Wallace Monument we made our way towards the Highlands. Along the way, we met Hamish the Heilan Coo. The Heilan Coo is the Scottish breed of cattle. During the epidemic of Mad Cow Disease, many of the Heilan Coos were killed, but a group of school children decided to raise money to save Hamish. So he lives... and he lives in a field next to a visitor center.
He quickly took to me and even came when I called him from across the little pen he was in. He is so cute and adorable and we really hit it off. I know the hair is kind of strange and it covers his eyes, but I think that just adds to his mysterious allure.
We did have to leave Hamish and just past him and his vistor center was the entrance into the Highlands.
Excited for the Highlands
This is the point in the blog where I will just post a bunch of scenery pictures. I apologize to you because they don't even begin to capture the immense beauty of what I saw. It was cloudy and rainy, which at first I was disappointed in, but then seeing the clouds roll down the sides of the snow capped mountains was very cool!




there's a rainbow in this pic
The after winding our way for a couple hours hearing all about the adventures of Rob Roy and the warring clans of the Highlands, like the Campbells, MacDonalds, MacGregors, etc, we got to Glencoe. It is the most beautiful spot in the highlands. It is also where they digitally placed Hogwarts in Harry Potter. We got out of the coach and got to take so many pics before it started raining.





So as I said, it started to rain and so we loaded back onto the bus. Our next stop... well who could expect to come to Scotland and not pay a little visit to our friend and "underwater ally" Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. (Note "loch" is pronounced by clearing your throat at the end instead of actually pronouncing the"k" sound.
Now when I picture Loch Ness in my head and from what I have seen in pictures before, it seemed like any medium size lake... nothing spectacular. I was astounded to find that Loch Ness is SEVERAL miles long and over 1.5 miles wide!! We drove along Loch Ness for almost 15 minutes before we reached the half way point, which is where the ruins of Urquhart Castle are.
looking in both directions at the loch on top of the Urquhart Castle tower

the grass is SO green
Scottish Pride!!
On the shore of the Loch... I got a stone from the water to save. Yet, no matter how politely I asked Nessie didn't show herself.

Alright, fun facts about Nessie:
- There are prehistoric cave drawings of a creatue living in Loch Ness.
- The Loch use to have direct access to the North Sea and still today, there are underwater tunnels to the Ocean
- The Loch has such a high concentration of silt in it that they cannot put a submarine in the water to see what's in there
- photographs surfaced in the 1930s of the monster peeking its head out of the water
- Sonar continue to bring about interesting results... as soon as 15 yeas ago sonar confirmed that there is in fact two creatures living beneath the surface of the deep deep loch. Too big to be fish, too fast in moving around to be a plant or rocks, definitely a creature.
- Leading theories is a plesiosaur or giant eel
- Nessie has a friend in the Loch Morar known as Morag (we didn't visit him)
- Nessie creeps me out to no end... mainly because I thought it was more of a legend and NOT a current phenomenon.
- My leading theories: 1. It's an alien space craft hidden beneath the water surface (a la "War of the Worlds") and these are the same aliens who created Stonehenge. 2. The Loch Ness monster from the cave drawings and the one from the 1930s and even the one today is the exact same one and is in fact immortal. 3. It's the underwater city of Atlantis. 3. It's a futuristic submarine which is home to Elvis, King Arthur, Jack the Ripper, and Merlin. They are all happy and sipping Green Apple martinis and single malt Scottish whiskey and having the time of their lives.
Also at Loch Ness I bought my first Scotland souvenir, a Celtic ring!! It is pretty and it's so pretty!
So Loch Ness was our last touristy sight of the day. We did however drive past the castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was mostly obscured by trees though, so I didn't get any pictures. So, we just soldiered on to Inverness, the capital of the Highlands to our Hostel.
Our group all agreed that we were TOO exhausted to make a big night of it, so we simply went to Hoot & Annie's restaurant for really good Thai food (our tour guide boasted it's quality) and then we bought ice cream at Tescos and walked back for bed. I did however see this enigmatic sign out side Tescos (above my head in the picture)... it just has a blue circle crossed out and says, "at any time." What does it mean??? Don't WHAT at any time? We decided there is no being blue allowed in Scotland... sad.

I'm cheating on England with Scotland... (Day 1)

This is going to be quite a daunting task for me... Loading up pictures onto these posts with the internet speed I have takes a LONG TIME! and I took 260 pics this weekend. Of course I won't post them all because much of them are scenery pics, and only I would begin to appreciate their beauty as they act as a memory of the beauty that I saw in person.
I will also warn you that I will be adding pictures to these posts because I have 4 other camera that I need to get pictures from... Allie, Danielle, Leonore, Victoria, and I were continuously snapping pics of each other and the beautiful landscapes, but for right now I am in possession of mine alone.
Scotland is SPECTACULAR! The title of these posts really sums it up, because if England is a faithful straight-lace boyfriend, then Scotland is the rouge I have been having an affair with all weekend... and quite frankly the rogue is kind of awesome. (Sorry if that was a little too personal for you all. Ha!)
Let us begin...
Our journey began bright and early Friday morning... this trip was different than the rest of the tours I have been on in that we were not picked up from our front gate by a bus, but instead had to meet the tour guide at King's Cross Station by 8:30am. This meant that a group of us met at 6:20am in the middle of campus, walked 20 minutes to the train station, took a 45 min trip into London, and then a 15 minute tube ride to King's Cross. Now if you'll all remember, King's Cross is the station Harry Potter catches the Hogwarts Express from to go up to Hogwarts School, which is somewhere in Scotland... so needless to say I felt like I was in a Harry Potter book yet again... and so the day started off with a photo opportunity at my favorite platform
The train ride was nothing to boast about save the early morning nap I took, the girl across the aisle with an earth shaking laugh that woke me up too soon, and reading. There were also some great pics of the northeast england sea coast (picture to come). My seat mate was Allie!
We wound our way up north and 4.5 hours we reached Edinburgh, Scotland!
We met our tour guide at the station... his name is Michael and I realize that I didn't get a picture of him. But he was wearing a kilt, had long curly brown and grey hair and had a thick scottish brogue... very authentic. He took us to our Hostel, which was REALLY nice. We were late in getting to Edinburgh on the train, so we immediately left the hostel for a fast paced walking tour around Edinburgh. It was amazing... and amazingly cold, and amazing all uphill. It wasn't long before we all caught on that Mike was fiercely proud of his country and proceeded to describe everything in Edinburgh as the best in the world (you should note that these descriptions continued throughout the entire weekend, everywhere we went. I loved this however and completely believe every hyperbole he uttered). So, Edinburgh is apparently the best city in the world! It is also a hugely literary city. People like Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, JK Rowling, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all called or still call Edinburgh home. Here is a statue of Sir Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes
More of Edinburgh


After the tour guide set us free from the walking tour at 4:30pm, we had the entire rest of the night to ourselves. We were excited to explore the city and our first stop was Edinburgh Castle.
Unfortunately it was already closed. I was so disappointed... Edinburgh Castle is to Scotland what Windsor Castle and the Tower of London is to England. So there is so much history in there... but another visit I guess. But we still took the photo opportunities in front of the castle. (Leonore, me, Danielle, and Allie)

The castle sits on top of an extinct volcanic mountain, so it is high atop most of the city. these are some views from the Castle-
The entrance to the royal mile (the street running straight from the Castle to the royal palace of Edinburgh)
Arthurs seat... the main part of the volcanic mountain

After the castle photo shoot, our group proceeded down the royal mile, which is the Edinburgh High Street of sorts. There are tons of shops all along it selling Cashmere and argyle and lambswool, and other scottish souvenirs, unfortunately I got to the end and didn't end up buying anything... but you should note Scotland is known for their Cashmere, one of the top sellers in the world. It is interesting to note that Edinburgh has another "city" underneath it. It was built upon the ruins of another city and so beneath our feet there were catacombs. We didn't get to take a tour of them because of time... another thing for the next visit someday.
I did however find a knight in shining armor along the walk.
St Gile's Cathedral
On a street just off the Royal mile is a cafe called The Elephant Head. This little Cafe is where Harry Potter was born... not literally of course, but this is where JK Rowling wrote her books before she became too famous to go out in public.

This heart is on the street and it is tradition for people to spit on it... sadly I cannot remember why anymore. But I did spit on it.
We finished with the Royal Mile and then our group split up. Everyone but Leonore and myself went to dinner, but her and I wanted to climb Calton Hill. It was said to have an amazing view of the city
So yeah... it was pretty much the coolest spot in Edinburgh!! We got there at the perfect time because it was still light enough that we could see the city, but dark enough that all the lights were lit up.


So for a long time Edinburgh was known as the Athens of the west because of its contributions to the area of knowledge and literature, etc (Scotland offers free university to any of its citizens). So the people of Edinburgh decided to build a replica of the Parthenon, but instead they ran out of money and only finished one wall... to this day it is nicknamed Edinburgh's disgrace... but it's awesome.


After spending a ton of time on top of Calton Hill, Leonore and I met up with Tyler and went to dinner at an italian bistro. Then we met up with the rest of the group to find a pub. There was a huge Rugby match on the television that evening and so we traveled to 4 different pubs before we finally found a table at Milne bar.
We then finished off the night with a pint and talked to some of the locals, including a young man (18 years old) who was so incredibly excited that we were from the US. He kept yelling out any reference to American pop-culture he could. He loved that my name was Miranda because he LOVES Sex and the City! It was hilarious and a great end to the evening! We then headed back to our rooms and were tucked into bed by midnight. Cheers!!


I'll post the rest of the trip tomorrow.