Scotland the Brave

I wish I was still there. Seriously.

So, we flew into Edinburgh on Tuesday night, and got the bus into the middle of town. From there we had a 15 min walk to our B&B, although it felt longer as we didn't know the way and it was dark! Thank goodness it was all downhill...our hostess was just lovely, I think she was surprised that we were so young but it was great. Nice comfy beds, piping hot porridge served for breakfast...yummmmm!!! I had it every day - aren't you jealous, Dad? :P

Wednesday was our first day. We headed up to the castle, which was amazing, and on the way we walked past a sign advertising tours of the surrounding regions. The castle has an amazing view of the city and while we were there the army fired a 1-gun salute, although the sign said 21-gun. The National War Memorial is located in the castle, so as well as guards at the gate they had guards inside too. They all wore kilts!! They looked very dashing. Haha. Lisa had me take a photo of her and three of them who were just standing around. I'm sure they get that a lot but they looked quite pleased.
In the castle there was the oldest building in the city, a little Chapel, and the suite of rooms where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to her son James IV, (I learned some history!!)and the Honours, or Crown Jewels, of Scotland. Those things have quite a history, from being hidden under a flagstone in a church during some war to being locked away in a chest for 100 years! It got to the point that nobody knew for certain where they were. There was also a display on Prisoners of War which was cool. You can learn a lot from graffiti...

So, after booking a tour (for the next day) we were handed a flyer advertising 'The Birthplace of Harry Potter'. We were looking for somewhere to eat so we checked it out. It turned out to be 'The Elephant House Cafe', where apparently J.K. Rowling used to sit in the back area looking onto the castle, and write. It was a really good cafe actually! After that we wandered down the Royal Mile, stopping at various giftstores, and had a look at the new Scottish Parliament Building. It looked very...modern. Interesting.

Thursday we had the tour! We drove through Glasgow, had a cruise on Loch Lomond, stopped for lunch in Aberfoyle, and passed through the Trossachs on our way to Stirling Castle. The driver was great, he told us a lot of stuff, including the story of the Modern Art on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Highway. This road was voted "The Most Boring Road in Scotland" (lol!), so the local councils decided to commission some artworks to spice it up a little. The first, and my favourite, was some earth in a farmer's paddock by the road sculpted into pyramids. It wasn't that new so the grass had grown all over it and they were kinda hard to see, just looked like some funny-shaped hills. But apparently, sometimes the farmer dyes his sheep pink and blue before putting them out to graze there!! Just to get into the spirit of things, you know. Hahaha!!!!!!!!

The second one was a giant metal horn, designed to play music to people driving. When it was pointed out that they likely wouldn't hear it, and cars have stereos, they decided to play music to the sheep, to improve the wool quality by calming them down. That too was shouted down, so now it's just a 120,000 pound metal horn thing. Umm....great!

The other two were kinda boring, piles of pipes arranged to look like faces and a metal wire outline of a Clydesdale. But Glasgow looked amazing, I'm definitely going to go back and look around. We didn't have time to stop on the tour unfortunately.

It was so cool to see Loch Lomond, after all the times Dad's sung that song to me. The driver explained the meaning of the lyrics, and they're actually rather depressing, but still. The cruise was a wee bit chilly but the scenery was beautiful, and we saw a couple more castles on the shores. The island in the middle is home to Scotland's oldest Nude Colony, but apparently the youngest member's in his/her eighties!
Lunch in Aberfoyle was enjoyable, we stopped outside a tourist centre offering Sheepdog shows, although the dog was actually herding geese. Haha! They all waddled across the little bridge and went through the little tunnel, and it was..yeah, I liked it. Unfortunately the little girl on the tour got a bit carsick and threw up on the back seats of the (mini)bus, so our poor driver had to spend half his lunch-45mins cleaning it up. I felt sorry for him so I gave him the rest of my guinness-flavoured chocolate (that I'd bought in Ireland). I think that was why he waited for me when I was a few minutes late getting back...

The Trossachs were stunning, but my favourite part was when we stopped to take photos of some Highland Cattle. They are soooo cool!! Whenever Mum goes to Scotland she brings me back a stuffed toy 'Hielan' Coo', and I can see why. Gorgeous! I even found a postcard with a picture of a cow and her calf. Cuuuute!!!

Stirling Castle was our last stop for the day. It is said that if you control Stirling Castle, you control all of Scotland, it it lived up to it's position. I think that out of all the castles we saw, this was my favourite. It had the best views ever, a gorgeous courtyard, and out the back they were working on tapestries to decorate the Main Palace. They are currently in the middle of renovating this, so unfortunately we couldn't have a look, but the other buildings were fascinating. One was a museum of a Scottish Regiment, and wow Scotland's had a lot of fighting.

The trip home was quiet, I fell asleep. All that fresh air!! And climbing up spiral staircases in castles. When we got back we hung out in town, then Lisa went back to the B&B and I headed off to check out some Scottish Fiddle Music. A friend from Scotland had reccommended a pub so I went there, and while the music was music that I knew it wasn't very enthusiastic. I was a little disappointed but I had a good chat with some locals before taking a bus back to our B&B. I got back just after 11pm and the sun hadn't even set!

Friday was our last day in Edinburgh. We went down to the waterfront, which was mostly industrial ( :( ), and checked out the mall there. It was ok, nothing special. The Royal Yacht Britannia is moored there but we didn't go on board, it was kinda expensive and we weren't that keen. I did get a photo though.
So we headed back to town, looked around a bit, then spent an hour and a half sitting in Subway, because it was warm there and we were tired. After walking around a bit more we went back 'home'.

On Saturday we took the bus up to Inverness! I loved the scenery, Scotland is just gorgeous. Some of it looks just like NZ but other parts are completely different. We made it to our hostel to catch the hostess in time, but it was a close one because they'd been expecting us an hour earlier :(. Oh well. that afternoon we walked around a bit, and on our way back stopped by the castle (EVERYthing bigger than a group of shacks has a castle) and took some photos, and that night we went in search of more fiddle music. The group on stage was good, but the crowd wasn't. They just sat there. Sottish Fiddle Music, well, if you're not tapping your toes AT LEAST then you shouldn't be there. After a few minutes of this, the musicians announced that they were going to play "a song", which was fair enough, but I couldn't believe my ears when they launched into "You Are My Sunshine".
Oh. My. God. I did NOT come from HALFWAY around the WORLD to hear "You Are My #%$^&*** Sunshine". GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
So Lisa and I headed upstairs, to where a local band was playing. Think along the lines of Hello Sailor (if you don't know who they are, you should. Go check them out. They're great!). This band was called The Galipaygos, don't ask me what it means, and I really enjoyed listening to them. They even had a trumpet! I was sold as soon as I saw that trumpet. They had a CD for sale, 5 pounds, so I bought one, and now I can't stop listening to it.

Sunday I had porridge for breakfast again, (gotta love Scotland!), and then we went to Culloden Battelfield. It was...sobering. Really interesting. The only thing they needed were the strains of a lone piper echoing off the hills. Then I would call it haunting. They put flags along the government and Jacobite front lines, and could tell where certain parts of the battle took place from archeological excavations. You have to go there, I can't describe it.

For lunch we took the bus to Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness. The sun had come out by then so we had the best picnic site EVER! We didn't see the Loch Ness Monster sadly, although I did buy a stuffed one because I thought it was cute. The castle is only a ruin these days but they have little signs around saying what various parts used to be used for, and some stunning views of the loch and scenery. I got photos! Yay!

That night we hung out at our B&B, which happened to have...a piano!! Lisa played around a bit, she used to play the clarinet so she can read a bit of music, then I had a go. It was great, I really have missed having a piano. The next morning we got up, packed (after breakfast - guess what I had!) and took our bags down to the bus station. Our bus didn't leave til 3 so we had some time. I had a chat to our hostess just before we left, turns out she's done some swing dancing too...they're everywhere!! Oh, and on the bus to Loch Ness I ran into Kirsty! (Someone I know from dancing in NZ). Random, huh?

The bus trip back to Edinburgh Airport was fun, we took a bit of a detour so we saw some more countryside, although the road got kinda narrow in places so when another bus or a logging truck came along things got interesting! We had an hour or so at the airport so we spent our last few pennies on a couple of glasses of wine, before jumping on the plane back to Dublin. We went via Dublin as Edinburgh to Madrid is horrendous. We had to go through customs again, and when the officer asked me "How long are you staying in Ireland?" I said "Oh, about six hours." He looked a little bemused but glanced at my stamp from our previous admittance and waved me through.

So we dozed off on the couches in Starbucks until it was time to check-in for our flight home. By that time we were definitely ready to stop travelling, I was looking forward to the washing machine...but Scotland has captured me and I would love to go back. Maybe when I'm done with uni I'll get a working visa and go live there for a bit. Teach the scottish to appreciate their own music!! Lol.

Photos, as always, are on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=130686&id=585155585&l=04bf9855a2

I'm off to Sweden (yay dancing camp!) tomorrow so I'll write something more soon I expect!!
Byeeee

Katie

The Emerald Isle

Well, it took us about a day but we're finally back! Ireland was awesome, and Scotland, well, I didn't want to leave. But it is good to have access to a washing machine again.

So, Ireland. We got up early and got the train to Madrid, the Metro to the airport, and the plane to Dublin, arriving at about 1pm Saturday. It was an uneventful journey, and the Irish customs officer was great. In fact, pretty much all the Irish seemed very friendly! I'd like to think that's what NZ is like to foreigners. Flying in, too, it was immediately obvious why it's called the Emerald Isle. It was so green! And so pretty!
We took the bus to our hostel, which was basic but clean and tidy, and walked about 15 mins through the pouring rain (yes, it was raining...) so it was nice to put on some dry socks. After trekking to a supermarket and back, we took a bit of time out before finding a bar. Lisa (the American girl I was travelling with) wasn't 100% healthy so we took our time, and while I'm sure we could have squeezed more in it was nice to not be rushing round. The bar was great, they had some musicians, a guitar, banjo, and of course, a fiddler. The music was exactly what I was hoping to see too! They played some traditional stuff, a few Irish songs, then broke out some Johnny Cash - with Irish Fiddle Solos. I'll put a video on Facebook. It was Awesome!!!!!!

Oh yeah, I had a guinness. Mmmm.

Sunday we spent a bit of time Sightseeing. We went to Trinity College, which was gorgeous, Christ Church Cathedral, which was closed for a service when we turned up (although the outside looked pretty good), and on our way back we found a cute little cafe. Back at the hostel we had a chat to some Czech guys who were actually living nearby and just looking after the hostel while the boss was out. Lisa had something that looked like bug bites round her knees so we ended up moving rooms, although it was worse the next day so that didn't help much. I was fine so it may have been an allergic reaction, although I felt sorry for the owner. I think we were jinxed there, there were several other things that went wrong too, like door handles falling off etc!

Anyway, Monday we wandered along the river 'Liffey' before visiting a few green spaces. I thought St Stephens Green was my favourite, although it's true we didn't get to the much bigger park (with a zoo!) called Phoenix Park. But that's ok. By that evening Lisa was worn out so I went out to a pub with Irish music and dancing, as I didn't want to spend out last night in Dublin sitting around in the hostel! I didn't mind being out alone actually, I didn't stay out late and I got to chat to some locals. And the dancing was inspiring. They did some a cappella dancing too, 5 of them, all in perfect time, which must have been doubly hard with half the audience clapping out of time! I'd love to learn..

We had a flight to Edinburgh Tuesday night so we had some time during the day to look around. We spent this at the Guinness Storehouse, which is on the brewery site and is essentially a museum. It was interesting, actually, although my favourite part was the free pint of Guinness at the end! And the guinness-flavoured dark chocolate I bought at the gift store. From there we walked past the old jail on our way back, and jumped on a bus to the Airport.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about Edinburgh!!