Julie, Montana (or MT) and I are traveling through the Highlands. Eric and Mary did this same trip last week, but they rented a car. They had an awesome time, so I'm really excited. To help us journey through Scotland, we took a tour with Haggis Adventures. I'm not a big tour person, but this was the best way to travel around Scotland other than renting a car. We took a three day tour from Edinburgh, Fort Augustus, Inverness, Isle of Skye, and of course Loch Ness. Being the animal lover/folklore lover I am...Loch Ness was like heaven for me.
So let's start with yesterday and our 10 hour bus ride. It wasn't that bad. Of course, MT would say in response to that, "Because you slept for more than half of it." I admit, I did. I fell asleep around northern London, woke up for lunch, fell back asleep, woke up around Newcastle, and I think I was awake from then on. So for Scotland. What I saw was nice and Newcastle looks cool. I did have my eyes on the alert for Hadrian's wall, but we were close but not eyesight close. I did see signs for it...sooo close. One day I will make it to Hadrian's Wall.
Now, the one thing that really got me was the size of the roads. I thought I was on Pine Hill Road for more than 50 miles. It was horrible. That road makes me sick even when I'm driving and it went on forever. The drivers changed three times. We had a really good driver for the first part and then it just downhill from there. The third driver hit a curb or two. As we got near Edinburgh, we saw the fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night. They were alright. Nothing like the 4th of July or Disney.
Edinburgh was really nice. They are doing a lot of construction which made getting through the city really slow at 7:30pm. Our hostel was by the Royal Mile right in the old part of the city and by the castle. It was a sweet hostel. We stayed in the Latin Room and my bed was Pontinus Pilate. Sweet.
After we dropped our bags in our room, we explored Edinburgh. I brought the girls to The Elephant Head aka the home of Harry Potter. This might have excited me more than them, but based on their reactions at Oxford I thought this would be something they would both really enjoy. They were so-so about it, while I was jumping.
Even though it was dark, I really enjoyed the city. It's full of cobblestone, small side streets, and really cool looking buildings. I didn't feel that I was in the UK but in Europe. It's very Gothic style looking and seriously I could have been in Germany. I loved it. The castle is, of course, at the top of the city and MT and Julie did not enjoy the walk up. I was in full traveling mode- don't ask directions, don't pull a map out every 5 seconds, and act like you belong. Walk with confidence even though you have a huge bag on your back. The first person they saw they asked for directions. He was standing outside the bus station asking if anyone needed a hostel or directions, so he wasn't some homeless guy, but seriously guys. I blew him off, but they had no problems asking for directions. Yeah, I was going in the wrong direction, but I would have figured that out in a few seconds. They told me to calm down, but sorry not in the mood for people to know that I don't know where I'm going. My bags says I'm traveling, but not that I'm lost. Anyway, castle...cooool. I really want to go in, but it's not open in the hours we are there. But there are great views. We walked around the Royal Mile and just around for a few hours and then headed to the hostel. For the number of hours I had already slept that day, I slept well.
We got up early the next morning to take pictures of Edinburgh when it was light out. Again, so beautiful. We didn't go far from the Royal Mile which was god since around 8:10ish I realized that I had only one motion sickness wristband. Not good. I ran to the castle because they had been in my jeans pocket with my cell phone, and I took it out there. But I didn't see it in the parking lot, so I ran to the hostel and the guy gave me a key to the room I had been in. I found it in the sheets. Lucky, I know. I got back to the Haggis Adventure building about 10 minutes before we had to board.
Our tour guide was Chris. He was funny though only MT, Julie, and I laughed at the majority of his jokes. Some of them are just wrong or really bad, but he's up front about that. I like him; he tells god stories and he's interested in the history of Scotland. One of our first stops was the William Wallace memorial. Okay people of Scotland...why did you build a memorial on top of a really big hill? It took like 8 minutes to walk up and it was a steep hill. It's really nice though and you can see all of Stirling. The local high school is Wallace High School. Chris told us the real story of William Wallace and what Hollywood made up. He didn't say the Scottish mooning the British soldiers was made up...hahah. But yeah a lot was made up. Boo.
One of my favorite places was Glencoe. Chris told the story of the MacDonalds and Campbells. The MacDonalds lived in Glencoe and when William of Orange aka King William III made all of the clan leaders sign a proclamation of allegiance, the leader of the MacDonalds held out until like the last second and then went to the wrong place. Opps. So he was four days late signing it, but it was cool. Well apparently not. The King sent their rivals- the Campbells to kill them. For a clan, a huge number of men went like 130 or something to the MacDonalds in the middle of winter and asked for hospitality. That basically means shelter, food, and water. You can't turn down hospitality...it's tradition. So the MacDonalds put them up for 12 days and on the 12th night...the Campbells killed everyone. Well everyone who didn't escape, but since it was winter they died anyway. If you think elephants remember everything then you haven't met people in Scotland. Those who remain and have MacDonald blood in them still hate the Campbells. A Canadian man was traveling and stopped in Glencoe for the night. He tried to pay for a room with a credit card, but his last name was Campbell. The woman wouldn't let him pay for a room, but basically kicked him out. He was pretty rich so he went back to Canada after his trip and sued the pub. This case went all the way to the EU and they voted in favor of the pub. So now a sign outside says that they don't serve anyone selling stuff, Campbells or British people. They had to remove the British people part of it, but they don't serve Campbells.
Glencoe is sooooooo beautiful though. It was raining when we were there so I don't have that many pictures of it, but omg. It was a mixture of hills with really green grass and water. We stopped a few times to take pictures of the hills and waterfalls.
When we stopped for lunch, we met a cool Cow aka COO. Hammish. He was big. Not very adorable, but big. Chris fed him an apple and he came as soon as Chris started calling him. He's so famous, he has tee shirts, postcards, mugs all with his face on them.
We also stopped at a loch owned by Bond...James Bond. Yes, Sean Connery. It was once owned by Ian Fleming but after he died Sean Connery bought it. It wasn't raining then so I got some nice pictures of it.
We also went by Fort William where only a small part of the wall is left. There was more, but it was destroyed to make room for a MacDonalds and a grocery store. Well done. We saw a castle at Inverlochy. So beautiful and while in ruins still nice. We saw where they filmed the village scenes from Braveheart, a full rainbow, and our last stop was where they trained troops for WWII.
We stopped for the night at Fort Augustus which is near Loch Ness. It's one of the three forts that William of Orange had built. I ate dinner at a pub and then went to a show about clan life. It was so cool. The guy has original swords, clothes, and just stuff from the clans. He killed me five times with a sword that has died clan blood on it. I think the sword belonged to the clan leader of the Frasers. He beheaded me, put the sword right through my skull, through my chest...wait he might have beheaded me twice. I loved every second of it. Gotta love swords. He got two people to dress like clan folk and with the guy he told him that for the first time in his life he would be dressing like a real man. LOL. The guy then had to remove his pants in front of all of us cause Scottish men don't wear anything under kilts. He got to keep his boxers on, but no jeans. Thankfully (for him) he wasn't wearing any embarrassing underwear. The girl was like, "Do I have to strip too?" She didn't.
It was a great day though. MT fell at the William Wallace memorial and had trouble walking the rest of the day. Update on MT since I'm home now... they think she bruised it. She should be fine, but it's going to hurt for awhile. She could have done so much more to it though and she knows it.
That night was fun too. We hung out in the bar and had a pub quiz and everyone wore kilts. Yep I did. I had on a fake kilt, but I took off my jeans so it counted. LOL. We were in the bar until like midnight and I had only woken up that morning at like 6:30am. Well worth it though.
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