Last weekend I went to Scotland with my Arcadia program. To begin, we had to arrive at Kings Cross Station at the crack of 7:30am in order to make our train. The train ride to Edinburgh lasted 4.5 hours, but had beautiful scenery towards the end. There were seven other close friends from the internship program on my trip, and we all were able to sit together on the train. It was a nice ride because I also could access free wifi on my computer, which allowed us to watch some episodes of The Office as well as check email. My favorite part of the train ride was passing through some very picturesque harbor towns on the North Sea and seeing their lighthouses. (I have a secret love of lighthouses.)
A picture of the North Sea at a small harbor town called Berwick Upon Tweed. I took this from the train.
When we got to Edinburgh, our tour guide met us at the train station decked out in his kilt (which he wore the entire rest of the weekend). It was slightly raining for the entire day, but that didn't really put a damper on things. Pun. We arrived at our hostel, which was voted the best hostel in Scotland according to our tour guide, and I was thoroughly impressed with the facilities. It was right next to the Edinburgh Castle and was called the Castle Rock hostel (which I ended up calling Castle Hill hostel for the entire trip probably because I missed Alexa). After arriving at our hostel, Jess, Kristin, Haley, and Christine, and I scouted out lunch at an Italian restaurant that was DELICIOUS! I bought a panini, mocha, and a chocolate/caramel/cookie dessert, and all were incredibly delicious. Then, we had to climb up a million stairs to get back to our hostel and meet up for our tour of Edinburgh.
Our tour guide, Mike, talking in the rain.
Mike, our kilted tour guide that I already mentioned, was extremely knowledgeable about everything to do with Edinburgh and the Highlands. You could tell he really loved his job. Even though we were all standing in the rain for most of the tour of Edinburgh, he didn't seem to mind and was still extremely excited to tell us every story he memorized about every landmark. And honestly, I feel there were hundreds of stories. I was really impressed. This is what the first day looked like:
Me and Evan with a statue of Bobby, the dog beloved by Edinburgh and saved by the city's children.
Where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books - the birthplace of Harry Potter.
Friday night, many of my friends and I decided to do a pub crawl that was advertised at Castle Rock. We got two pounds off the price of the pub crawl through staying at Castle Rock, which was nice. We ended up going to four or five local pubs, the first of which was bank bar. I even got to see a really drunk Scotsman get into a drunken fight with nobody! It was extremely funny to watch. He wasn't part of the pub crawl group, don't worry.
On Saturday, our group departed from the hostel at the crack of 8am to get on a big coach bus and drive to the Highlands. Kristin and I were the last on the bus so we sat in the front seat. I am actually glad that I was able to sit in the front seat for the first part of the trip because I had a great view of the Firth of Forth and its bridges. Then, when we got to the highlands, I had a great view of how beautiful they are as well. However, the bus ride was about 5 hours long and I started getting a little car sick after a while. The bus driver was clearly a local and drove much faster through the mountains than most people would. Needless to say, everyone on the bus admitted to feeling slightly nauseous after those 5 hours...but no one actually got sick thankfully.
My first view of the Firth of Forth!
The places that we stopped on Saturday were at the River Tay and Loch Ness. We were able to see a lot of lochs on the trip and learn all about the loch system and that boats can go through the loch system from the Atlantic to the North Sea in 4-5 hours. The lochs and surrounding mountains were stunning, and I felt like I was in central Colorado. Loch Ness was really funny because Kristin actually decided to wade in the water in order to try to pet a swan. Also, many of my friends decided to try haggis...which I skipped out on with no regrets. They said it was terrible.
Me, Matt, Kristin, Russell, Christine, Evan, and Scott in front of the River Tay (all Kelley students except Evan)
Some beautiful Scottish scenery.
Me at Loch Ness! Never found a monster.
After our trip to Loch Ness, we went to a local distillery called Ben Nevis. In all honesty, I truly disliked that trip. The whole distillery smelled terrible, was really ugly, and the free sample of whiskey at the end was not sometime tasty or calming to my car sick stomach. I'm sure some people would have enjoyed that tour, but I certainly did not.
Me, Kristin, Christine, and Haley at the distillery. I didn't like that whiskey at all.
Before I forget, I also want to add that Scotland prints its own money, so it looks different from the British pound. It still has the same value, but it does not have Queen Elizabeth on it. It's really different, and I wish I could have kept some to show off when I get home to the states.
Anyway, at night we stayed in a hostel in Obin, Scotland, which is on the Atlantic side of Scotland. We literally drove from the East Coast, to the North Coast, to the West Coast in one day. Obin was cool, and is a harbor town. I really wanted to eat fish and chips while I was there, but most of my friends wanted to go to a legitimate sit-down restaurant. We ended up at yet another Italian restaurant, where the food was very good. However, I still have not had fish and chips in Scotland.
After the Italian restaurant, we went to a local pub called the Larne where there was live music playing. It was really fun, except I still wasn't feeling well so I only drank half of a Strongbow (alcoholic cider) and had to call it quits for the night. After The Larne we went to another club/pub down the block, but only stayed there for a little while. They were playing a lot of American music, though, which was fun. Then, when I went back to the hostel, I hung out downstairs with my friends and then went up to bed.
Sunday morning we left the hostel at 9am (which didn't feel TOO early this time) and left to drive back through the highlands and to Edinburgh. We saw a gorgeous church that was built solely by one man in honor of his mother. Also, we drove through Calendar, which is a small tourist town, and Fort Augustus. These places were slightly south of the towns we went through the day before, which included Perth, Glencoe, and Inverness. Also, I got to see a cool castle and pet an old Scottish cow named Hermish. Finally, our last adventure before we caught the train back to London in Edinburgh was to climb up the hill that had a monument to William Wallace (the guy Mel Gibson plays in Braveheart). It was steep and took about 10 minutes to climb.
Hermish the cow.
Some sheep in front of the Campbell Castle.
Me, Kristin, and Christine at Loch Laggan.
The train ride home was somewhat of an adventure because our seats were double-booked so we had to find unreserved seats on a very overcrowded train. I ended up having to move several times, but was able to stay in a seat with a table after a while. That was very lucky because I was able to get some of my homework done.
Overall, the trip to Scotland was amazing and I recommend to anyone who likes beautiful landscapes to visit Scotland at least once in their lifetime.
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Thanks for the running commentary and perceptions of your trip to Scotland. I almost felt as if I was there, less the nausea and stinky distillery.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Bob