Scotland

This past weekend, I went to Scotland. It was beautiful and magical and everything right in the world. Seriously, I wanted to take the Highlands home with me.

We left from King's Cross at 9:30 for a 5 hour train ride. I ended up at a table with a group of 3 scientists (presumably) that were talking about their recent research. Of course, I was playing Harvest Moon on my 3DS until I knocked out on the table.

After dropping our bags off at the hostel, we went on a walking tour of Edinburgh. The city itself reminded me of one of the towns from Spice and Wolf. Something about the bridges of the streets and the Gothic architecture. It was beautiful though. Also very Harry Potter-y, which is, of course, because it inspired the novels. We saw the Elephant House Cafe, where JK Rowling wrote the books, and the grave stone of Thomas Ridle, who was just a normal dead dude until she borrowed his name. Edinburgh castle was stunning as well, and I couldn't believe it was built atop a volcano.

At the end of the tour, we ate at a pub called Maggie -Somethings-. I can't really remember the name. I know they called the lady it was named for Half Hangit Maggie because she was hanged in the old days and died, but apparently came back to life on the way to the cemetery. They decided since her punishment had been to be hanged, she had served it and lived so she was free to go. Weird. But the food was good. I had stovies, which is really just stew with sausage and vegetables. Then, we popped around some shops for souvenirs and things. After that, we checked into our rooms at the hostel and laid around for a while. Then we went to another pub, which was horribly boring except for the live music was good and my friend got hit on by multiple old men. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the music and quietly laughed to myself because the men wouldn't talk to me since my hair is so short. Seriously though, they bothered everyone but me. Can't complain.

The next day we took a bus up to the Highlands. On the way, we stopped at Stirling Castle. So. Many. Hilarious. Unicorns. The wind was awful though and it was raining. We stood on the wall to take pictures, but the weather was so overcast you could hardly see anything and we were constantly about to fall off the edge because of the wind. The pretty much encapsulates the day. The only other remarkable stop that day was a photo stop we made by these enormous and beautiful mountains. It may have been my favorite 15 minutes of the entire trip. The landscape was so breathtaking none of us minded that we were about to be swept up by a storm. All of the girls with long hair were in a frenzy to keep the hair out of their face for pictures. It was actually windier than Chicago, wind I've never experienced before. I've had Chicago wind lift my off my feet before, but that was because it came so strongly and suddenly and I was walking quite fast. This wind was a constant force, like someone leaning on you, and the rain came at you sideways. It was strong enough that, at one point, I leaned back on my heels and the wind kept me up for a whole minute.

That night we had this old Scottish guy telling us about how the clansmen lived and showed us how they would have dressed and how to put a kilt on. He actually got one kid to take his pants off for the kilt. Which was awkward. The whole thing was awkward really since the guy was really crude. But it was also really interesting so I guess there's a trade off.

We got to the hostel that night and had haggis, which was actually really good. Only one girl didn't like it, but that was because she kept thinking about what it was. After dinner, we played "Heads Up", which was super fun. I'd heard of it but never played before. The best was when everyone kept picking the music topic so we all were basically screaming the tunes of these songs. There were a couple old '80s songs that only I knew so I started yelling them and no one joined me. So I did that awkward slow fade out and sat down and everyone laughed.

Sunday was primarily our day to travel back to London. We stopped at Loch Ness for a bit first though. I didn't see Nessie (sad!), but I learned a bit about the lake, which is super creepy and deep and bleeehhh no thanks. It's crazy how we have no idea what's down there because it's a fissure in the earth's crust.

I talked with one of my new friends from the trip the entire way back to King's Cross. We actually have a lot more in common than we realized.

Hooray for new friends and new experiences!