Scotland! Kilts and bagpipes and bagpipes and kilts..

Here I am again in Cork! Still can't believe how much this apartment feels like home.  I am trying to run it through my head that its really not home, but my heart is having a hard time going along with it!

There are 8 days until I fly home and 9 days until I see Jason and the rest of my family! I can't even express how excited I am for those things but I also can't even begin to describe how hard it will be to say goodbye to Ireland.  So many conflicting feelings that are making me leak from my eyes a lot!

Anyways, Scotland.  I am sure you are sick of hearing about my travels and I hope it doesn't sound like I am bragging or anything, I just want you all to see what I have experienced through my eyes and to tell you a little bit about what these places have to offer.  This will also be a nice sort of journal to look back and read down the road!

So a friend and I decided to take a trip to Scotland mid exams to break up the time a little and to make the most of being on this side of the pond! I went with a girl named Juliet who I met through my roommates at St. Ben's.  She actually goes to the U of M but happened to be studying in Cork this semester as well.

We flew into Edinburgh out of Dublin and had some time to explore before it got dark.  I knew I would like that city right away.  It was like a combination of London and the small villages I had seen in the English countryside.  I could definitely tell that I was back in the UK, not sure why but there is just a vibe I guess! We grabbed dinner and continued exploring down the Royal Mile which was literally 10 steps from our hostel.  We were in a perfect location for just about everything. Although, I am not too sad to say that it was my last hostel for awhile or maybe even ever!  We also stumbled upon many bagpipers throughout the city, just playing with a hat out for money but they were all dressed up in their whole bagpiper outfit which was fun to see! All of the shops were advertising for kilts and lambs wool scarves and hats as well.

 Our first day, we explored a bit one stumbled upon many bagpipers throughout the city, just playing with a hat out for money but they were all dressed up in their whole bagpiper outfit which was fun to see! The castle is huge and it sits on this mountainy cliff sort of thing that overlooks the whole city.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  We met up with some of my friends from Cork who also happened to be in Edinburgh for the day and headed to climb arthurs seat together.  Arthurs seat is the top of a mountain/hillside that took us about 30-40 minutes to walk up.  It was nothing compared to my hike in switzerland! It is named for King Arthur and is often mentioned in mythology as one of the possible locations for Camelot.  It was also formed on an extinct volcano system and was eroded by a glacier which exposed rocky crags and surfaces which happened about 2 million years ago.

It was a nice day out and it was fun to do this with so many of my Cork friends to add to all of the memories made with them! After this, Juliet and I were wiped so we headed back to the hostel to make some dinner.  The next morning we got our full Scottish breakfast.  This included things similar to an Irish breakfast, eggs, toast, baked beans, sausage and bacon but with the addition of haggis and a tattie scone.  Haggis is a mixture of sheep heart, lungs and liver, onion and spices stuffed into a sheep stomach and boiled.  It sounds really nasty, but it tasted ok I just couldn't get past more than a few bites.  A tattie scone is a potato based flatbread sort of thing.  At least that was what mine was! The traditional scottish meal is haggis with neeps and tatties which is turnips and potatoes.  It is usually also served with a whiskey gravy on top.  Sadly I did not try this dish but I am proud of myself for even trying haggis at all!

We did a free walking tour after that which took up most of the morning.  It was really informative and our guide was really entertaining and friendly.  The best walking tour I have had yet!  In the afternoon, Juliet and I went to check out the Elephant house which is one of the many coffee shops that J.K. Rowling would frequent in her early writing days.  We were told that she wrote most of the first Harry Potter book in one of the back rooms of that coffee shop.  As a Harry Potter fan, this was pretty cool.  Our tour guide told us that she was too poor to pay for heating so she would buy a cup of tea and sit in here and write all day.  Now they have drawers in some of the tables with pencils and paper and a note that says something like, now you can write your own bestseller! Clever, I think.

We also explored a graveyard that J.K Rowling would have explored and looked out upon while writing.  Many of the names in the graveyard are names of characters found in the books.  Some of the most well known names we saw were McGonogall, Moodie, and Tom Riddell.  As you may have noticed, the actual names are spelled differently than she spelled them in the book.  We figured this may have been out of respect for these actual individuals and their families.  Our guide also told us that many people come from all over the world to see the grave of Tom Riddell and leave really strange gifts and trinkets at the gravesite.  The world is sure full of very interesting people.  I had no idea these things even existed before I went to Edinburgh! It was a nice surprise to get a little bit more of Harry in Scotland though :) That night we went out and tried some of the national drink, whiskey.  Neither of us were a huge fan but since we were in Scotland we figured it was a must.

Our last full day was a bus tour of the highlands! Our guide again, was so great.  He was friendly and informative but didn't talk the whole time either which was nice.  We stopped at Blair Castle where we wandered the grounds and saw the forest and gardens.  The castle was surrounded by green rolling hills and mountains.  It was an incredible location!  The landscape is a bit different than that in Ireland in that it is actually greener! There were more pine trees covering the mountains rather than a browner sort of look of the mountains in Ireland.  I also felt like it was just hillier in general, but granted I only saw a small part of Scotland so I might not actually know best.

We made a few other short stops to a whiskey distillery and a small iron age hut called a crannog.  Our last stop was the hermitage.  It is where a wealthy man and his friends used to smoke opium in the days when it was not illegal.  There is more to the story, but I can't really remember. There was a small hut overlooking a pretty impressive waterfall and incredible green forest surrounding it.  This may have been my favorite of the day.  It was just so green and I love waterfalls and the sound and the smell that they make.  We also stopped to see the famous Forth Bridge on the way back into the city.  This is famous because it was made by one of the same engineers that built the Eiffel Tower.  I thought that was pretty neat!

View of the street our hostel is on at sunset.  Look at those clouds!

Bagpiper on the street!

On top of Arthurs seat!

Juliet and I.  It was a little windy :)

Drinking tea in the Elephant House.  Wishing I was hanging out with J.K. Rowling!

Edinburgh Castle at sunset

Forest on our tour of the highlands

Me at the hermitage/waterfall in the highlands of Scotland!

Forth Bridge

I also had a chance to do some exploring alone, which was something new for me in all of my traveling.  I may sound a bit dramatic here but walking a new city alone a few times was the best way to end my exploration throughout Europe.  I had time to think and reflect on everything I have seen and done, even though I can't really comprehend it now I know that its more than SO many people in the world will ever see in their lifetime.  Like, A LOT more.  What a blessing this has all been!  Scotland was the perfect last adventure.

The countdown for re entry into America has started, and although I am dreading saying my goodbyes I am beyond excited to say some hellos.  Thanks everyone for reading and staying interested in my life :)

Also, I didn't put my last post on Facebook and I checked how many views it had, which was only one.  The one view I know was from my most loyal reader, my dad.  Thanks for being my biggest fan and supporting me dad!