Scotland

This past weekend, I went on my last trip. Kathryn, Allie, Jill and I bought cheap tickets on an overnight bus to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Thursday night we boarded the bus at 11 pm. We arrived in Edinburgh around 8:30 am. There was not a lot of leg room on the bus. I won't go into details about my sleepless night.

Friday morning we had to wait to check into our hostel, so to kill time we hung around the castle. The castle is striking, sitting on top of cliff-like hills in the middle of the city. We slept on some park benches in the near-by park.

Eventually we met up with one of Allie's friends who had lived in Edinburgh for a year and was back to visit. Her and her fiance showed us around the Old Town area, and they took us to get the greasiest fish and chips I have ever seen. Even I cringed when I saw it... then you know it's bad. But it tasted delicious.

We walked through an old graveyard with them before venturing out on our own.

We walked down the Royal Mile - starts with the castle and then ends where the Queen stays on her visits to Edinburgh.

Down in that area is the Scottish Parliament, and next to that was a large hill. We climbed up that even though we were so sore from our bus ride the previous night...

We walked, and walked, and walked some more (which is really a theme of my study abroad experience) and admired all the beautiful old architecture that surrounded us. All of the buildings were similar in architectural style since we generally stayed in the Old Town area. Very quaint.

On our way back to our hostel, we picked up some dinner at a local grocery store.

That night we sat around a cute table, looking out a bay window of our hostel as we ate burnt popcorn. We drank some tea and then went to bed at an embarrassingly early time of night. It was so great to sleep in a bed - I didn't even care that the springs were coming out of the mattress.

The next morning we went on a coach tour through the Lower Highlands. It was beautiful to see the countryside.

We stopped in Scotland's largest city - Glasgow - before heading to Loch Lomand. This lake is Britain's largest expanse of water. We took an hour boat ride on the lake, taking lots of pictures while shivering in the cold.

After that we were back on the bus to our next stop: the village of Aberfoyle. This is a small village just on the edge of the Trossachs. We ate a quick sack lunch here before heading to our next stop.

Next were the Trossachs. These mountains were filled with valleys and lakes (or as the Scottish call them - glens and lochs). I loved the scenery of the heather covered mountains as we drove along the mountain pass. The ride was very curvy, however, and poor Kathryn had to close her eyes most of the time because of carsickness.

We drove by the castle that was used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail on our way to our final stop: Sterling Castle.

We decided not to pay to go inside the castle. Instead we enjoyed a nearby graveyard (I know, a little morbid) with great views of the country side. We walked around the area and commended ourselves for spending the extra money to see the countryside.

It was a great taste of the highlands, and it left me wanting to go further north to see more. So many places, so little time... How unfortunate.

We arrived back in Edinburgh around 6 pm, but our bus didn't leave until 10. We enjoyed a local McDonald's for most of our night.

Yes, the ride home was far worse than the ride to Edinburgh... but we survived beautifully. :)