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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Wait…hold on…give me a second. Someone just told me that it took almost two months for me to finish my little blog about my trip to Scotland in April. What? That’s REAL? Wow…what’s *my* deal? Anyway, I wanted to finally finish this and get it posted even though I’ve talked to most of you about the trip but I have some family who read my blog that might still think I’m there because I haven’t posted about the trip ; ) Oh and I’m also taking a road trip to the Southwest for most of next week and I figured I might as well get this up before it gets *really* ridiculous. Here you go…
So I don’t know if any of you heard that I went to Scotland for vacation recently (Obviously I started writing in May)…*wink wink* Okay but seriously, I’ve really needed to get on a post for the trip and given my history of taking “awhile” to post on things, I should get cracking before the month passes me by (wow, *that’s* a funny sentence come the end of June). Although we’ll see. Okay so I had the chance (and vacation time) to make my way out to Edinburgh as I have a few friends currently attending The University of Edinburgh (Mae and Sophia) so I had people to see and an awesome place to do the seeing in so it was a perfect storm.
My travel day out was…quite the adventure. My friend Philbert from small group drove me out to LAX and we had breakfast at the most dangerous Jack In-The-Box in the world. There was Plexiglas dividing customer from worker and one of those door to door jobs so that food could be passed. Good times!! Anyway, smrt guy here booked a flight that wasn’t set to leave until the early afternoon here and was to arrive in Edinburgh in the midmorning…meaning even though my body wanted to sleep as soon as I got in, I had to stay up an extra 12 hours. No sweat. What could happen? I mean what could happen other than “see” a disembodied head on the plane in Heathrow next to me while on the tarmac and an elephant standing in someone’s yard while taking the bus to Mae’s flat? *Ahem* Anyway, day 1½ consisted of trying to stay tied to reality while in a tired stupor, hit up The Olive, make my first Tesco run, get hooked on Dr. Who and was able to have the awesome picture below taken. All in all a good day.
Sunday morning was spent at Mae’s church for services and then we had a “new members’ lunch” with the pastor. I decided not to join. Sunday night was a planning night where we were able to largely get the week straightened out. I also apparently said, "like what the EFF, panda bears?!?" at one point for reasons that has seeped into the mist of time.
A good portion of Monday was spent hiking around Holyrood Park and up to Arthur’s Seat (the main peak) with Mae, Sophia and new friend Crystal. Since it’s seems odd to write out a narrative on a hike, I thought it better to simply pluck out a few shots from the afternoon. Here goes:
Just starting out:
St. Anthony’s Chapel:
A lake on the way:
A view from the top:
Tuesday was spent with Sophia as we made the trek up to Stirling, and Stirling Castle which has played a pivotal role in Scottish history, including being where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned…among other things. In random information, we were told that on a clear day (which happens…when? Sorry.) you can see across the entirety of Scotland in every direction you look. Hopefully I remembered that right. Anyway, here are a few pics:
Robert The Bruce statue
Tree on the castle grounds
Looking out to the Wallace Monument
In addition to the regular tour, we also had fun bumping around the regimental museum, walking the castle walls, seeing exciting looming in action so good times.
After looking around the cast, we walked the streets of the city and saw several interesting adverts for a local church, including this one:
Anyway, once back to Edinburgh we went to the famous Grayfriar’s Bobby pub I tried haggis for the first time (mine was stuffed in chicken), and we participated in a pub quiz. I knew I would get trivia night in…actually I had no idea but hey, good thing for happy coincidence. So that was Tuesday.
Wednesday started off with Mae and I hitting up The Georgian House which is a preserved house dating back to the late 18th century. And since I’m a man who loves his old houses…anyway, it was a nice slice into early 19th century life so enjoyment was had.
After lunch we made our way to the Royal Botanic garden, and here are a few select shots:
One Wednesday night we had a night in and watched Mitchell , the Rifftrax version of the 3rd Harry Potter and Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii...although I could be mixing up my programs and days…oh and since we're here we also took in Magical Mystery Tour at some point. It’s June, after all. I can't keep this stuff straight..Anyway, I hadn't seen it before. Don't judge.
So Thursday was my big day trip with Sophia to the Highlands and Loch Ness…and it almost didn’t happen. Soph was very good to book the night before and I got directions from Mae the night before, as we were to meet at this café on the Royal Mile (the main street that runs from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace). Now by the time Thursday came around I felt decent about getting to major spots although I hit a snag as soon as I left…ummmmmm…I realized I had no change for the bus and since it was before 7:00 almost no places were open for me to make change so I took some crazy walk in search of a convenient store (not convenient, btw). It took a minute (or more) but I finally bought an orange juice and had proper change. Right. So I hopped on the bus, made my way to the café aaaaaand…no Sophia. What’s more I had no phone or phone numbers of anyone (I didn’t think this through) so I couldn’t think what to do other than stand there waiting. That didn’t work so I asked the person working the café where the tours left and she told me that would be around the corner. This worked well as shortly after turning said corner I saw Sophia running towards me. Okay so crisis averted….Anyway, once getting inside the tour office she let me know she bought me a ticket for the cruise…the only weird bit being I was the *only* person slated to go on the cruise and they announced that because of this “one person” everyone would have to stay in Loch Ness extra time. No worries as that prompted everyone else (for the most part) and including Soph to buy a ticket. You’re welcome, Haggis Adventures.
Anyway, the trip itself was a rolling good time as our tour guide, Joe, would talk endlessly about almost anything. He was fascinating. I enjoyed that his initial spiel seem to have been based on how the Scots have invented everything that has ever mattered. It was awesome. Truly spectacular. I also enjoyed the Scottish music played while in-between his talks as there’s just something to hearing Travis in Scotland.
Okay so when we weren’t in transit and either listening to Joe or talking, we had a few stops along the way. Stop #1 had us see this guy:
We then hopped back on the bus and I proceeded to take endless shots while on the bus such as…
…and the “Three Sisters”
and so on…
Oh and before I forget, here’s Joe:
Anyway I did get the requisite, “I’m a tourist in front of some mountain holding a Scottish flag” shot:
Anyway, the highlight of the trip was seeing Loch Ness (lord, how stereotypical) so here’s a few from the good loch.
Me seeing what could be Nessie:
Oh and I wanted to let you all know I opened up a restaurant while there, too. Surprise!!
Okay…so we then took our trek down south stopped off at a waterfall of sorts)…
…became a moose…
…and also had the presence of mind to take one normal looking picture together:
Anyway, so that was the meat and potatoes from our day trip.
On Friday, I hit up Edinburgh Castle in the morning and here are a few shots from that excursion:
The castle proper:
A view from the top:
Making my “Serious Face” from the top:
Inside St. Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest standing structure on the grounds):
The castle is also where the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone are kept. The silly people working the castle wouldn’t let me take pictures of them. Just go online (well I suppose you already are) and go to Google images and you should be good.
Okay so then the other highlight of Friday was going to play Skittles, in which I received nothing but blank stares from the people I told I was going to go before I left. The festivities took place at the Sheep Heid Inn, which dates back to 1360 and is considered the oldest pub in Scotland…so there you go. For the uninitiated it’s not just a tasty candy, but also the precursor to bowling. It’s largely a pub game, the scoring is about the same as bowling, however it’s up to you (or someone on your team) to manually put the pins back up, there are two sizes of balls (one “regular” bowling size and then one about the size of a shot put) but no finger holes. Did I forget anything? Having said that, here are a few shots from Skittles night.
Here’s the game in action:
Here you can see the two different size balls as well as the pins being set up:
Oh and here’s a quick video I found of people playing at the Sheep Heid…just in case still images weren’t doing it for you.
We played in two teams with the Americans versus the World. The World won.
After Skittles I had some tea with a few of the local students I met through Mae and Sophia and they introduced me to Jaffa Cakes, we watched several videos about a talking vacuum cleaner or some such, had some good conversation time and then I turned in.
Saturday, several of us went to the Farmer’s market, I picked up some local strawberry sparkling wine and got this cool shot:
Mae and I then had lunch with the worst service I’ve ever experienced although I think one of the reasons may have been that I made the very American mistake of ordering ice tea in a cold weather country that has no idea to such ridiculous notions. Yikes…Anyway, I then spent the afternoon at Holyrood Palace which is the Queen’s official residency in Scotland. All tours of the audio variety and no pictures of the inside were allowed…so here’s some of the outside:
The front of the Palace:
Fountain in front of the Palace:
Creepy fiddler statue I swear was about to move. Freaked me out a little bit:
Holyrood Abbey:
Holyrood Abbey:
So those were the highlights of Saturday.
Sunday saw me wake up nice and early to get to the airport so I grabbed my stuff and left for the bus stop. I caught a city bus which took me to the flyaway bus for the airport. No worries as to my flight back into London although once there I had like a 4-5 hour layover. I did notice, though, that one of the examples of things you are not to bring on board any flights was a snow globe. Is that a usual problem? Right. So the flight back was crazy as I watched 5 full movies and thought the trip was never going to end. It did and I was back home but things felt different.
So that’s the long and short of it. It’s weird for me when I travel because it always reinforces certain things with me. Sometimes I don’t think enough people know the internal me well enough but I really could just get up and leave and do something seemingly random with my life. I’m really not as tied down as it may appear. I just need opportunities and I’m glad I had this one to remind me of that. Geesh in fact that’s what I’m doing to a degree now. When I got back from Scotland I still was at MI and it was all very status quo. Now I’m going into small business ventures, taking off the cuff trips through the Southwest, and I’m open to whatever. Anyway…I’m glad I went and would love to get back as there are waaaaay too many things I didn’t do (Lake District, I have my eye on you) so more motivation in the future. So thanks to Mae (especially) and Sophia for seeing me through the trip and for the few new friends I picked up along the way. All my best.
