Scotland!

We left early in the morning on Wednesday. No reason to, but had to make sure we were there early, or course. Got to the airport, got in, no problem. They had free samples of Irish Whisky in the airport duty free store, which was cool. Plane ride was fine, got some reading in. Got to Scotland fine...bumpy ride and lots of wind, but it was good. Emma met us at the airport, and helped us get on the bus, which was nice of her. We got a bus to the Edinburgh bus station, which is right near the royal mile, which is the mile between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. So Emma's flat was pretty centrally located. We dropped some stuff off at Emmas, then went to climb Arthur's seat, which is this cool rock formation thing. We hit a crazy storm on the way yp, and waited for it to pass in a parking garage. We walked up a little crag, then i decided to do the actual Arthur's Seat. (which apparently is named for some actual Arthur king guy, not the Mythical King Arthur. Ahh well) SO WINDY!! I couldn't even stand up properly at the top, it was crazy! Fun, though. Then we came back down, had lucn at a nice Spanish place Emma recommended, and went out for drinks with Emma and her friends, which was cool. We went to Greyfriars bobby, which there is a story about. I guess there was this guy and a dog, and they were insuperable, and when the guy died, the dog slept on his grave every night until he died. I guess Disney make a movie about it. Then we went to a bar that had flavoured shots, that was kind of cool. Then we went to Nicol Edwards, which is one of the most haunted pubs in England. Emma had friends there, and they gave us a free tour! Pretty sweet. Not really scary, but cool catacombs under the pub.
Next day we took a train to St. Andrews, which was a really nice, quaint Scottish town. We had to do some finagling, because we took the wrong train, but we got there eventually. I guess there is a famous golf course there, which Brette was big into, so we took lots of pictures there. The club house was so fancy, though! So expensive! Sheesh! We walked around a bit,had a nice lunch of tomato soup and sandwich in some pub. We also saw St. Andrews Campus, which was really neat. We saw this amazing cathedral..half of it had fallen over, but there were some walls that were still standing...it was awesome! there was a graveyard around it, and a wall from a castle behind it, as well....So cool! We headed back after that. We ate at a kinda fancy resturaunt back in Edinburgh, and had Haggis, which was actually really good. Had traditional Scottish desert, cranachan, which was really good. Fruit and whipped cream type stuff, which shortbread, very nice. Then we came back to Emmas, watched little miss sunshine cuz brette hadn't seen it, and fell asleep.
Next morning we got the bus to Pitlochry, which is by Perth, and is the Gateway to the Highlands. It was amazing! Reminded me of New England, actually. First time i saw actual trees, and mountains in the background, and lakes and rivers,....it was awesome. There was a neat little bookshop right by the train station, and it had really nice copies of Lord of the Rings, which i got for 50 pence each! I shouldn't have, I don't' have space to bring them back, but i couldn't resist. We walked up a little nature trail, by this damn that has fish ladders, but the salmon werent' in season. We stopped at the McKay bar (for mike), and has a really good steak stew. They had Pie and a Pint deal, so we had that, haha. We then walked to the Brewery, but it was closed. When we asked about it in the hotel pub, they gave us free samples of the microbrews, which was really nice of them! They tasted pretty good. Then we walked around main street, which was nice, and walked past a farm to catch our bus back. it was sooo pretty there. We saw some sheep and stuff. Got the train back, and went to the world's end pub, which was good. So called because it is on the spot that the old city ended, before the expansion, so it was the end of their world.
Next day we did the stuff around Edinburgh. Got a bus tour, which was good. We heard a bagpiper, which Brette was very excited about, but he didn't' sound very good. All dressed up, though. Edinburgh Castle was really cool. its on a huge mountain/hill. Emma told us that by law, everyone is required to be able to visit the war memorials, and there is one in the castle. So we asked to go see it, and they walked us up into the castle, and we didn't' have to pay to get in! We walked around a bit, trying to find the cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. We found one, but there was supposed to be another, real one. We looked for it for a long time, but couldn't find it. Eventually we ate at this cool college hippy type coffee shop thing. Really neat. Then we saw the campus of the university of Edinburgh, which was ok. We came back to Emmas and decided to go see the Palace of Holyrood before going to see the monuments and stuff around. We stopped in some shops, and decided not to actually go into the palace. The girls wanted to shop instead of going to the monuments, so i decided to climb Arthurs seat again. Then we ate a the tollbooth pub, which was nice and quaint. Then we went to Emmas recital, which was really good. We tried to find soe traditional music, but we couldn't and gave up. Off to Dublin next!

Here's the Album:

Scotland