Alright! Its been a hectic 24 hours since I returned and this is the first I have had a chance to site down and reflect on all that has happened this weekend. Before I begin I just want to say that Scotland has to the most beautiful country there is. It still amazes how beautiful and surreal everything was. Because of this and the nature of our trip I put all of my highland photos up regardless of the quality. A lot of the pictures were taken on the bus. The rain spots and reflections really ruin the pictures but look beyond that to the beautiful terrain. I’m going to break this down day by day.

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Friday 3 October, 2008

What a Friday morning it was! I was up early to finish packing, to get a good breakfast and get out the door early. Of course half way to my tube stop I realized I didn’t have my passport. No worries, no passport needed to get into Scotland but I like being over prepared! So I walk back to my flat. Burning a huge amount of time in the process. By the time I walk back to the tube station and descend the longest escalator in the Underground network its 7 past 8. I needed to be at Platform 2 at King’s Cross station at 8:15. No sweat I thought, its only one stop away. I looked at the message board, next train is 3 minutes away. ARRGHHH! By the time the train comes its 10 or 11 past 8. I’m pacing on the tube train, rolled into King’s Cross at 8:15, ascended the escalator rushed to the platform to find everyone sprawled out on the floor waiting. OUR TRAIN DIDN’T LEAVE UNTIL 9!! All that worrying for nothing, oh well.

So with that out of the way we progressed out of King’s Cross heading due north for Edinburgh (don’t pronounce it like Pittsburgh! More like Edin-broo). We arrived around 1:30 and met our tour guide for the day, proceeded through town, on foot, to our hostel. After that was a short walk through the city following a drunken man wearing a kilt (not the one in the pictures) blabber on about pointless stuff. After that we were set free. Edinburgh has a castle situated on top of an extinct volcano. Of course I wanted to tour that! Being that it is on top of a large chunk of rock meant that there were a lot of stairs leading up to the entrance, great! I’m actually not in as bad of shape as I thought! Upon arrival I was warned that the castle would be closing soon. Time to kick in the express sight seeing! They recommend 1.5-2 hours to see everything in the castle. I did it in 25 minutes.

Next up was food. I had to try some haggis. I’m not sure what it is, what’s in it, or why I tried it. But I was in Scotland, and that’s what they eat!

After that fantastic bit I went with some people to the end of the Royal Mile (road leading from the castle) where there was supposed to be a hill to climb and see the city and sea. This wasn’t a hill. This was a full-fledged CLIFF. I only climbed halfway up it. I wasn’t into rock climbing with tennis shoes! I did get some great pictures up there along with some fantastic shots of the sun setting over the city. Make sure to check out the Scotland Day 1 album. After all of that some of us ended up in a really nice pub (check the picture of the dome inside it out) and stopped by a few others before retiring to the hostel for the night.

Saturday 4 October, 2008

Today was the day. We took off on a coach towards The Highlands of Scotland. We had a new tour guide and man did he rock! In my head I had no idea what was in store in the next few hours. Little did I know that these would be the best few hours of my entire weekend. Before entering The Highlands we stopped at the Wallace Monument (think Braveheart). It was wonderfully, wonderfully stone, and it was bloody pouring down rain when we stopped. Back onto the coach (not bus!!).

Next we drove through Glencoe. This is where most of the pictures are from. It’s breath taking. I could live in a place like this. Snow capped mountains, waterfalls, and sheep. It had it all. I don’t really have much more to say about it, the pictures say it all.

Heading even further north we stopped off for a few pictures at Loch Ness and hopefully a glimpse of Nessie. No such luck though. Must have been too cold! It was a grand sight and size and depth of the loch is amazing. We stayed over in Inverness for the night in a very dodgey hostel. We hung in a pub called Hootananny with the tour guide, saw a Scottish band play and had a few pints.

Sunday 5 October, 2008

So far this weekend was going well. No major issues, excellent weather, a jolly good tour guide, and lots and lots of great scenery. Before we get to where it all went wrong lets cover the good stuff. We left Inverness early Sunday morning heading to a battlefield. This was Culloden Battlefield. According to our tour guide the battle fought here set the tides into motion for many wars to come. He reckons that the War of Independence would have happened if this battle did not take place. I quite enjoyed walking through the heather there and squashing about in the peat bog.

So other than kilts what is Scotland known for? Whiskey of course! We headed to a small town called Pilotchry where we toured the Blair Athol Distillery. Their specialty and main whiskey there is an 8-year-old malt. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed because of the vapors in the air. The air did smell quite good. Probably enough to get a slight buzz from. After the tour was completed we then sampled the whiskey and learned the proper way to drink it. It was very good but at £30($60) a bottle, a little too expensive. After our tour we headed back towards Edinburgh where we caught a train back to London.

This is where the fun begins! Because of planned engineering works on the rail system we had to transfer trains in Newcastle. Unfortunately the train arrived at the station running slightly behind schedule. This meant a mad dash of around 30 people to another train a short distance away. This is where things get complicated. Because of the construction on the line, being a Sunday, and a major sporting event taking place in Newcastle the train was very full. No worries though, we have reserved seating. WRONG! An announcement was made apologizing that reserved markers were not set out in order to keep the train on schedule. So there is around 50 people smashing into both ends of our reserved car with no seating left. So we stand there in utter amazement that this was actually happening. Mind you this was a three-hour train ride from Newcastle to London. So after everyone got situated I, along with quite a few others plopped down on the floor and settled in for a horribly uncomfortable train ride back to London. Looking back it wasn’t that bad, actually quite fun with everyone. The time passed quickly due to a couple things. I would like to thank my Mom and Dad for sending me a MotorTrend (glad I took that with me), I’d also like to thank Steve Jobs for the iPhone, and of course Kindra for our Sudoku race which passed the last 45 minutes with ease.

So all in all it was a fantastic weekend. I’m so glad that I went and was able to experience this wonderful expanse of natural beauty. There were some down falls to the trip but I made it back in one piece. So 1400 words, and hours worth of typing I will let you check out of the galleries and see what I saw on my wild ride through Scotland.

Have a great weekend!

This evening I participated on a Jack the Ripper walk through East London. I saw the site where each murder happened. Some streets were just as they were in 1888 and others have developed into modern day structures. Our guide was excellent and gave his guess as to who it was and why it was done. Has to deal with the government and royal family of course and a large cover up. But what isn’t these days? I do wish I would have researched it a little more before before I went but he did and excellent of going through the entire story. So go Google it!

Not much else to report for the next couple days. I hope to tour the Tower of London and check out the London Transport Museum this weekend. I also scheduled a weekend in Scotland for 3-5 October. Should be fun!