I don't even know where to begin. Today has been an exceptional day! Besides getting up early, of course. I enjoyed having a room to myself, except the bed they had me in was the one right opposite the window, the lights on the street showed through the outside of the curtain, so it was kind of bright. I liked not having people wake me up though or be too loud, especially people I did not know. I got up around 7:15 to get ready for the day. I headed down the stairs to breakfast, there was an elevator but I thought I would get my heart pumping before I was on a bus most of the day. Where my tour was meeting, the company is Haggis, was just up the hill. Ah, something I noticed about Edinburgh the night before, while I was walking up a giant hill to find my hostel, Edinburgh has hills. I guess I wasn't really sure what to expect in Scotland, I think I figured it was maybe flat like London, wrong, totally wrong. There are hills, a lot of hills. And mountains closer to the highlands and in the highlands, which I will get to later.
Any way, we got onto the bus, there are 19 of us, not a bad number. I'm glad we don't have 29 like the other bus, but of course they all know each other. I like my own seat, though. Our tour guides name is Alan, I don't know how he spells it. He is very hilarious and I like listening to him talk and joke. Through his jokes he doesn't like the English very much, I'm not sure how many Scots like the English very much, especially after all the English have done, starting fights and taking things, etc. In Scotland it doesn't rain, instead they have what they call "liquid sunshine". Also, I need to try haggis and Irn Blu; Irn Blu is the carbonated drink of choice up here, not Coca Cola (bleh). I asked what was in haggis today, it's all the insides of a sheep, mushed up together...fantastic.
We made our way out of Edinburgh and went first to the William Wallace Monument. Instead of being Mel Gibson size, he was actually over 6 foot tall, and died a much more gruesome death than in Braveheart. I'm not going to explain it though. We learned about Braveheart the movie, how most of it is false, and that only the first 20 minutes are actually filmed in Scotland, Fort William, Scotland to be exact. The rest of the movie was filmed in Ireland, due to Scotland wanting to charge too much on tax. With movies, you have to go where it's cheaper, even if it's not the right country. Another fact about Fort William, it is the most popular place to do outdoor sports in the world. We were then off and drove through Doune, that small town used to be the pistol making capital of the world, if you have a pistol from Doune, you are rich. Bigger news about Doune, though...Any Monty Python and the Holy Grail fans here?!?! The castle they used for a lot of the movie is the Doune Castle, I have pictures! (no camera cord at the moment though, so you'll see my pictures on Monday or Tuesday) I want to come back the last week of September to Doune, a ton of people come dressed in medieval clothes and clop around by the castle and the town, with coconuts! How much fun would that be?
The animal of choice in Scotland is the hairy coo (cow). There is a famous one in Scotland as well, his name is Hammish, again pictures later. Before we got there, our bus driver was telling us how all the girls would fall in love with this man named Hammish, he's big, with long red hair, well I think we all did fall in love. He's the cutest hairy coo I've ever seen! We took a short 20 minute break to see Hammish and also to grab some coffee or what not, I decided I would get a "real" hot chocolate from somewhere on my time abroad.
The meaning of clan in Scotland is family, well there were a lot of clans back in the day, McGreggor, MacDonald, Campbell (however you spell any of them). We first saw the heartland of the clan McGreggor, the trussics (?), some of these words, goodness! Next we did a little stop at Loch Lanbrieg, I think that is how you spell it (I just got a quick glance at a sign). Then off we were to eat lunch. We were still not in the highlands, but close, very close. We stopped at Green Welly for lunch, I got a beef burger, there was no ketchup and my tongue was burnt from my hot chocolate earlier, so it wasn't the best. From the burger, I think I still like Iowa beef much better. After supper...
Off we were to the highlands! Alan played us some bagpipe music while officially driving into the highlands, the song was Amazing Grace. Yep, I kind of felt like tearing up, or just being emotional. It was beautiful, well so far all of Scotland is beautiful!
I'm learning some new words and meanings to them while on this trip, as well as why Scotland is the best country ever. When we first got going Alan gave us a list of why Scotland is the best, well how they invented most of the things we use today, on a sadder note, they also produced the man who ended up crucifying Christ, something they are not proud of. They shouldn't be. As for words, clan = family; glen = valley; caledonia = wooded heights; loch = lake; DSL = Deep Scottish Love. I am sure there will be more to come.
On our way through the highlands Alan told us the story of the Campbell clan. If clans were not in conflict with one another and one came to another's house, they had to be nice and let them in, as well as feed them and such. Well the Campbell clan went to the MacDonald clans area, Glencoe, there were about 12 Campbell people. They stayed there and were fed and housed for 12 days and 12 nights, well at about 2 in the morning the head Campbell told the rest of them what to do, so most of the MacDonald clan was murdered while sleeping, some got away but they ran to the mountain where they ended up freezing to death. People in Glencoe don't like Campbell's, I don't blame them. Alan told us of a man from New Zealand who fell in love with Glencoe and went to a hostel to stay, the hostel owner found out his last name and told him to leave. There was a sign at the top of the door that said No Campbell's, as well as No English and a couple other things. English are allowed now, but no Campbell's. Glencoe means weeping family, when the snow and ice are melting off the mountains it looks as though they are weeping for the clan that was killed. There is more to why the Campbell's hated the MacDonald's, but I'm not going to get into it now.
Next stop, well not stop, but driving through the Great Glen, which are the four main loch's in the country. The first is Loch Linney (that may be how you spell it), then Loch Lochey. The other two we haven't really come to yet, but I think one will be Loch Ness, and the other perhaps Loch Moore. I may correct myself later on that one. We passed through Fort William, which I told you about and finally arrived in Fort Augustus, where we will be staying for two nights. We got to our hostel and were going to check in quick, which didn't really work out. I still have to pay tomorrow because the card machine was broken. We put our things in our room, I'm in room Loch Ness (after the movie, which I didn't know there was a movie) and we headed down the road to one of Alan's friends little shop, and he does some shows. We went and listened to him talk about Scotland and also how they used to dress. He was wearing a traditional "kilt", that's not what they used to call them. He then demonstrated to us how they were folded and had a guy put one on. He then demonstrated the woman's outfit as well, on a girl of course. He showed us some weapons they used as well, real weapons, with dry blood and everything. He also told us how they lived, in a 7 metre by 5 metre room/house. With dirt floors and a doorway with no door. At night they shared the room with all their animals too. Long story on how they lived, I'll save you some trouble and not tell you, until later.
For supper, I ate at the hostel with some other people from our group, we had beef curry, it was pretty good. I didn't eat all of it though. At 8:30 they were having a whiskey tasting, for 10 pounds (they lowered the price for us, as a special deal). I was thinking about doing it, but then decided against it. There were 6 whiskey's that we could try, I didn't want to feel horrible tomorrow morning so I stayed in my room, and this is what I ended up doing. I'm glad the internet is free, though in my room it's not very good service, I didn't want to go to the lounge area though. I think I may get ready for bed and then 'hop' into it and read for a bit, so close to being done with Percy Jackson, and I didn't want to read on the ride up because everything is so beautiful.
Quick thing, we stopped at the Black Mountain Estate that Ian Flemming used to own. After he died his clan sold it, and they were worried some rich Englishman would buy it and do something horrible with it, but Sean Connery bought it instead. Awesome, it was magnificent!
Off I go though, more will come tomorrow! And pictures in a few days. I still have a ton of traveling and site seeing to do! Cheers
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