Isle of Skye

Friday, Feb. 12th
So today we had to get up at the butt crack of dawn (5:30) so we could leave the house at six and take the bus to Edinburgh. Once we got there we got some smoothies at starbucks and continued on to the Macbackpackers to check in and start our bus tour to the Isle of Skye. Our first stop was a cute little town and it had this really sweet old cemetery and church right on the side of a little river. It was sunny and there were even blue skies! Spring is coming!
A half hour later, after some picture taking, we headed back on the road. The closer we got to the highlands the more cold it started getting. We drove through a little blizzard when we were driving through the mountains, during which time our lovely tour guide/dj put on some xmas songs! I was so happy! I love xmas songs! It was wonderful! Haha We stopped again a little while later at this old castle on a little hill. It was great scenery here too! You could see the snow covered mountains in the distance. There were horses all wanting to be petted right next to the castle too. We climbed around the ruin and took some more pictures and then left to another cemetery. But this one was super old! There were big mounds of rocks and huge stones set around it in a circle. It was a really neat place. There was no grass either, it was like a floor of moss. It was really neat to see. Just past that we went to a memorial for another battle, the battle of Culloden. We walked on the actual ground that they fought on. It was really neat listening to all the stories our tour guide had to tell us. They take history very serious over here, and they remember a lot of the old clan wars and battles. They still can’t stand the English either, haha. It was super cool though because all the stories he told us about, we would be driving through the place that they actually happened! They were good stories too! Our tour guide did a great job! He was such a hoot! It was fun listening to his accent too, and he wore a kilt everyday! Ha!
Next up on the list was Loch Ness! They used loch a lot up there, but it just means lake. It was right about twilight when we got there, so the pictures were really cool lighting. The lake is super long too, like 25 miles or something! I looked for Nessie , but couldn’t find her. A lot of people up in that area are really superstitious though so a lot of people believe she’s there. After that we made another short stop at another ruin castle, but we couldn’t go down there to see it.
Our last stop for the day was Eliean Donan Castle. This is a very popular castle in Scotland because of the beautiful scenery. You can find of a postcard of it almost anywhere here. This was also the castle used in the film “the highlander”. As in the postcards it was amazingly beautiful! The water up here is just like glass and it reflects everything as clear as a mirror.
After this last stop we were dropped off at our hostel in Kyleakin and then we all went out for a nice hot meal at one of the local pubs. It was a bit pricey but it was nice to go to bed with a full stomach. Megan and I headed back early that night, cuz we were tired! A lot of the people stayed out tho.

Feb. 13th
Day two of the tour! Today we went all around the Isle of Skye. Our first stop was at the base of these two mountains. Both had rivers coming down from both of them and they met in the middle carrying a bunch of different mineral from the two mountains. It was said that if you wash your face in the water you will have good luck and eternal beauty. So even though it was frigidly cold we stuck our faces in for the 7 seconds you’re supposed to. I kept mine in there for 10 though just to be safe, lol.It was a great way to wake up! We stopped again at a cute little town for some lunch, then we went on driving past more incredible scenery. Then we stopped 2 different waterfalls to take more pics. Both were amazing! One of them you could even drink from, and it was actually pretty good, almost sweet.
After that we drove to the top of these mountains and wow what a view! We all kept saying how we couldn’t think of how it could get any better after the last place we’d seen but it did. Every place we went was even more incredible than the last. We took a crap ton of pictures but they don’t give any of these places justice. You just can’t capture that kind of beauty on camera!
Next, we went to this old ruin by the ocean! The story was really not a very happy one. There wasn’t much left of the ruin either, but there was a window facing the cliffs. There’s this big long story about it, but I don’t want to type all that, and this post is getting long enough. The ending was that this jerk McDonald had his wife die while giving birth to his son, so he killed a milkmaid’s baby and gave her his own so she could feed it for him. Well after she feed it she threw the baby out the window! Anyways it was still cool being able to go climb the rocks down by the ocean, and we even found a starfish!
After that, we went to faerie glen, this is where lovers would go to secretly meet, and there were supposed to be faeries here obviously since that’s part of the name. I looked and didn’t see any, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there! This place was super cool, it was filled with little spiral mountains and mini trees. There was the main look out spot where you had to squeeze through these rocks to get to the top. Then you were supposed to make a wish once you got up there. It was a great view too. There were two waterfalls a ways into the distance but you could see pretty far from up there. At the bottom of the look out there was this grassy patch where people had come and made little hearts or circles or little piles out of the rocks at the bottom, but you had to be real careful not to step in them otherwise they would own your soul!
It was starting to get dark out so we headed back to our hostel to freshen up and head back to the pubs. It just so happened to be karaoke night and there was quite a crowd! I sang 2 songs with a bunch of girls and did the last one by myself. I had no fear by that time, haha. It was a lot of fun and my group even said I did pretty well! Yes! It was a great end to great day.

Feb 14th
Happy Valentine’s day! Today was our last day of the tour. We left and stopped at the castle of Eliean Donan one more time and it was pretty neat, cuz it was very misty and cloudy. So it looked really cool. Then we drove a bit and listened to some more stories about the different wars between the clans. Then we stopped at Glenn Coe and hiked around there a bit. There was a beautiful little river once you followed the trail a little ways in. and it was super pretty! This place had a bunch of clouds and stuff right by where we were walking, it put off a kind of eerie effect.
We stopped again for a little lunch at another small town, and then we were off to William wallace’s monument. It was a steep trail up, but boy did it have a nice view. Our tour guide told us the real story of William Wallace and where brave heart actually came from. When Robert the Bruce died he asked his men to cut out his heart so he could still be with them in battle. So they did as they were told and when the troops lined up to fight the English they held up his heart in a wooden box and used it for their pre-battle pep talk, saying here is a brave heart, and that’s where it came from. I’ve never seen the end of brave heart but they say William dies a pretty gory death, and apparently his real death is even worse. I won’t go into the details, cuz it’s not a nice story, but they ended up quartering up his body and placing the different parts at four different towns around the area trying to scare everybody into obeying. However, this had the complete opposite effect on the Scots. They are a very very proud people here, and it comes a lot in their stories. I still loved listening to them and I learned a ton on this trip!
After we got back to Edinburgh we all hugged and said goodbye, then our group headed back to Dalkeith. We freshened up and since it was valentine’s day we got a little dressy and went out to eat at the forge. It’s a very nice place, very cozy and well priced. When we got home we all skyped our families and boyfriends before heading to bed. It was a great trip and I would highly recommend it to anybody!

Hello Again!
So I'm trying to figure out the picture thing on here. I didn't space them out too well on the last entry. I'm going to try and make an album or something and see if that will work better. So hopefully more pics to come soon! Anyways, Thursday was probably my favorite day here! It was a very busy, jam packed day but I had a lot of fun and it went by quick.

It started out by Seth, our cook, giving us a personal tour around Edinburgh. We went along the royal mile, and down to the grass market, through the princes street gardens, and down to the Palace where the Queen stays when she visit Edinburgh. Right next to there are the trails that lead up to Arthur's seat. I really wanted to climb them and so did my friend Emily, she's super nice and we get along great! So we decided to say good bye to the group and start climbing! Two of the other guys decided to come with us, Mike and Jesse. We hiked for about two and a half hours! It was AMAZING! The scenery was incredible! We met another group of Americans on one of the top lookouts. They were from the Midwest too! It was nice running into them, we took group pictures for each other and chatted for a bit. They were studying in London and just visiting for the weekend. After we said goodbye, we decided to head back down cuz it was already getting dark, otherwise we would have gone to the top. Oh well, we already made plans to go back and hike some more, have a picnic at the top, and then climb down and head to the pubs! I can't wait to go back!

We took the bus back to Tesco to get groceries for the weekend and then walked the three miles back to the house. Me and Emily had a lil supper together in Willie's cafe with some other people and watched braveheart. Then I left to go out with Megan and some of the other girls to try out some pubs. The first place we went was my fav. The locals call it wither spoons. They had good prices for food, it was a very comfy atmosphere, and the drinks were pretty cheap. After that we went to Buccleuch around the corner, and did some dancing there. It was pretty fun, and we had a good time. Climbing Arthur's seat was much more my scene tho, that was my favorite. I always feel too under dressed when we go out around here, so I'll have to do some shopping soon.

Me and Megan finally booked our trip for this weekend! We will be going to the Isle of Skye for a few days and passing Loch Ness as well! There is supposed to be faeries on the Isle of Skye as well! haha, so we'll be keeping our eyes peeled! I'm really excited for this trip! More hiking!!! Yay!! I hope you all are doing well! I still miss you!!! Have watching the Super bowl tonight too! I think a group of us at the house are going to try and stay up to watch it! Go Saints!!!

The Semester has officially begun...lovely

Hiya!
That's what everybody says here. Well Classes have just started, and they are a bit longer than I am used to, but I think they should be ok. I have four classes. My speech class is on tues. and thursday mornings, and my intercultural communications class are in those afternoons by the same teacher. Then I have my health and wellness class on mon. and wed. mornings. I think that is going to be my favorite class. Our Scottish class is only on monday nights and I have to serve lunch as my chore mon. and wed., so all in all not too bad a schedule. Our Scottish class is about 4 hours long, but at least our professor has a Scottish accent! There's a tad bit more homework than I was hoping for but what can ya do? As long as I keep good track of the deadlines and due dates I should be ok.

This past weekend we got a tour of the castle in Edinburgh and had our Amazing Race there the next day! The castle was awesome! The view it had was so amazing! I tried snapping a bunch of pics but you just can't capture that kind of beauty. My lens couldn't take it all in! There were tons of guys in kilts walking around playing the bagpipes, and that was pretty cool too. It was the perfect background music while we enjoyed the sweet view from on top of the castle. While we were there we also got to see the crowned jewels inside and some of the prisons and rooms of the castle.

After visiting the castle we walked around the royal mile, looking at shops and performers. There was a man with an invisible head that was pretty funny. He pulled his jacket up over his head and used a wire to prop his hat and sunglasses up so it looked like he had an invisible head. There was also a guy dressed up like brave heart, but alot of the people were scared of him haha, he was a big guy. The royal mile was super cool just because it was all part of the old town. So all the roads are still cobblestone. I still can't believe how old everything is here! Just walking past houses is so cool! A lot of them have names carved in over the front doorway, and stone walls for fences.

We got a lot more familiar with Edinburgh after the amazing race we had the next day, sunday. We walked all over princes street and the royal mile. We saw some other castles that we will have to check out later. We also saw the little coffee shop where Harry Potter was started! we think we saw the castle that they used for the movie as well, but we didn't have enough time to go hike up and see it. It is always very busy in Edinburgh, there are tons of people and traffic. I would hate driving. Everything is so close together, and you really have to watch it on the sidewalks cuz if you step right on the edge you'll either get run over or loudly honked at if they're paying good attention. It's a very lively city.

Oh and it SNOWED here yesterday!!!! We were all a little bummed cuz we had hoped we had said good bye to snow for the year, but I guess it missed us to much and had to pay us a little visit. There's still some of it on the grounds, but the streets are all clear. I went hiking the day it snowed to take some pictures cuz it was very pretty. I ended up hiking on the trails for an hour and a half, it was so beautiful!!! I found a trail that went along the river and it was so nice to get out. The snow was already melting so it was very wet, and there were big mud pits in part of the trail that I had to find my way around but it wasn't a big problem. I was very happy with how my shoes held up tho. When I got back to the main trial they were caked with mud but my feet didn't even feel wet or cold. So they worked really well for hiking.

When I got back to the house we had a travel session later that night and then we all started looking for flights for our next extended break. I really really wanted to go to Prague, but all the flights we looked at were a bit much, apparently there is something going on that weekend, so they upped all the flight prices to there. So now the group I'm traveling with is thinking about staying in Scotland and seeing something. I'm still not entirely sure on plans as of yet, but we are going to do some more searching tonight. Everyone is also trying to work on budgeting for all our trips and so it's getting a little stressful around here. I think we are all wishing we had brought more money, there is just so much to do and see it's hard to only choose a few. Oh well, we will figure it out. I'm starting to get much more comfortable and settled in, but I do still miss home every now and then. I hope you are all doing lovely and things are going great! I miss you!!!