The Highlands- 12-14 September

Here it is finally, the highlands trip! I am going to try to get completely caught up today before class. I don't know how possible that will be because I have class in an hour and a half, but I am going to try. --Update-- It is now 16:42 on 1 October, so I did not even get close to finishing yesterday before class!

So the highlands are the more northern part of Scotland, and the biggest difference between there and Edinburgh is the terrain. The highlands are filled with mountains or munroes as they are called here, and there are huge lakes and things like Loch Ness, which just aren't found in the lowlands. The cities were really different as well, they seemed much more like small towns. Similar to the US's South, there are also cultural differences in things like accents. That is a quick recap for you, now I will start on about the trip itself.

We left in the morning on the 12th. Gerry Mooney (who has told me he has been reading this blog so I have to be nice ;-) was our guide for the weekend, and we picked him up in Stirling, then went on to Stirling Castle. The castle was really nice. We started out with a group tour, but after about ten minutes, Leah, D and I got pretty bored and ditched. Then we started walking around, and we saw a lot of cool things.
This is a picture of the dungeon, supposedly the most haunted part of the castle. It was not scary at all, and the only scary part was the fear of bumping your head (which I did). Apparently the old Scots were much shorter than we are now



This is a picture of Leah, Luke, me and D (on the bottom) taken in a tower at Stirling Castle. It was a very small tower.









This is me (duh!) with a portion of the castle in the background. One interesting thing about this castle is that one of the moldings you can see on the building behind me, I think the third one in from the far left (I realise it is impossible to see) is a she-devil. Meaning literally it is the devil, but with a female's body. Apparently this is not very common.



After that, we kind of split up, and half the group had free time, and the other half went to the Wallace Monument, dedicated to none other than William Wallace. I went and saw the Wallace Monument. It was a bit of a hike. It was situated on the top of a hill to begin with, and then once you were there, the actual monument is a tower, so it was some sort of mean surprise. I think there were about 257 steps up the thing, and it was all up a spiral staircase, which made it very difficult to pass people coming down. One party had to plaster themselves to the wall, and you just had to squeeze by. There were several floors, each with a different theme. My favorites were the one with Wallace's history and his sword, and the top floor where you could see all of Stirling. It was really neat.


This is Wallace's sword. I learned in my history class (we had an entire class period dedicated to Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and who was the greater hero and all that, so if you want me to dissect Braveheart for you, I am good to go) that there is no way to really know if this was actually his sword, and that it for sure has gone through renovations to make it a more "fitting" sword for a national war hero. But it was cool either way.

To be honest, I am not sure if this is a view from Stirling Castle or the Wallace Monument, it is the same city though, so it doesn't really matter. Either way it was beautiful.


This one is for sure from the Wallace Monument. See how high up I am? I hoofed it up there on a darn spiral staircase. It was terrible. But again, beautiful view.










After that, we got back on the bus and drove to Doune Castle, which is actually the castle used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was really neat because it was not overly redone. It seemed very original, and was really cool to explore. I like those kind of beat up but still standing castles.


This is a shot of the castle right after we arrived. If you have seen Monty Python, you will recognise it. It was one of the best castles I have been to.









This a neat picture of our entire group, or at least most of it. Apparently someone in Monty Python ran up these stairs to save someone. I won't name everyone, but everyone here is really nice, and we all get on really well.








After that, we took a quick stop at Loch Lomand. This is a really famous lake, and has the most surface area of any in the UK. It is 25 miles long and 5 miles wide, with a maximum depth of 600 feet. This is also the area of our first hostel.


This is a fishing boat on Loch Lomand. I thought it was neat.










So the neatest thing about our first hostel was that there were ghost hunters there. Real live ghost hunters. They said that they also do stuff for tv, but this was a private one. The lady we talked to showed us a bunch of her equipment, and let us listen to a voice recorder that recorded really high noises, that humans cannot usually hear, and plays them back. She played us some that was apparently a "level C" ghost, meaning that is just kind of cackles or laughs. I am a bit skeptical of all that, so when she said she would take two of us along with them, Jesse and I waited up almost all night waiting to go along. Unfortunately, she never came back so the end result was that there were apparently ghosts, but I was just really tired and still didn't see any or believe any of it.

The next day, our first stop was in Glencoe, which is a really scenic and beautiful place. Leah, D and I took about a 45 minute hike there. Again, we veered off course of everyone else, and we really took advantage of Scotland's no trespassing laws by sneaking into several fenced off places, including one sheep pasture. Glencoe was also the location of a massacre by the Campbell clan. I'm not really sure why that happened, but I have noticed there is not Campbell's Soup here. Related? I think so.

Here is a poorly taken picture of us on our hike, and I am not sure what all these mountains are called, but I think they are all different ones, and they were all around us.

































Actually, I think these last two are the same mountain, just a before and after shot of when we hopped the barbed wire fence to get into the pasture.















After this, we got on a train and went across the Harry Potter bridge. It is actually called the Glenfinnan Viaduct. The train ride was neat, but kinda pointless because we ended up at a stop to take pictures of the bridge, then the bus drove us pretty much back the way we came. But it was neat being on a train. I also take issue with this being a Harry Potter themed place. It has absolutely no significance in the books, and is just a shot of the Hogwarts Express from above in the movies. I think they are really milking that one.

This is a shot of Leah looking at the bridge. There is really no way to take a picture out of a train without a reflection.










Leah then took a picture of me and the train, and the second one is me at the rest stop where you can just make out the bridge in the distance. You would think they would do it closer.





After the Viaduct, we went on to Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness. It is pretty much only ruins, and the path down to the lake was closed, which was disappointing. Also, it did not have a Nessie theme at all. I figured that they would at least play up the Loch Ness monster a little bit, but that was not the case. Granted, the lake is huge and there is like a specific spot to view Nessie, but still. That is one of things that I would have liked to have done: gone to the actual spot where Nessie had been sighted. I guess Erin and I will have to do that when she gets out here and we go to the Highlands. Actually, though, there is a deep underwater cavern right out in front of the castle, so realistically, that is the primo place for Nessie's home. I still didn't see anything. You can try to look at the pictures and see if you see anything I missed!


This is a shot of the castle toward the top of it. See? It is really not much. All the rest of them are pictures of Loch Ness. Nessie hunt time!






That night we stayed in Aviemore, and we had dinner at the only restaurant/pub that had mexican on their menu. We were craving it! I think like ten of us ordered either nachos or chicken fajitas. There was a large group of us, 14 I think, that all ate there. At ten they moved the tables and turned it into a dance floor, so that was really fun. For like the first half hour, all of us girls owned it. After that, two hen parties and one stag party showed up, so they joined us.





At one point, Leah and I were outside and saw two older women dressed in all black, and I went up to them (this is why I am known as the friendly one, I guess, and always get nominated to talk to strangers) and told them I thought it was neat they were at the bar, and it turns out that they were also there for a hen party, for a 55 year old woman. They had a group of around 20 and ranged in age from 40-67. Mom, you and your Bunko ladies should do that! They were so nice, and asked us a lot of questions about the states and how we liked Scotland, and then one of them gave me her party hat! I am really racking up the free souvenirs!

So I know I look like a zombie in this picture, but I think it is the only one we had from the pub. D and Leah (the one who didn't get the picture hint) are on the left, and Marie is behind me on the right. They were running a pretty good drink special, where these rainbow shots (they had cherry, citrus tequila, sour apple, chocolate-which was actually good, sambuca and blue raspberry) that were only like 3 GBP for 5, so I had a couple rounds of those (don't worry, they were only 14% alcohol, and a normal shot is around 40%, so it wasn't alot) We ended up leaving pretty early.




This is from the walk back home. It is Leah, me, D and Jesse, who we call our little brother, on the way back to the hostel. I really like it, and it emcompasses what a good time we are all having, I think. The hat/headband thing I am wearing is what the woman gave me. It says "girls night out" on the springy things.





After that, we headed back to the hostel, and we stopped to talk to a group of French guys that were also staying there. They were nice, but seemed to fit into the French stereotype of being a little snobby and anti-American. After that, it was bed time!




The next day, we went to Culloden, which is the location of a major battle between the Highlanders and the English government and their supporters (not only the English, there were also some Scots fighting for them, as well as others). We had a nice tour of the battlefield, and wondered around a little bit. I wrote out a postcard for Trevor here.

This is a small hut that is still standing from the battle.












This is a picture of the battlefield itself. The flag shows where the Highlanders stood, lined up, before the fighting started.





This is me driving the bus. Not really, and it is not a very flattering photo. The bus driver, Andy, started picking on me because I kept having to get stuff from under the bus, so finally he just showed me how to pop it open, and that is what I am doing here.

From here we drove to the GlenLivet distillery, and had a tour. It was really, really cool and smelled delicious. We tasted the barley-hops things before and after they prepared them for distilling, and of course we got a wee dram at the end. One of the coolest parts was holding area, which had hundreds of barrels in it. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures in there (they claimed it was because the cameras could make the fumes explode... I'll have to submit that one to mythbusters), but we could in the tasting area. I also thought it was interesting how they got the barrels at the top down... they just rolled them off onto a giant sponge/mat thing. We did not get to see it, but I imagine it is awesome.


This is D, me and Leah in the tasting room. D had 16 year old whiskey, but it was cask strengh (47% alcohol). They don't actually export it that strong, they water it down, so the distillery is the only place you can get it. I had an 18 year old, and Leah had a 12. I liked mine the best. It was really smooth, and kind of fruity because they actually use old sherry barrels from France and Jack Daniels barrels from the states to let the whiskey age in (Other countries, like the US, only let you use a barrel once or twice, so GlenLivet buys them off it for their whiskey)

This is the side of Jason's face (he is someone we hang out with alot), Cassidy in the background, me and then John, our Assistant Director. I don't look like it, but the tour really was interesting. I just probably wanted my whiskey taste.














From there, we stopped at Pitlochry, just another town. Nothing too interesting to report, we just kind of walked around and had some ice cream.

Then we went home! It was very welcome because it was a really long weekend, but very fun. I really enjoyed the Highlands, it was one of my favorite parts of Scotland so far! Whew, this was a long one!