Scotland update!

Well, this past weekend I went to Scotland for 5 days. It was a great trip! I left London at 10am and took the train to Edinburgh. The train ride is about four hours and forty minutes long. I spent most of that time looking out the windows at the changing scenery. :-D So, I got to Edinburgh at about 2:30. I hadn't had lunch so I went and grabbed lunch at the place that me and my friend, Becky were going to meet. She showed up right as I had taken my first bite. So, we headed back to her place to drop off my bags and then we decided to go down the Royal Mile.

The Royal Mile has the Holyrood House at the bottom, the official residence of the Queen when she comes to Scotland, and at the top is Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh Castle is at the top of a huge hill and Holyrood House sits at the bottom of that hill, so there is a definite 'top' and 'bottom' of the Royal Mile.

Becky lives right off the Royal Mile about halfway down, so we walked down the rest of the Royal Mile and then we decided to climb Calton Hill. Apparently it is one of the highest points in Edinburgh. We got a very good view of the city as the sun was going down.

Then we headed back and I met her flatmates. They were all really nice and hospitable. Becky and I watched North and South after grabbing some dinner. North and South is a good movie, comparable to the Pride and Prejudice story line. It was a good movie and they have several clips of Edinburgh in it although it is set in a fictional town.

The next morning I headed over to High Street Hostel at 7:30am (just as it was starting to get light....the sun rises at 8am and sets at 4pm now that it's winter here in Great Britain.). Every city in Great Britain has a High Street, it is just like our Main Street in the US, usually the middle of the town with the most shops and restaurants. I had to be there at 7:45am for the MacBackpackers trip that I was going on. It was a wonderful trip! If you ever go to Scotland, I suggest you take one of their trips! They are cheap and wonderful! Here is the website!

We drive around on a small coach (bus) that can carry 26 passengers. There were 21 of us plus our tour guide, Neil. There were five girls from Hong Kong and Thailand who were just taking a holiday trip, five students from Illinois who are studying in London, one girl from Alaska, one guy who is originally from Illinois but is now traveling around, three Australians, a couple who were from the US but are now living in Edinburgh, three people from India on the trip and me. I became friends with the girl from Alaska, Angelina, the American who is traveling around now, Tim, and one of the Australians, Al. It was a lot of fun!

Neill, our guide, would tell us tons of historical stories and myths and faerie tales as he drove us around for the next three days. We would pass a lake, a town, a mountain, a castle, or anything, and he would start off on a story about it. He was a good story teller so it was really entertaining to listen to him. We drove up to Loch Ness (Loch means Lake in Gaelic, I found out) and saw a bunch of places on the way there. Loch Ness was HUGE!! It's really deep and really really long (as in several miles long).

When we got into the Highlands, the number of people and houses that we passed dropped sharply and suddenly there were hills and mountains. They are beautiful and awe-inspiring. I'm sure they are even more beautiful in the summer, but they are beautiful in a different way now. I learned that 'iver' means 'at the mouth of' in Gaelic, so Iverness means 'at the mouth of Ness'.

We stopped at a forest called the Hermitage that had been the basis for Shakespeare's Birnham woods in Hamlet. We also got to see 'Dunsinane'. But the Hermitage was really pretty!

Then we got to see the 'hairy coos' (hairy cows) that they have up in the Highlands. Those cows are very very hairy! The hair is in place of a layer of fat to protect them from the cold. Apparently they are very well adapted to the weather in the Highlands.

We also stopped at a battlefield where the British and Scottish had fought over Scottish independence. The Scottish fought under Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is called the Battle of Culloden. It was very flat there and aside from the constantly blowing wind, it was really really quiet. After the battle, the British had made the defeated Scottish bury their dead in mass graves so they had divided them up by clan and then put a stone over each clan's mass grave. I saw the stone for the Clan Donald. 'Mac' means 'son of' so MacDonald is of course 'son of Donald'.

The whole time we were heading for the Isle of Skye, where we stayed for 2 nights and one day. We spent all of Friday driving to Skye and all of Sunday driving back to Edinburgh. The hostel we stayed it was really nice and really cheap.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story! ;-)

Prayer requests: Please pray that I would be motivated to get out and explore London more in the last 2 weeks and that I would be able to focus and get my work done quickly and well. Also, I've been pretty tired out lately. I don't know if it is just from all my traveling or if my body is trying to fight off a sickness. I am hoping and praying that I won't get sick before I go home. Thank you for all your prayers!