Land of the Scots!

Hello all, this is our post about the very enjoyable time we got to spend in Scotland. Sadly, the communist hostel we are writing this from does not allow me to upload pictures from the camera, so we'll post those as soon as we can.

We took a ferry from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Scotland and then a train inland from the coast to Glasgow. Scotland is beautiful, very green (much greener than even Seattle) with rolling hills, rock fences, stone houses, and sheep everywhere. We arrived at the train station where I had to pay 20 pence to use the toilet (the first of what will be many times, no public toilets here!) and then ended up having to walk for a little over an hour to get to our hostel. The next day we rode the subway in Glasgow and went to a necropolis (a large cemetery) with upright headstones, huge monuments dating back to the 18th century, and great views of the city. We also walked by the Glasgow School of Art building designed by the artist/architect Mackintosh and went to the Kelvin Museum, which was awesome and free.

The next morning we met an older gentlemen who must have been in his 70's that was staying at the hostel; it was really neat to see him still traveling and staying at youth hostels. We then took a train to Stirling Castle, which was mind blowing because the first written history of the castle is from the 12th century. There was once a lion kept at the castle, and there was a several-acre garden called King's Knot, which featured multi-leveled plateus. Later that afternoon, we took the train to the town of Edinburgh, checked into the hostel, and then walked around the Old Town center for awhile. Edinburgh is a beautiful city that is lucky enough to have a castle perched atop an extinct volcano in the middle of it!

The next morning, we went to a Tea Room that we had found in an alley the night before for breakfast. Breakfast was okay, with the high point being blackened pudding. Neither of us had ever had it before, but ate it and later googled what we'd eaten. We found out that it is made of oats, barley, pig's blood, and beef suet (fat). Didn't taste too bad, though. We walked around more, up and down Royal Mile (touristy shops), the new Scottish Parliament building (a mess of concrete, bamboo, odd shapes and shattered architectural dreams), and the Holyroodhouse Palace (where the monarchy stays whilst in Scotland). Later that evening, Mike taught me the game of shuffleboard, seeing as our hostel was one of the few places in the world with a shuffleboard table. Mike said that there must be a strong element of beginner's luck in shuffleboard, because I was really good at sliding a weight down a smooth table, maybe even better than he! Later we went out with 3 of the guys from our hostel's dorm room for some beers and discussion. By the end of the night, we were sharing french fries in the street with Edinburgh-ians and Mike and I had developed the nickname "Team America", which I think was a sign of friendship from these New Zealanders/Australians. The next morning, after eating some haggis (animal innards, organs, and brains chopped up, spiced up, and baked in a casing), we toured the Edinburgh castle. It was a cold, windy day, so that plus the overall spread-out-ness of the castle made it less fun than Stirling Castle. We did get to see a canon with approximately an 18" bore, which is currently out of commission but impressive nonetheless as Emily could stick her head down the barrel with plenty of room. After several hours of learning and fighting the wind, we made our way to the train station and boarded our nearly 5 hour long train to London.