"If it's not Scottish, it's crap!"

Scotland here we come
We will see Hadrian’s Wall.
And castle too!

It is so nice having leisurely start times in the morning. I even wake up refreshed before the alarm goes off! Gotta love it.

It’s off to Scotland today with many stops along the way. First stop at the top of a hill on a windy road (Kirkstone Pass - used in many commercials and is England’s highest road.) we’ve been on the last 20 minutes. We saw some spectacular views of Windermere and the area where we stayed last night. The piled stones making up the walls lining the roads are pretty cool. They take a lot of the stones on the mountains for making houses. Now we’re headed to Ull’s Water Lake…6 mile long lake.

Next stop: Penrith. Hmm, I didn’t make any notes on about this stop so I’m guessing there was either nothing to see or we just drove on through!

Next stop: Cawfield. Is geographically the centre of England. We’re almost at Hadrian’s Wall. The Romans built Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Scots out of Britannia around 1AD. It took them 15 years to build the Wall and at every Roman mile a castle was built as look outs and they would raise flags to warn the next castle milepost if something was up. About 20 to 30 soldiers would be posted at each castle milepost.

We’re now in Scotland. Stopping at Jedburgh Abbey which was also burned in Henry VIII’s time because Mary Queen of Scots would not bow down to Henry VIII and “give” Scotland to him. After his death Queen Victoria had no children and the next of kin was Mary’s son. So a Scotsman took over as the King of England. Funny how things turn out sometimes!

Some facts on Scotland…
• 550mi/880km from north to south
• 120mi/200km from east to west
• Population = 5.1 million. Population is declining.
• Edinburgh is the capital
• There are highlands (mountainous) and lowlands (flat)
• 9% of the population speaks Gaelic
• Loch Ness is the larges fresh body water in Europe

We got to our hostel around 15:30 which meant we had some time to wander about the streets of Edinburgh for a bit. After dropping off our bags and freshening up we all wandered off in various directions. Dee and I wandered up to Princes Street where there are lots of shops and stuff and wandered into a few touristy shops and picked up a few postcards.

A bunch of us made plans to meet up for drinks in the pub at our hostel around 6 since Happy Hour is from 5 to 8. We hung out there for a bit and then wandered over to the Brodie 2 hostel to see if we’d be able to find Dan. As luck would have it he was on the internet by reception! What luck! From there we wandered off for a place to have tea.

Interesting when you’re in a group of people you don’t really know all that well and are trying to make a decision on where to eat. It potentially could take hours! The first place we decided on ended up not having any of the specials left so we were left to wander the streets. The baked potato place looked really good but Rob didn’t want to spend £3 to £4 on a veggie dinner. But was willing to spend £6 for a pizza! We ended up going to a café and basically had soup and sandwiches. Well, Rob ended u getting a Scottish breakfast which included haggis and I tried some…actually not too bad! It’s pretty rich though.

It was getting chilly out so we had our sights set on somewhere indoors. Nobody really fancied dessert and coffee so we ended up at the Hebrides where Andy Chung the Chinese-Scottish guitarist was playing. He was pretty entertaining. Good at telling stories and poems and his music was good too. At one point he handed the mike to the Lenny Kravitz type guy with a wild afro and he started singing. Not sure what he was singing but it went on and on and on! One guy at the bar yelled out at one point “Finish the song!” Then Andy started singing again and these two guys start dancing - real funny. One guy kept saying in reference to his friend - “To Grant who is now a free man.” Not sure if he was serious about just getting out of jail or not! Lol Grant then takes a turn at the mike and plays a few songs. Not bad. The best was somewhere in the middle of his “set” when he just starts adlibbing and playing with the crowd. He was hilarious, especially when he started to rap. Lol Another girl, Laura from the States got up to play a few songs she’d written herself. The first song was okay. The song sort of reminded me of something Jewel would sing but the second song was a bit of a bummer/downer. Dee & Rob left early but Dan, Scott and I stuck around til the end which was only about 12:30. I love that “local pub” feel. It seemed like quite a few regulars were there too both young and old. The place wasn’t that large so it had a nice cozy feel to it which was nice. The Hebrides is near our hostel so it was nice to be at “home” in 30 seconds. Scott and Dan weren’t quite ready to turn in yet so they went in to the hostel bar for a few more while I retreated to the room.

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