Our short visit to Scotland and the Highlands!

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*still catching up on missed entries!*
We caught the train from Waterloo up to Edinburgh on the 27th, and just happened to get lucky with our choice of day to travel on. The two days before we left, all trains had cancelled service up to Edinburgh due to excessive flooding (typical Scotland summer..), so the trip was a little bumpy, but at least we made it in time! All seat reservations were cancelled as the past few days had been a bit of a mess, so there were quite a few unhappy people demanding others to get out of the seat that they had reserved...etc etc... but luckily we had made it into our original seats so we escaped that bit of drama. We had to stop once and transfer trains due to a technical difficulty, but we made it into Edinburgh just over an hour late so it was not bad at all.

Our hostel there was amazing. Lots of lounging room, a big movie room where they played movies every night on a large projector screen, a good kitchen... and just off the Royal Mile (high street), and a few minutes walk from Edinburgh Castle. We headed out for dinner and spent the first night wandering around high street and caught the 9pm movie. Our second day was lots and lots, and a bit more.. walking. We walked to Princes Street and got some breakfast from Marks and Spencer, then sat over looking the Princes Street gardens to enjoy it. Next we headed up Calton Hill which overlooks waverly station, the gardens, princes street and the old town, before walking down to see the Hollyrood Palace (wheere the Royals stay when they are in town). As figures, the Queen was due to arrive the following day, so public access into the Palace was shut off. The crags are right beside the Palace, so we went for a walk up the Crags and up to Arthurs seat. It was a bit of a work-out getting to the top (very windy!), but the views from the top are amazing! --We will try and post some pictures to go with all of these entries as soon as we find a computer where we can download pictures!--.

After this we wandered back up the Royal Mile (named so because it is exactly one mile long, with the Edinburgh Castle at one end, and the Hollyrood Palace at the other), and stopped in at a little tea shop to have afternoon tea. It was such a yummy meal here, no sandwich has even come close in comparison! We decided that we wanted to see a bit of the highlands, so we spent the rest of the afternoon comparing day trips and finally booking a trip up into the highlands for Saturday.

Our last day In Edinburgh was spent sleeping in a little, and the afternoon was dedicated to touring the Edinburgh Castle. Entry here was a pretty penny (about $23-24 each), but it was definately worth it. I mentioned that the palace was closed to tourists the day before because the Queen was due the next day, which was now today. It turns out that when the Queen arrives in the area, a big procession occurs and the military puts on a 21 gun salute from the castle. This happened when we were at the castle, so we got to watch the entire events unroll and here the 21 gun salute from a few meters away. Pretty amazing! We didn't make it through the entire castle as this distracted us, but it was definately worth it! We headed out for a pub meal in the evening, and then went on a ghost tour in the early night. The tour we went on was called "City of the Dead", and has been followed by t.v. shows, newspapers, and has had tons of publicity due to people becoming unconcious or coming out of the tomb with bruises and cuts on them that get worse over the next few days. No one in our group passed out though, but it was still a really good tour. We kept searching ourselves over the next few days for random bruises, cuts, burns etc, but had no luck. Maybe next time!

This is starting to get reallllly long, so I'll try and condense the next bit. Our last day in Scotland was spent on a tour of the Highlands. The sights were amazing, tons of rolling hills, waterfalls, and many many interesting historical stories about battles fought there. We visited Loch Ness (didn't see the Loch Ness monster though =( ), Pitlockry, Glencoe, Speans(sp?) bridge, and through Stirling. The tour guide really liked telling us stories about battles and once he started, he was so into it that you just couldn't bring yourself to interrupt him. We were dropped off at the Edinburgh airport on the way back in, and found it surrounded with layer and layers and layer of police. Turns out that someone had attempted to blow up the Glasgow airport (you've probabaly heard all about this) earlier that afternoon, and after the multiple bomb scares in London, they weren't taking any chances. Cars couldn't get in, and the area was pulsing with armed police officers (and their machine guns). Made it through fine though, and made it to our flight. Next stop.. Dublin!


---sorry this is so messy, my time runs out in under two minutes, so I am not going to spell check or even read over this. We will be posting pictures once we get a chance, until then, sorry! ---

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