June 16th - June 20th: There's Nothing Worse Than An Englishman Wearing a Kilt

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Okay, so it's been over a week since my last post, and now I've left myself in a bit of pickle because I have to have my entire blog entry done by 2pm (50 minutes). A lot of us are traveling for the next week and then coming back on Thursday, July 1st to pick up our stuff, so they are taking it from us today to lock it up somewhere. That said, I'm going to move on to my next entry, covering the 5 days of my Scotland trip.

We left on Wednesday afternoon to catch the 2:43pm train from Troyes to Paris. We arrived in Paris and took the metro to our stop where we were to catch the shuttle at 8:10pm. So, we walked around a little bit, ate some food, and came back to catch the shuttle. We were flying out of a different airport than CDG because we were flying a low-budget airline (RyanAir), thus the need for the shuttle. We arrived at the Paris-Beauvais airport, went through security, and caught our flight at 10:40pm. We then arrived in Prestwick, Scotland around 11pm (it's an hour behind France) and took a bus to Glasgow. When we got there, we headed to our hostel and just booked another night for our room. Following this, we went to bed.

The hostel was actually pretty nice for 20 euro a night even though the room was hotter than you can possibly imagine, and the windows were bolted shut. There was a bar (the Osmosis Bar) inside, complimentary breakfast, 3 showers, 2 bathrooms, and 8 beds. Since there was a group of 8 of us, it worked out really well. The first day we decided to spend in Glasgow walking around and looking at the attractions. Being the more "industrial" city of Scotland (and also the largest), there wasn't all that many monuments or sights. There was a weird museum with animals that have been stuffed and other things, but we left there pretty quick. The cool thing about Scotland is that all museums (or quite a few) are free, so we didn't lose any money. After taking some pictures in one of the larger (and very nice) parks there, we went to check out the University of Glasgow. It was so gorgeous, and we all decided we were either going to transfer there or complete graduate school there. I have pictures attached to this blog, so check it out! After this, we went and got some food, saw a guy playing the bagpipes (there were many the rest of the trip), and then split up into smaller groups. A few people went to the bar, a few went shopping, and the rest of us went to see Georges Square. Finally, we went back to the hostel because we had been walking all day and it was quite toasty out. I think we all showered and took a nap, then met up with everyone else around 7pm to watch a World Cup match and hang out. I've watched so much soccer (futbol) at this point I couldn't tell you which match it was. Following the match, we went to a club, but Luis and I left within an hour because there were some shady guys there hanging out with the rest of our group. We went to bed, but some of the other people (Jason and Lee) had a crazy night that I won't go into. That would be the theme of the night life on this trip: Lee and Jason being absolutely insane. Beyond that, I can't say more.

The next day was our day trip in Edinburgh (ED-IN-BUR-UH). The man at the train station mocked one of the members of our group for not being good at English and his inability to pronounce Edinburgh. We arrived in Edinburgh around noon and met up with some other people from UTT who were staying in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow. We asked a guy how to get to the castle, and he proceeded to tell us it wasn't a castle but an old English prison. We all met at the castle, gave it a look, but decided not to go in since it was expensive (12 pounds) and we're all trying to conserve funds at the end of our trip here. As it turns out, this was a mistake not because we regretted not seeing the castle but because we really couldn't find much else to do. We split again into two groups. My group ran into a guy dressed like Mel Gibson in Braveheart and he was a hoot. My camera was also dying at this point and I wanted to save it for the Highland tour tomorrow (good choice), so my pictures from Edinburgh are sparse. Luis and I were with the girls, who love to shop, and we ended up losing them on accident and were unable to find them the rest of the day. So, it was Luis and I in Edinburgh for the next 6 hours. We got some souvenirs, lunch, and walked down the Royal Mile and Princes street, both extreme tourist centers (which I've come to decide is what Edinburgh is). For those of you who know me well, high-density areas of people get to me quickly, so the day was long. The Royal Mile was pretty cool, though, and had a lot of souvenir shops, so I bought some things for some people. Princes street was strongly geared towards women tourists, so that was interesting. We tried to look the National Museum of Scotland, but it wasn't that exciting and all it had was Italian paintings (weird...). So, naturally, we went on a bar crawl around 5pm. We went to 3 or 4 bars and watched another soccer game, and then the time began to move quicker. We met up with everyone else at the train station around 7:45pm and caught the 8pm train back to Glasgow. In Glasgow, no one (except Lee and Jason, of course) went out because we had pretty much been on our feet for the past 48 hours walking around Scotland, and it was hot.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really liked Edinburgh, despite all my complaints about it. It was a gorgeous city and I'm sure the castle would have been excellent if I had gone. We were also pretty wiped out from the heat, the walking, and all the traveling we've done on the trip so far. The people who stayed there really enjoyed it, and to be honest, my favorite parts on this entire study abroad trip so far have been the walking around cities and just taking it all in, so that was cool.

The next day was our Highlands Tour, which I was so excited for. We all woke up at 6am to get ready for our trip at 8am, and Jason and Lee were not back yet. We started wondering where they were and what to do if they didn't show, but then they walked in around 6:30am. They had been out with some girls all night. At 8am, we went on our tour. We didn't get the tour we wanted, so we ended up on a large bus in a large group tour instead of a small group tour, but that was okay. It was to be about a 12 hour tour around the Highlands. I don't remember the itinerary, but we went a lot of places, the main highlights including Loch Lochmond, Glencoe, and Loch Ness. I can't possibly describe to you in words (or in pictures even) how beautiful the Highlands are. Someone told us before we went that pictures wouldn't be able to do justice to the scenery, and he was right. All I can say is that out of all the places I've been so far in my life, Scotland (the Highlands, especially) was the prettiest, hands down. I may revise that after I visit the Swiss Alps next week, but as for now it's true. I don't have many stories for the day, except that the bus driver was awesome. He was a Scottish guy named Tom, and like most Scottish people, he hated the English (hence the title of this blog). He had a lot of memorable quotes, ranging from Englishmen to his stance on Scottish politics to his hatred of cyclists. Other than that, the day was about traveling. We arrived back around 8pm. We all showered and went out for our last night in Scotland, and it was fairly mellow. We went to a club called the Buff Club, which was attached to a Southern-type Club, and they were both quite odd, but fun. We came home around 2am and then slept.

The next day, we did everything we did on Wednesday backwards. There was no bus from the train station in Troyes when we got back at 12am, so we had to walk 30 minutes back to the dorms. We were all exhausted, so we passed out immediately.

The stories from Scotland are few except for those of Lee and Jason, but it was still the best experience on this trip. It was new, gorgeous, and laidback, and I had a great time. I would absolutely consider going to school there, if not living there at some point in my life. This doesn't make for that great of a blog entry, but I've attached around 200 pictures that should get the point across. I would recommend everyone go here at some point because it's absolutely breathtaking. Now, it was on to Hell Week (a.k.a. the last week of class - 2 presentations, 1 20+ page report, and 2 final exams).

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