Scotland

---

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland with a group of friends last weekend. The city is one of the most interesting cities I have ever visited. The city is built around Edinburgh Castle which sits on top of an emormous hill in the center of town. The first day we took a tour of the castle and then spent the afternoon strolling down the Royal Mile, a famous strip of shopping. I discovered that men in Scotland still actually wear kilts, especially when going out to the pub at night. That night we went on a ghost tour because Edinburgh claims to be the most haunted city in the world. It started out with great ghost stories from our tour guide. However, the tour somehow ended up in a cemetary in the pitch black of night. We went into this tomb that alleged has a lot of poltergeists, upset spirits that tend to do things to living people. Thankfully nothing happened on our tour because being in a tomb in a cemetary at night was scary enough for me.

The following day we climbed the mountain Arthur's Seat which lies right outside the city. It gave us an amazing view of the city and the surrounding sea. It was quite the undertaking that ended up taking up most of our day. Afterwards, we ate in the cafe JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter in. For our last day in Scotland we took a bus tour of the highlands and Loch Ness. It ended up snowing over the course of the day. The snow made the mountains even more beautiful as they were covered with the fresh powder. Personally, I am wishing that spring would hurry up and arrive here. When we arrived in Loch Ness we took a boat tour out on the lake. It is not as mysterious as they tend to make it out to be. It turns out that something definately lives in the water but as the lake is 900 feet deep they are not sure what it is. Odds are that its not a monster but some freaky, large water animal that hasn't been identified yet. It was still really cool and they had computers on the ship from MIT so you could keep a look out for mysterious objects. Overally, Scotland had more wilderness than I was expecting and is an absolutely beautiful country. I just wish I could understand their accents better.

---