Here's to Edinburgh!!!

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And here we are, in lovely Edinburgh. Unfortunetly, we still have yet to see lovely Edinburgh in the light of day, as due to complications with our alarm clock yesterday, circumstances arose which made us unable to take and early train ride here. We arrived in the city at around 12:00 last night, and then had to wait about 20 minutes for a taxi... THe city was really pretty in the dakr, so I would imagine that it will be even prettier when I can see everything. The last few days have been crazy. We have done so much in the last three days. When we woke up after that hellish day off of the plane, we felt SOOOO much better, you have no idea. So we decided to go on this boat ride that was availible to us in Balloch. It toured Loch Lomand. We got to see numerous castles and such that have been turned into hotels, one of which housed Sean Connery for some time.... Sean Connrery, can you beleive that... It also housed some other people like Micheal Jackson and lots of princes and stuff... all very thrilling. Also, the tour passed by this island which is owned by one person. It was so pretty. COincidently, the mans surname was Scott... Jackie and I were going to go and see if he would buy that we were his long lost neices or something, but thought better of it as the journey would have involved spending money on a boat that we didnt have, or getting extreamly wet. After the boat ride, we took the train to Inverness. On the way, we stopped at Aberdeen. This city was the neatest thing ever. It was so increadibly gothic. We were only there for a short period of time but we were still able to meander through the old graveyard. There were some tombs from the 1700's there. Creepy.... When we got to inverness, we found our hostel very quickly, then set out to find some supper. This was a lot harder than it sounds. We had planned to buy something from te grocery store, but could not for the life of us FIND a grocery store anywhere, so we settled on CHinese food. We are in Scotland and we are eating CHinese food. hm.

Yesterday was honestly one of the most productive days I have had in about 5 years. Even though our alam malfunctioned, making us unable to catch the Loch Ness tour on time, we still managed to have a very interestingly productive day. The morning however was not very productive, nor pleasent as in our rushed panic to try and catch the bus, I cut my thumb on a piece of glass. Ow. I have recovered though, but it was hard... hehehe... anyway, after our stressful mornign, we decided over a nice breakfast of Egg McMuffins that we would no longer panic and rush our way through the trip. It just leads to bad things. After our breakfast, we dropped off our bags at the train station and went for a stroll around the city. We came across this tour bus which allowed riders to get on and off at each tourist attraction as they pleased. We thought that it would be fun so we hopped aboard. It was one of those double decker buses, and made be very happy. So along we went on this insanly bumpy, overly enthusiasic bus, through the city, learning all of its history and such. Then it turned out of the city and began to drive us to some attractions in the outskirts of Inverness. The first was a battlefield, i dont quite remember the details, but was neat all the same. Then, when the lady announced where we would be stopping next, I nearly soiled my slef out of excitement. Cawdor Castle - unfortunelty (for all you einglish buffs) not of any realtion to Macbeth, but still the coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. The castle dated back centuries and you could just fell the history there.... and it had a drawbridge!!!! You can imagine my happiness and glory when Jackie said that we had enough money to be able to take the tour. So we did, and it was amazing and I took about a zillion pictures, though not of the interior, as it interfered with the security or something. Then we looked around the gardens surrounding the castle. There were so many different kinds of flowers, most of which i had never seen before. If that wasnt enough, before be left, I got to go and feed the ducks in the duck pond in front of the Castle. Highly enjoyable.

When we got back to Inverness, we realised that we had not yet seen Loch Ness, which was in all actuality, the only reason that we went to Inverness in the first place. After much debating, and a trip inside one of teh coolest stores in the world (marks and Spencers, it has everything from food to backpacks- its like a mini Costco...) we came to the conclusion that if we were to take the bus to Loch Ness, we would not be able to get back until at least 6:30, and our train to Edinburg would have left, leaving us trainless and bedless. However, if we chose not to seethe Loch, we would miss out on a very historic lake. We then said to ourselves, screw the bed, we want the history. So we took a buss and left the station, now dubbed the bus station from hell as it gave us nothing but problems. When we got to the Loch, it was very clear that we had made the right choice. It was beautiful. And, on the plus side, there was another castle there to gawk at as well. Unfortnely, it cost money to get in so we just looked at it from afar. It began to rain... again.... so we loitered around teh ticket shop for a while, then sucked it up and spent the majorirty of two hours staridn at the Loch. I realise that that sounds dull, but in actuality, I could have spent another two hours there. It was that pretty.

We didnt get to see the monster though.... which was sad, but we think he might have been frightened and was spending the time hidden under a boat in the middle of the lake. At 6:00 we took the bus back to Inverness and checked our train time.the next one left at 8:00 which meant we would be arriving in Edinburgh at 12:00. we went for a delicious pizza dinner then boarded the train. It was a long ride, but I managed to finish The Catcher in the Rye, a very good book for anyone who is interested. Upon arrival to the city, we went straight to the hostel and straight to sleep. Luckily the people here were kind enough to wait up for us like 2 hours past their normal closing time. Lovely people really.

Anyway, this is Sarah, signing off and preparing for a day full of sighseeing and such. 😊

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