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Published: November 28th 2008
I can’t believe we only have another 3 weeks in Oxford, it seems like we just got here! Mitch and I have had the greatest last few months and just don’t want this to end. Back to reality? No thanks. Graduating from college? No thanks. Paying our own bills? Definitely NO thanks. This weekend was our last trip before our months traveling after school…Scotland! We had a wonderful little pre-trip scare when we realized that we had booked our bus too close to our planes departure…soooo we had to change it all and jump on an earlier bus which created a bunch of craziness and mayhem but the end result is that we made it to the airport on time. Instead of just Mitch and I, we had an awesome duo of our friend Janae and Jakob (Mitch’s Swedish roommate) who came along with us. We got into Scotland around 10 pm and let me tell you once we walked outside the airport…We were not in Oxford anymore. It was absolutely biting cold. The air felt like it sliced through skin and Mitch thought his little fingers were going to freeze off. We were definitely not prepared for this brisk weather.
WE found out on the bus to our hostel that it was supposed to snow over the weekend. Not good when all we brought were some light jackets and jeans. The hostel we were all staying in this time was really unique because it was a huge church that had been remodeled into a dorm type hostel. It still had stain glass windows and such but the inside had been gutted and turned into a really cool hostel. And when I say “cool” I mean borderline creepy as this church had been converted into a hotel but yet retained the outward appearance of a place of worship. It was around 11 when we had checked in and put our stuff away and realized it was high time that we go enjoy some good ole’ Scottish pub life. We went to the nearest pub and Mitch was delighted to start his “Scottish Whiskey Experience”. The whiskey in Scotland is very different from the whiskey in Ireland, and my little whiskey buff was extremely excited to sample the local goods. I must admit, I do enjoy a good glass of whiskey but I am much more a beer woman. Anyway, we all
got ourselves a drink and sat down for a nice hour or so conversation. I really love these moments when nothing else really seems to matter and we are all just hanging out in the pub just loving each other’s company. I feel like that is very hard to come by in the States at the local bar. It’s just not that same wonderful atmosphere. We decided to call it quits around 1 am and head back to the hostel and get some sleep because we had a long day of exploring Edinburgh in the morning. We woke up to frost windowpanes and howling wind, it had definitely not warmed up since the night before. I put on just about every warm layer I could find, which was not much, and Mitch did the same as we both know we would spend the majority of the day weathering the elements as we hiked about the city. The second we stepped out onto the main street, I had a new respect for those Scottish men in their Celtic skirts with no underwear. I mean how in the heck did they survive a winter in the Highlands with a skirt and no
undies? I was in jeans, boots, and like 3 or 4 layers with a hat and gloves and I was about to go back in the hostel and never come back out again. It was brutal. I have never been that cold in my life. We got a very interesting breakfast at this baguette store but it had heat so that is all I really cared about. Mitch was content with his sausage and egg baguette, and I was dreading the second we had to step out of the store into the Scottish weather. We all decided we had to man up and get outside to explore Edinburgh. The city is just one of a kind beautiful. It was almost like a bigger Oxford and a smaller London combined into this ultimate incredibly beautiful city paradise. The streets were made up of tall brown buildings and the main heart of the city was home to this awesome castle that was perched up on a high hill in the middle of the town center. Around the castle there were a bunch of really cool buildings with domes and steeples, parks, shops, and of course the sea and the Highlands. It was
really beautiful city like Prague but the surrounding landscape was just breathtaking. The Scottish hills are incredible and they just seem to roll on forever. They go up very steep and then just fall off into the sea. We wandered about the city for a few hours while stopping into the local pub or coffee shop every few minutes to thaw out as we were all turning into mini Scottish icicles. We climbed up the beginning of the Royal Mile (the famous street in Edinburgh that connects to the castle and the main sites) and made our way up to the famous castle. The castle was the most intact castle we had seen yet and we decided it was worth the 10 pound entrance fee to explore it. I am very glad we did as the top of the castle had some absolutely breathtaking panoramic views of the city. You feel so small and yet so big at the same time looking down on the bustling city with its pubs and smoky chimneys. The castle had a bunch of really cool rooms that had audio explanations of what everything was and what it was used for. It must have been
freezing in that castle as the wind just howled through the rocks and stone floors made each room into a mini freezer. I can’t imagine what the prisoners must have felt laying on the stone floor until they died. It was a bit mind boggling. The castle took up a few hours because we kept having to go into a coffee shop because I was miserably cold and felt like the saliva in my mouth was freezing over and I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Mitch was in the same boat so we felt like the constant coffee shop stops were beneficial to our overall health. Around 2 we realized that it was high time for lunch, and decided to head to one of the Scottish pubs on the Royal Mile and get some grub. We went to this awesome old pub called Deacon Brodies which is named after the man who was Robert Louis Stevenson’s inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Brody was a corrupt man and he was eventually hung on the very scaffolds that he had designed. Anyway, the meal was great and were fueled up and ready to be on our
way. The Royal Mile was home to all the tourist stores as well as the infamous whisky shops and yummy pubs. Mitch absolutely had to go into the store/pub “The Whiski Experience” as he was bent on trying the best Scottish whiskey in town. He got himself a sampling tray of 4 different whiskeys to see what he liked. Not going to lie, the kid drank over 7 different flavors of whiskey on this trip and I began to worry he was going to turn into a kilt wearing Scotsman with his flask on his hip. It has been hilarious hearing him break into a Scottish accent…he thinks he is good at it, and we all just let him think that because it’s too funny not to. The Whiskey Experience was great as he tried one of the nastiest whiskeys I have ever smelt in my life. It tasted like you were drinking a smoky fire. It was just blah! Anyway, we were pretty worn out by this time as it was near the end of the day and the coldness had really sucked the energy right out of us. One of our friends had gone to a different part
of Scotland to meet up with some of his friends and we were planning on meeting him around 11 at this one bar so Mitch could try out some more whiskies, so we went home to our little church hostel to take a nap. We met Jakob around 11 at the bar and had ourselves a few drinks and a great conversation but all in all we were all beat and had a big day of exploring the Highlands in the morning so bed was a necessity.
Our alarm went off bright and early and we all jumped out of bed to on our wonderful adventure into the Scottish wilderness. Our bus left from the town center which a good 30 minute FREEZING walk so we decided it was in our best interest to take the bus. We left Edinburgh around 8:30 am for our journey up to Inverness to visit “Nessie” who lives in the Lochness. We were in a small 8 or 10 passenger van with a bunch of freaks from different countries who all seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. There was a couple from Australia that seemed to hate
anything American and kept giving me death looks. There was a couple from the States who appeared to hate each other and I thought I should inform them that they may as well break up now because it wont work out. There was another couple from South Africa who just slept the whole time…it was a strange combination. We held down the back of the bus with our chocolate chip muffins and loud American voices (of course, our friend Jakob had his Swedish accent in there as well) and we were ready to have a ball. The journey was long. I mean long. We spent oh about 12 hours in the cars but we took random stops to enjoy the Scottish countryside. I must admit, it blew Ireland’s countryside just out of the water. The land was green and brown and the hills were made up of these amazingly high peaks just blanketed in snow and sitting up in the clouds. There were big blue lochs (lakes) sitting at their feet and beautiful country cottages were scattered throughout…like M&Ms stuck in the frosty of a big tall cake. It was gorgeous! Our first stop was one of my favorites as
I got to meet Hemish the “furry cow”. He was a beauty. He reminded me of my dream dog, the Newfoundland. He was an enormous, hairy ox who liked to just sit there and stare at you. His hair was so shaggy you could barely make out his eyes and his huge horns stuck out of his big furry head. He was adorable, I just wanted to hug him all day long. Our next stop was at the Lochness which was just oh my gosh so awesome! Ok so you really aren’t going to believe this but…you know the Lochness monster, right? Just a myth? Well, yeah I thought that too at first but now things have really changed. I think it could possibly be true. We went on a sea cruise out on the loch so we could see the landscape etc…but, we met this awesome boat driver who has spent his life in search of “Nessie”. He had these incredible pictures of this big body that like popped up next to his kayak one day and he snapped a photo of it with his digital camera. The boat also has a heat radar that goes beneath the water
and tells you the size of the things swimming below it. This loch is huge and if it dried out all the water in all of the UK could never come close to refilling it. It just so deep and big. Anyway, the fish are huge as well some of them were 8 and 9 feet long. Just huge suckers. So this guy showed us this screen radar image that they had taken a few weeks ago and there were two enormous, 2 or 3 ton, bodies on the screen at a very very low depth. The captain claimed that they have had this reading before and that he believes they are the “lochness monsters”. Obviously they are no monsters but he believes they are some prehistoric type reptile that has survived since the dinosaur days with a long neck and flippers. There have been random sightings of these type creatures for the last 12,000 years . Monks who used to live on the island claimed to have seen these huge creatures come out of the water and I mean, would a monk really lie? It was really strange to think that maybe the lochness monsters might be really alive.
Anyway, we all pondered at that one and kept looking around at this beautiful loch. The hills and cliffs that hung over the loch were beautiful with so many big thick green trees and gray and white rocks. There was an occasional wild goat who daringly stood on the cliffside munching on grass and staring out at us with his nonchalant attitude. The water was dark as night and there was no way to see even 1 foot below the surface which was one of the reasons nobody has been able to spot “Nessie” even with an underwater vessel. In the distance, there were enormous mountains just rocketing up into the sky with their snowy white peaks and icy sides. It was quite the site. Oh and it was obviously freezing but I toughened up and stood on the deck so I could try and take pictures that somewhat captured the beauty. I didn’t really succeed as I couldn’t even feel my fingers but atleast I made the attempt. The stop at lochness was one of my favorite and we were all just pretty much obsessed with the Highlands. The little town in the lochness was adorable and we got
a bite to eat before we hopped back on the bus. We made a few more stops before we made it back to Edinburgh around 8 at night. Perhaps one of the funniest stops was when we spotted a “wild” reindeer who turned out to be one of the most tame animals I have ever seen. He must have ran away from Santa because this guy had clearly been around humans before. He wandered among us and tried to eat people’s scarves. It was awesome. Anyway, we finally made it back to Edinburgh after many hours of nodding to sleep while the bus drove through the winding roads. It got dark around 4 so we felt as though it was time for a nap. We ended the night at the local pub with some yummy “pub food” and called it a night. The next day was much more laid back and we kind of just spent the day doing our souvenir shopping and exploring what we had missed the days before. The city itself is one big spectacle and we had a blast just wandering through the streets and seeing the little things: the occasional man in the kilt, the
colorful chimneys, or the bagpipes singing in the chilly air. It was a great day and we all got our souvenirs from the local Scotsmen store. Mitch got his flask (I told you he was turning Scottish) that he had been waiting for. It was a beautiful pewter flask wrapped in the Scottish flannel with a leather bottom and top. It was classy, very much like my cute little boyfriend. We got out tea spoon to add to the collection and a few other knick knacks. After that, we climbed up this one hill that gave us a great view of the whole city including the castle and the sea. We had such a great trip and decided there was no better way to end it then by sitting in the local pub with some beers and good ole conversation. We are just so blessed to have experiences like these, and I know they will remain with us forever…life is good, God is good, and we are better than good. We are the happiest traveling couple around.
Well, that was our last excursion before school ends and we go on our one month of backpacking through Europe. My mom is coming on Monday the 20th for an amazing 8 days of bonding and experiencing the countryside of England. I can’t wait, and I know Mitch can’t either. There is nothing better than family love in a foreign country.
Stay tuned…
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kelli beth
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you guys are having the experience of a lifetime! i love reading about all of your adventures! i love you (and mitch) so much!!!!!!!