Being Skye High (AKA The Highlands, AKA I <3 Scotland)

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If anyone is keeping track of my life, you will know that I just came back from a 3-day Highlands trip with some friends yesterday night. And it was AWESOME. So taking it from the top...

Friday, I had to wake up super early to meet at the Haggis Adventures office. Given that I'm pretty sure I have bronchitis, I only got like three hours of sleep since the coughing kept me up. Stupid. Of course, I had to be sick for this trip and probably for Rome next weekend (meeting a couple people from my Mississippi trip which I was also sick for. There's a theme here). But okay, now that I got the venting out of the way....From the very beginning, our tour guide, Tony, was hilarious. Throughout the trip, he was very informative and just kept talking and telling stories about the Highlands and about Scotland in general. And he always had so much energy! So we left Edinburgh, stopping at the Forth Bridge which is apparently world-famous. In Stirling, we stopped at the William Wallace monument. The movie Braveheart is based off of Wallace...sort of. "Braveheart" is actually Robert the Bruce but I guess Mel Gibson just couldn't resist the catchy movie title. Wallace was a Jacobite rebel who was wanted by the English army. He was rising against them because he and his loved ones were starving and suffering due to the English landlords. He probably didn't like certain acts they set out, like if someone got married, the English landlord of that land could sleep with the wife on the wedding night. That probably didn't make the Highlanders very happy. Just a guess though. In order to seek Wallace out, the army killed and hung his girlfriend. Now Wallace was really pissed. He boiled and skinned an English soldier and then used his corpse as a weapon when leading the attack on the hill his monument now stands on. The Highlanders won that battle, driving the English into the river where they drowned. We hiked up to the monument and then got back into the van to drive into the highlands. Just before the highlands, we saw Hamish, the famous Highland cow. Apparently his wife is knocked up with another cow's baby but Hamish doesn't know. We were advised to keep this information to ourselves for fear of making Hamish mad.

As we drove on more, the scenery became stunning. We stopped along the way to take pictures, including at Glencoe which is famous for its clan massacre. Basically, the Campbell clan and the Macdonald clan were rivals. The Campbells were helping out the English army and the army (including members of the Campbell clan maybe?) quartered with the Macdonald clan. After a couple weeks living with the families, they received an order from London to murder the entire clan in their sleep and burn down their villages. So they did, and they tracked down and killed the fleeing Macdonalds. The order was a result of the Macdonald chieftain's reluctance to sign the oath to the king. He signed it in time though but a Campbell member saw an opportunity for revenge against his old rival and advised the king that Macdonald was unloyal and should be killed. After Glencoe, we went to a whiskey distillery and then climbed all over castle ruins like we were on a playground.

That night, I had the best meal I've had since arriving in Scotland. At a hostel. It was curry chicken with rice and it was sooooo good. The tour spent the night drinking and bonding at a pub. It was nice that we had people from all over, from Singapore, and Australia, and Norway and from all over the states (as I've been noticing a lot with tourist things, the U.S. was the most represented). We played drinking games and danced.

Up bright and early again the next day. We had breakfast and then took a little walk along a stream near Loch Ness where we were staying. Onwards, we stopped at another overlook and saw wild (I think?) pigs as well as signs of witchcraft-there were goat heads in trees. Tony told us some legends and then we went to the Eilean Donan castle which was right on the ocean. Next was Isle of Skye and basically more stories and pictures, and some dogs to play with 😊 We ate lunch at Portree and I had fish and chips for the first time! Pretty good.

On the second night, we played card games and did a pub quiz. My team came in second to last but luckily, we weren't last because the losers had to link arms and dance around the duck pond outside, singing "I'm a little tea pot." They had a little trouble with the words given that they were French (they were outside of our tour), which is probably the reason why they lost the pub quiz. It's a cruel world. But we sang along with them and they really didn't mind. In fact, I think they secretly enjoyed it. We dressed up in tartan kilts and some of us partied on while others (me included) returned to our rooms. We wanted to see the Northern lights because they were supposed to be out, but the moon was unfortunately too bright and the night before, there were too many clouds. Sad 😞 Alaska, anyone?

The next day, we went to go hang out at Loch Ness for a bit and take pictures with Nessie. A bunch of guys decided to take their shirts and pants off....to put their feet in. I was confused at this decision. When they started stripping, I thought they were going to go all the way in and, you know, get hypothermia. But they just stood there half naked, freezing their asses off. Except for one guy who decided to be sensible and just rolled up his pants. Anyway, the final major stop was the Battle of Culloden battlefield. Tony took us out to the center and told us how the English basically slaughtered the Highlanders. There were stones on the entrance wall representing how many highlanders died and how many English died, and the English stones were just a small fraction of the highlander stones. There were tombs on the battlefield for the mass graves. Although they all had clan names listed, there was really no way of knowing who was who. The English had also burned down the tent where the injured lay and killed any woman or child who tried to take their dead or injured love one off the field. Are you getting the sense that the English really sucked? Yeah, me too.

Well that was pretty much it. Tony hade also pointed out filming locations, like for Braveheart and Harry Potter. We took a different way back to Edinburgh and saw slightly different scenery. So I've liked Scotland since I've arrived here but after this weekend, I LOVE SCOTLAND! :D

Also, I want to add that I saw stuffed Dolly at the National Museum of Scotland. The part she was in had been closed when I went before but I finally got to see her last week!

My spring break itinerary is as follows: London, Paris, Swiss Alps, Florence, Rome, Venice, Salzburg, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, London. Also stopping in Pisa, Verona, and Dresden.

I am taking a tour and it is departing and arriving back in London so I will be spending three days there total and a couple days in each of the other cities. I'm really excited! And in three and a half months, I shall return to New York with no money to my name but with a smile upon my face 😊 I guess it's back to the ole Adventureland :/

Peace.

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Photos

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Forth Bridge

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Wallace Monument

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Hamish

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Glencoe

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distillery

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castle ruins

Comments

[Rachel]

The universal language of murder
Since I just took a little trip to some old mining towns nearby yesterday, and then read your blog, I am left with the belief that the only universal language people speak is that of oppression, land theft, and murder. Ok, prostitution seems to be a common theme in southwest mining towns as well. Whatever happened to smiles and laughter? I just have one question: How on earth did Wallace use a corpse as a weapon? Three months until I get to come visit - start preparing yourself now!