Bye Bye Joc

The little bundle of poo

My Spanish mom gave the dog to her daughter. She said he would be happier there because she had a lot of land where he could run and play (and poop, instead of in front of my door). I guess it is better for him, since I'm sure he didn't enjoy sitting in the house all day waiting for one of us to come back. I have to say I do miss the little bundle of poo. He wasn't the world's best puppy, but he was the only puppy I've ever had. Even when he tried to eat my hands or when he left stinky packages in front of my door, I knew he didn't mean anything by it. Oh well, I guess he's happier now... and I don't have to worry about slipping in puppy tinkle and breaking a leg.

SCOTLAND - Part Two

The next day was the big day. The day we had all been waiting for... our tour of the Scottish highlands. The tour, called "Loch Ness, Glencoe, & the Highlands", started in downtown Glasgow where we traveled north to Loch Ness and looped back south to Glasgow again. The entire tour lasted from 8:00AM to 7:45PM. It was a little expensive, but well worth the money.

Before starting about the tour, I must add that we had probably one of the best drivers in the history of tour guides. He was super hilarious, informative, yet hilarious in that grumpy old man sort of way. At one point he used the term bloody tourists! as if he wasn't driving a bus full of tourists. He also asked if anyone on the bus had bad nerves. No one responded and he told us, "Well if you don't suffer from nerves, it'll soon change. Just close your eyes and pray like I do." He told us the roads were too old and too narrow for the amount of traffic that travels through there and sometimes the situation gets a little precarious. I must admit he was right. There were too many times when an 18 wheeler swung around the corner and I thought, well we're both not gonna make it. But he was an expert and we did make it there and back. Amen.

What do you think it is?

As we drove northward,  our guide (whose name I can't remember) gave us bits and pieces of the history of the places we were passing. As we left Glasgow, he told us to look at this weird monument the Scottish government had built. Apparently, they're super proud of it although nobody really knows what it is. I thought it looked like a giant crown roast, but without the meat. It honestly is quite puzzling. Anywho, we passed several lochs of varying sizes and we finally got to the highlands. I was more than amazed at the mountains and the scenery. We definitely don't have anything like this in Atlanta. Not only was the scenery intriguing, so was the history of the area. Our guide told us of the hundreds of years of fighting between clans, overthrowing of power, and general unrest that the Scots have endured.

After hours of driving, we finally made it to Loch Ness.  On the shores of Loch Ness are the ruins of the Urquhart Castle. The castle was a major stronghold for centuries constantly being conquered until one day someone decided they would rather destroy the castle than have it be taken by their enemies. So now it has sat in ruins since 1692. After snapping an insane number of pictures, we boarded a boat that would take us on a cruise up and down the loch. I knew for sure I would snap a pic of Nessie and claim international fame (and hopefully fortune). Unfortunately, due to some reason I can't remember, Loch Ness has some of the murkiest water in the history of water, to the point where visibility a few feet below the surface is impossible. The water is almost the color of Coca-Cola : ( But this boat tour also gave us a chance to get some super awesome pics of Urquhart Castle.

View from street

View from boat

Nessie?

My family crest

We landed ashore and headed straight for the gift shop. At this point is when I knew I was home. There was sooo much stuff with Walker on it. There were Walker's cookies and Walker's chips (which I'm pretty sure is just Lays in the US) and a crap ton of history of my clan. I found my family's official crest, the pattern for our tartan, and a book with the history of the Walker clan. I felt so proud to be a Walker standing in that gift shop. Of course all of my non Scottish last name having friends were super jealous : ) Seeing all of the history behind my last name really made me want to research my family history... and then I think about how much work it would be and that idea gets shelved once again. We hopped back on the bus to start our return to Glasgow. We passed more awesome landscapes, heard more history, listened to a few traditional Scottish folk songs, and napped a bit on our way back to the city center. 

Side Note: For all the uber Harry Potter fans, we passed the train used in the movie and one of the filming locations.

Harry Potter train

We got back and got off the bus completely pooped. It's amazing how you can literally sit most of the day and be just as tired as if you had actually done something. We went back to the hostel for a quick rest up and we left out again for dinner. We found a super cute Italian restaurant where we ate and chilled for a while. On our way, we saw that another bar was advertising a Madrid-Barca game so we went back after dinner to watch the game. Unfortunately, due to awesome architecture and limited seating we ended up sitting on a staircase, until a worker asked us to move. We didn't watch the whole game, but went back to the hostel to sleep because we had to leave around 5AM the next morning for our flight.

Madrid-Barca game

I think Scotland has definitely been one of my favorite places I've visited (so far). The people were so nice and the streets themselves are gorgeous, not to mention they have some of the funniest street signs I've ever seen in my life. I would love to go back to Scotland, although when it's a little warmer (I don't handle cold well). I think I might also be slightly biased because the people speak English. After living in Spain for 3 months, this was the first primarily English-speaking place that I've been. I never knew how much I really love being able to converse with someone in a mutually understandable language, despite their thick Scottish accents : )

SCOTLAND - Part One

OMG I went to freakin Scotland!

Once upon a time, my friend and I woke up and realized that all of our other friends just up and left Mallorca (3 in Germany and 1 in Madrid). We were like Qué the f?, how did they just leave and we didn't realize it. So my friend and I decided to plan a superly awesomely AMAZING trip without them. We went on Ryanair to see what destinations had cheap flights, and if it looked like a cool place to go, we would go. Playing this game of chance, we ended up finding a round trip flight to Glasgow for only 40 euros and that's where we decided to go. Simple as that. We would leave in about 2 weeks and of course we were super impressed with ourselves for taking the initiative to plan this trip on our own. One of our other friends, one of the friends who went to Germany, decided she wanted to come too. Since I already knew she was going to Germany, I didn't hold it against her and told her she could go : )

EWW, you're gonna need to go to that line.

The big day arrives and we were finally in Scotland. I knew I would have a good time, but just waiting in line to get our passports checked reassured me. The woman directing people to the passport checking lines sees my American passport and goes, "EWW, you're gonna need to go to that line." and points to the line for non-EU citizens. I thought, what a hilarious welcome to Scotland! I know I'm gonna love this place : ) Once we finally made it out of the airport, we get to the bus stop and realize the last bus for the night left 35 minutes ago. A woman, who looked quite frazzled,  and another guy, with an enormous nose, offered to split a cab to the city center with us. The hostel guy told us another bus would be coming, but it would have been a 45 minute wait. So we hop in the cab with complete strangers and head for the city center. This trip should take a little less than an hour, but luckily our taxi man drove like a bat out of hell and we got there in about 30 minutes. Of course, we get lost looking for the hostel (it's to be expected of us), but we finally find it, shower, and go straight to sleep.

Winter Gardens and People's Palace

The next morning, we head out to see the wonders of Scotland... and of course we go the wrong way. Once we orient ourselves, we finally make it to this really cool place called the Glasgow Green, which I just found out is from the 15th century and is the oldest public space in Britain (had to go find the pamphlet for that info). In the Glasgow Green, there's this greenhouse thing, called the Winter Garden, with plants and a cafe and we go in and wait for the attached museum to open.  

SIDE NOTE:  There was some weird movie filming there which involved a priest and strangulation. I'm not quite sure what was going on, so I steered clear of that.

Anywho, I take pictures of all the awesome flowers (because my mom loves them), but unfortunately, my camera gives up on life and the battery dies. Luckily, I have two friends with me who I can harass mercilessly for pictures. Once the museum, the People's Palace, finally opens we go in and explore. I do believe it was the strangest collection of memorabilia I think I've ever seen. There were parts about dancing, bomb shelters, and my personal favorite, the death penalty. I'm not quite sure what was going on, but it was just cool to be there. AND, we randomly ran into one of my friend's hostel-mates in the museum. She's a really nice Portuguese girl who came to audition for one of the performing arts colleges in Glasgow.

Proof that nagging doesn't work. It only gets you poisoned.

After leaving the museum we walked around a bit, got lost a little, and made our way to the cathedral. Unfortunately, due to my camera's untimely demise, I don't have any pictures of the cathedral (although I will surely steal one for blogging purposes). Of course, the cathedral is amazingly awesome. I really like old things and this church was super old, I would Wikipedia some facts about it, but pfft. I felt super cultured just being there. I was touching all the columns like, OMG, this column is older than America! It definitely made me wish my camera hadn't behaved so badly. We were only in the church for a bit seeing as how it was relatively small, and then we walked around the church grounds for a bit. 

SIDE  NOTE: My bestie asked me to bring her grass from Scotland, so I got some from in front of the church. So it's not just Scottish grass...it's holy Scottish grass. 

Interior of chapel

That night, we decided to go out and find a nice bar with live music. We eventually made our way to Scotia Bar where we sat and hung out for a while. I knew I liked the and already when I heard them playing Valerie by The Zutons (I always like when I can sing along with a live band). Randomly, the group sitting in front of us spoke Spanish, so we were super creepers and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation. Then, my friend went to the bar to order a drink, because of course you can't come to Scotland and not try scotch. At this point is when I had the breakthrough moment of a lifetime... I like scotch. I poured some in my Coke and I actually enjoyed it. This is the first time I've ever had alcohol and it didn't make me want to gag. My friends were just as surprised as I was. They made it a mission to find some sort of alcoholic beverage that I liked and now mission accomplished. I don't think it will change my  I don't like to drink policy, not only because of my general love of my liver, but also because alcohol (good alcohol) is expensive, and I'm too cheap to like it.

PART 2 - To come

Alcudia

The market

Awesomeness for sale

After the last debacle trying to get to Alcudia, my friends and I FINALLY made it this weekend. The bus ride is only about an hour and change and it's completely worth it. First, the bus dropped us off at the market and we walked around for a little while. We stopped at this one stand with a lady selling super gorgeous Mallorcan pearls and I thought to myself, "Self, what a wonderful gift for your mother." So I decided to buy my mom some Mallorcan pearls. Unfortunately, I was 3 euros short and had to find an ATM. The very nice vendor lady agrees to hold the jewelry off for me until I get back from the ATM. Somehow, on the way back, another vendor woman, who wasn't quite as nice, stopped me to look at her booth. She wrote down the price for the set I was looking at, the exact same as the other nicer vendor lady, but it cost 5 euros more. So, I try to walk away, but she asks me how much I wanted to pay for the set. I give her a price 5 euros lower than the nice vendor lady and she accepts. So she's wrapping up the set and I feel super guilty. I didn't want to buy anything from her, she was too pushy. I felt as if I had betrayed the nice vendor lady. Of course my friends are telling me not to be silly, the nice vendor lady expects to lose customers, but I felt really bad. I couldn't bring myself to face her so I took a different way back to the main market area.

Our tiny fish plate

Anywho, after shopping around for a little longer, and finding super cute little trinkets, we decided we were kind of hungry. The port of Alcudia is known for having some super awesome seafood, so off we went to discover the deliciousness that was ahead. On our way, we wanted to visit old Roman ruins, but of course they decided they wanted to be closed. We resume our trek for sustenance and come across this cute little restaurant with outdoor seating and a pretty chill atmosphere. We try to order, but apparently this is the only restaurant known to man without a menu. The waitress tells us all they have is fried fish, so we order a small portion of fish and some drinks. The drinks came with a little plate of paella as an appetizer. Little did we know that when the waitress said small, she meant practically invisible to the human eye. There were also  a few pieces of calamari and tomatoes. We were so confused like, should we go ask if more is coming? We sat and waited expecting her to bring out more food, but more food never came. So we asked for the bill, which was super cheap so we didn't complain too much. We would just try to find real food somewhere else. 

Once again, we were on our trek to find food, when we came to the main tourist area. We stopped, took a few pictures, saw the beach and bee-lined straight there, completely forgetting our food quest. We sat on the beach for hours talking, pretending to read for class, and absorbing the sun. The water was warm and the sand was awkwardly squishy, but it was cool in a weird sort of way. On our way back to the bus, we stopped at a little restaurant for drinks and ice cream. I would say this has been the best day trip yet. I have to believe a trip with no transportation fails is a winner in my book.
EXCEPT: On the way off the bus, I somehow managed to break my earphones. They got caught on something and I tugged it. Stupid thing just popped right off. Oh well, just another excuse to go to Carrefour : )

The beach : )