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 : )