Here Nessie, Nessie, Nessie

After a brief stint out on the town on Friday night, we continued our Scottish adventure on Saturday with a tour of the Scottish Highlands that culminated at Loch Ness. I didn't really know what this tour was all going to entail, but why not.

We boarded a bus near the Edinburgh Castle at 8 a.m. and were off to the Highlands. The first sight was the Stirling Castle, where William Wallace won the first of his major battles. We continued along before stopping for breakfast at a small Scottish town. The interesting bit about traveling in a giant tour bus is the group was full of Americans and other foreigners. Most of the bus was full of a group of students from Georgia Tech that were studying at Oxford. And then I found $5.

As we were driving the Scottish weather played games with us. It would drizzle for short stretches and then we'd go around a bend in the road and it would be sunny. The roads we took in our huge tour bus were quite similar to the ones that we drove in our Ireland car trip. Except for this time, it felt like we were careening off the road. Our tour guide, Dave, told us lots of stories as well as interjecting his political spin a couple of times. For example, he went off on a tangent about the vast amount of money the Scottish government spent on building its new Parliament building. He contrasted this with a small, thatched-roof primary school building in Fort William. Our driver was a real character. He dropped several other great lines on the trip, such as when talking about whether or not to take the boat ride on Loch Ness "If you went to the Moon, wouldn't you walk on it?" About kilts: "The ladies always ask me what is worn under my kilt. I tell them nothing is worn, everything is in great working condition." He was a corker. He was good, but here are the two other guides that were part of the same company. As you can see we missed having both a true Scotsman and Santa as our guide.

Once we got into the Highlands the mountains jutted out of the ground and disappeared just as quickly. It wasn't the typical mountains I am used to in the Rockies, but it more like each mountain was a separate geographical figure that stuck out of the plains. It made for a very dynamic landscape (which might be the vaguest description ever). Each mountain usually had several streams that flowed down and into a stream at the foot of the mountain. It really was quite breathtaking. We also saw a bunch of bike and hiking trails. It would have been really awesome to take a day trip through the area on a bicycle. Take a look and you can see the stream on the jutting mountain on the right (which was taken through a window on the bus):


The bus ride continued and we made surprisingly few stops. Instead, we looked at everything out the windows and rarely exited the bus. The one spot we did stop was the Three Sisters. These mountains and the surrounding areas were used in the Harry Potter movies and Highlander. I have not seen either of those movies so I can only imagine how sweet they are. I will take your word on it.

After another hour or so and a stop for lunch outside Fort William, we made it Loch Ness. The place is pretty huge. The lake is long and skinny as it stretches for 23 miles and is just over a mile wide. I think it is somewhat comparable to Lake McConaughy, which is 24 miles long by four miles wide. The major difference is McConaughy is only 142 feet deep while Loch Ness sinks as low as 750 feet at its deepest point.

On our boat ride, we went out into the waters of Loch Ness. The waters of the Loch Ness are very dark. This comes from the drain off of the peat from the surrounding areas. The dark waters add tot he mystery of the Loch and make it impossible to see the bottom of the water even in shallow areas. We rode to the Urquhart Castle, an old Scottish stronghold from the Jacobite era. It was torn down by the English long ago, but the ruins still stand. Because we were running late on time due to screwy traffic we didn't have time to stop and walk about the castle. I'm sure it was like others we had seen, but only with a Scottish flag.

After a short stop at the gift shop, we were back on the road. We took the highway back to Edinburgh and made a good time. The journey up was interesting and we got to see a lot of the countryside, but it felt like we didn't see everything we could have. And we didn't catch Nessie. Oh well.

The only regret of the day was not visiting Edinburgh Castle. We walked around it several times, but never went in. This adds to my list of places that I almost visited, but not quite. Topping the list is the Roman Coliseum, which Nathan and I missed out on going to twice. A close second is Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris, which was right next to our hostel, but the stairs up to it were too many for Nathan.

With the hotels in Edinburgh filling up for the high tourist season, our posse went back to Glasgow for Saturday night. We found a nice relaxed pub to start the evening before heading off to Frankenstein on the recommendation of our waiter. Frankenstein was a dance club with plenty of seating areas. And also about a half dozen bachelorette parties - they were everywhere. By the end of the night, we were swing dancing with one group and made their night. I'm quite sure of it. A little Burger King at 3 a.m. on our way home capped off the evening.

On Sunday, we walked around Glasgow a bit before we had to head out to the airport. One of the tour books we had recommended a market area, but when we got there it was essentially a flea market with tons of crap for sale. We call it culture. We countered the film from the market by going to the Gallery of Modern Art. Interesting stuff. A quick bite and a little shopping and we were back to Ireland and Shannon Airport.

Live Update: It's Tuesday and only a few days left here. Tonight we are going out to dinner and drinks with Dean Pierce and we might actually start studying for the finals. Tomorrow we are going to the courts to watch an Irish trial in district court. I hope to do a little bit of shopping and buy a new duffel bag for all the new stuff. Last chance for souvenir requests.

Cheers,

LJLA