Nessie's Been Avoiding Me

Here I am again blogging for the first time in a week. I feel like I might be slacking a bit - I'll work on that. So this past weekend we went to Inverness and other parts of the Scottish Highlands. Allow me to fill you in on the adventures that ensued.

We departed on Friday at 8am (which I almost missed because I woke up 15 minutes before we were all supposed to meet up). Since it was a trip organized by Butler (the program that is taking care of us while we're abroad) it was only American study abroad students from Butler programs all over Scotland. These programs are at: University of Edinburgh (yay!), Stirling University, University of Glasgow and the Internship at the Scottish Parliament. There were A LOT of us. I mean, they had four buses and I only recognized about a quarter of the people on the trip. Anyway, we began our journey with our lovely bus driver Blair and our slightly annoying and crazy tour guide Jean. Jean liked to give a lot of commentary on, well, everything. She was fond of saying, "Wakey, wakey!" in attempts to get us to listen to random facts that may or may not have been interesting. Our first stop was at Scone Palace (pronounced Skoon) where people actually still live! Apparently they live on the top floors while the main level is kept open for museum/touristy stuff. We saw Boot Hill there were the kings of Scotland were crowned (until Scotland no longer had kings) and also had a falconry display. The next stop was the sheepdog farm. I think the majority of the females (and even some males) began drooling when they brought out the cute little puppies. There was a mad scramble for the baskets with the puppies and I wouldn't be surprised if some people were physically assaulted so that others could nab a puppy first.

Scone Palace where people actually still live!

Replica of the Stone of Scone or the Stone of Destiny on Boot Hill. The Scottish kings were crowned on the stone for 700 years until the English took it and used it when they crowned their kings and queens! The real stone was finally returned to Scotland in 1996 and is displayed at Edinburgh Castle.

Another view of Scone Palace.

We finally arrived at the hostel in Inverness (which, by the way, was WAY nicer than the one in San Francisco). We had a dinner of pizza and then decided to go out on the town. We had a blast playing "never have I ever" and exchanging deep, dark (yet extremely hilarious) secrets. At one of our many pub/bar stops, my friend purchased a inflatable sheep from the naughty vending machine in the bathroom. We dubbed her Dolly and she had a great life filled with many kisses from random strangers until my friend deflated her. We were unable to revive her. During the course of that night we ran into the same 2 (not very cute and somewhat old) guys at least 4 times. It was weird and I was thoroughly creeped out. I should address the fact that the entire population of Inverness seems to be above the age of 35. Seriously, I don't think I saw one person, besides the other America kids I was traveling with, that was around our age. I am going to say its because all the Inverness kids are away at university... Friday was also my brother Gabriel's 9th birthday! Happy late Birthday Gabe!!

Saturday was slightly disappointing. We went to Cairngorm Mountain where we were supposed to take a train up to the top. Unfortunately, the winds were too high and we settled for a short trek up the side of the mountain and a picture slide show/presentation. Our next stop was Glen Grant Distillery where we got a tour and learned how whiskey is made. We also got a free whiskey tasting... I'm not a fan, not even when most of the drink is water. That night we ate dinner at a restaurant in Inverness along with the hoard of other Americans. We went out again but were in bed by 11pm.

View from Cairngorm Mountain (not from the top, but about half-way up).

Glen Grant Distillery where I discovered that whiskey may smell nice when it is being made but it tastes nasty.

Sunday we checked out of the hostel and made our way to Culloden Battlefield. This was the site of the last battle fought on British soil and was also the last standoff between the British and the Jacobites (many of which were Highlanders from various clans). Bonnie Prince Charlie led the Jacobites and the Highlanders into battle on April 16, 1746 where they were swiftly and brutally defeated. Apparently no British regiment will honor the Battle of Culloden in their list battles won because of the atrocities the Highlanders were subjected to. After we left Culloden we came to the highlight of the weekend (for me): Loch Ness! We got to go on a little cruise across the loch and we learned some neat little facts which I will rattle off now. Fact: Loch Ness is 24 miles long and is up to 900 feet deep in some places. Because of its depth and expanse, the myth and study of the Loch Ness monster (often referred to as Nessie) has been more prevalent here than in other lochs/lakes where there are also legends of monsters. Fact: the legend of the Loch Ness monster began in the 6th century with St. Columba who recorded an encounter with a monster (which he drove back into the depths) while traveling around the loch. The myth really exploded and the loch became a place of great international interest in the 1930s when a "photograph" of Nessie emerged. It is now widely known that the photo was a hoax. Fact: Some people have devoted their entire lives to finding Nessie and scientists continue to study the loch for her (like I said in my last post, they will pay you if you capture a real picture of her). Locals are convinced that she exists and they almost all have a story to tell about the monster. I was not fortunate enough to come across Nessie despite several attempts at what I thought was a mating call.

Urquhart Castle is on the banks of Loch Ness and has been home to clan leaders, kings and other important political figures (dukes, earls, etc.). The castle is now in ruins. It was mostly destroyed during the l690s in a last stand against the Jacobite army because the residents of the castle did not want it to become a stronghold for the Jacobites. We departed about an hour later and made our last futile attempts at spotting Nessie. The next stop was Glencoe which is quintessentially Highland-ish meaning it is sparsely populated and full of tall mountains and low valleys (glens). I got really excited when Jean told us that parts of Harry Potter were filmed in Glencoe - mainly Hagrid's hut! Whoa! Sadly, we didn't figure out exactly where that was. Glencoe was breathtakingly beautiful. Words cannot fully describe how amazing it is. On the way back we had a quiz on all the random facts Jean had spewed during the course of the trip. I am happy to report that Team Unicorn (which was comprised of me and my friend Amanda) WON! I got a little key-chain with a furry haggis - complete with eyeballs. Its kind of hilarious. All that was left after that was the final stretch back to Edinburgh.

Culloden Battlefield. Last stand of the Jacobite army and the last battle on British soil.

Memorial at Culloden Battlefield. The plaque reads "The Battle of Culloden was fought on this moor 16 April 1746. The graves of the gallant Highlanders who fought for Scotland & Prince Charlie are marked by the names of their clans."

Loch Ness... is that Nessie making waves?!

Gives you an idea of how huge Loch Ness really is.

View of Urquhart Castle ruins from the loch.

Walking up to the castle.

Some of the castle ruins with view of the loch.

I saw Thomas at the castle! Apparently he's taken up stone-masonry.

At Glencoe - a very pretty view of a loch between the mountains.

One of the three mountains known as the "Three Sisters" at Glencoe. I believe this is Sister #1.

This week has been fine so far. Thursday is the History Society's pub crawl which I plan on attending. And because it is the history pub crawl we are supposed to dress as different time periods. I'm going for the summer of '69 (someone suggested I go naked... I feel like that's not the wisest choice for Edinburgh in October). This weekend a group of us are going to St. Andrews but we will be returning on Saturday so that we can see "White Heath" at the Tron. :)

TO MY FAMILY: I listened to "You Never Even Call Me By My Name" by David Allan Coe today and sang the lyrics really loudly and obnoxiously. I'm pretty sure my entire hall hates me now but it reminded me of you all and made me very happy.