Scotland

Waking up at 3:30 am the morning we flew to Scotland felt really horrible since we left TGIF the night before at almost midnight! We arrived at Ryanair again, and weighed in our luggage. The lady wasn't as nice this time so those of us slightly over were doing some quick rearranging and the infamous GAP bags were starting to look as worn out as us. When we got there, we were excited to find out that there was a shuttle to our hotel from the airport. Upon arriving at our hotel, I was completely enchanted with my surroundings. We pulled up to a castle, that has been converted into a hotel, out in the countryside near Edinburgh. It felt like a dream...maybe it was I was soooo tired at that point. The hotel was beautiful and situated right on a golf course. Thanks again Bryan for all the great hotels!!
I immediately fell into bed when we got there. I barely heard Jared's last remarks as he left to go golfing with the guys. No time for naps for the guys when St. Andrews is just up the road...the birthplace of golf. Jared was way excited about St. Andrews. They were able to golf a round and take in St. Andrews. It must have been amazing.....they didn't return until 8 pm and had many golf souveniers to prove it.
After our naps the gals headed into Edinburgh. A really cool city built around its famed castle that sits atop a hill right in the middle of the city. Its not just a little hill either. It is very high and has jagged rock and terrain below it. The castle has a sordid history about being taken over and won back etc.... We didn't actually tour it this day. We walked around the city, found a great pub, and toured a cemetary. This cemetary would be the coolest setting for Halloween. Huge jagged stones haphazordly strewn about covered in moss, shaded by enormous trees, and broken tomb stone pieces everywhere. It was a little creepy even in the middle of the day! One interesting thing about Edinburgh is that it always smelled like roast beef. Strange! After visiting the GAP and some souvenier shops we headed back to the hotel.
We ordered SCONES from the lounge at the hotel. They are different than what we think of scones. They are more like a biscuit, but less flaky. The serve them with "clotted" cream and all kinds of jellies...black currant, strawberry, apricot. They were really good!! We also ordered drinks which proved to be difficult because everything has alcohol in it and they didn't know how to make anything with out that!! The boys returned exhausted from St. Andrews and showed us all of their souveniers.
Our Castle hotel



St. Andrew's--The Birthplace of golf built in the 1800's?

The next day we slept in and all went to the buffet breakfast together. It was really good. Jared tried "Haggis" and some of the other guys tried blood pudding. I stuck to pastries and fruit.
We headed to town to check out the castle tour. The castle is more like a fortress with many buildings. Its a city in and of itself up there. They have cannons that shoot off every day, and lots of look out points. Then you can tour the many buildings. It also boasts the cleanest "Lou" in the UK so I for sure had to check that out once or twice. We saw a really cool bagpiper at the top playing for a wedding and a little boy about 5 named James fully decked out in traditional Scottish attire. He was adorable. We tried to sieve through Scottish history as we went to see the crown jewels. The history was very confusing! The crown jewels however were amazing. One of the swords was as tall as me.
After the tour of the castle we headed to the Walter Scott Monument. Half of the group hiked the monument and the rest of us shopped at H&M. We ended up at Hard Rock Cafe for dinner where we got great service and hearing loss all wrapped up into one. The food was good! Then we decided to do a "Ghost Tour". It was more like a history lesson and tour of the cemetary. Only one part of it was actually scary when a worker jumps in on the group and yells "Boo"! So a little dissappointing. We got caught in the rain walking back to the cars. It was crazy!!
I enjoyed Scotland's green landscape, the tartan plaids everywhere, and the amazing castle. I will definitely go back and spend more time there.
A very rainy far away castle picture






Little James--SO CUTE!!
Walter Scott Monument