"That's really funny, you would think since they are speaking English we could understand them, but I literally have no idea what that guy just said."

     Ohh, the Scots. I have been dreading writing this blog to be honest with you guys. When I first got to Scotland, I wondered what in the heck I was going to do there for the next four days. However, here I am now…dreading writing a blog about Scotland because way too much happened. To be perfectly honest, traveling to Scotland was the most random trip I have ever taken. There are so many sides to Scotland, luckily with four days I feel like I got to see the whole spectrum. We flew into Scotland late on Thursday night; we decided to go straight to the hotel, which was about 20 minutes outside of the city of Edinburgh in the woods, like literally the woods. We knew you could take a bus, but the thought of figuring that whole mess out was just out of the question, so we flagged down a taxi.

    We soon found out that had just entered the most entertaining cab in the whole of Scotland. Tommy, or cab driver, was retiring in 2 weeks time. Oh, are you wondering what Tommy is going to do after retiring? Well, Tommy was one of the most prestigious Persian cat breeders in all of Scotland in his glory days (Yes, you can Google him). After retiring, this will once again be his life calling. He and his wife, Carol, run a cat motel. If you can only imagine, this guy is speaking in the thickest Scottish accent, my ears were straight up pressed against the window in between us, straining to hear what he said and then questioning if I heard him correct. Kelsey: “A CAT HOTEL?”… Tommy: “Yeah like when you go on holiday and you need to put your cats up…a Cat Hotel.” We soon find out that Tommy and Carol also own horses, one…I am quoting exactly how he pronounced this, “A SHITLAND PONAY,” named Honey. After Tommy dropped us off to our hotel, he kindly invited us to ride his Shetland pony, giving us his home phone number. Although we had no time to go give Tommy and Carol a visit, he said the invitation was always open.

    The next morning we woke up early to meet up with our group, this was one of those times when a cell phone would have come in handy. We attempted to meet up with the group a ten thirty outside the Castle, however unknowingly they woke up late. So we go to the meeting spot, outside the castle and wait, and wait, and wait. After awhile we decide to just go in, because they must have just gone in right? Well two hours was spent in this Castle, which was pretty much fake, looking for our dumb class. And surprisingly everyone in this castle looks like our teacher, a clumsy, white long haired man. What was hilarious is that more than half of the Rick look-a-likes were women. Two hours later, we knew every worker by name and had no sight of our teacher or classmates. We looked like crazy bums running around some castle, sweating, oh which reminds me… What climate do you think of when you imagine Scotland? Is it the cold, dewy, green highlands covered by clouds? Yes. Well so did we. Freakin Scotland was Southern California in July. I packed ALL scarves, jackets, sweaters, long sleeved shirts, I was ready for Alaska. So I am now running around this castle, in my parka, sweating my life away, lost. We decide to just leave the Castle now after three hours and look for them in their hostel, well who do we see moseying along as we come out…the real Rick and our whole group, who oh just woke up late! I was pissed. So we decided to go see the town. After walking around, seeing the churches, going through all the ninety million cashmere shops, who ever knew it was Scotland’s treasure, we decided to take a nap on this park.

    We fall dead asleep for a good couple hours, only to wake up to this French man spraying his entire body with Axe, extremely close to me. I look up with a questionable face, as to why this French man is so close to me spraying his whole body with Axe. The Frenchman comes closer and asks, “Do you mind if I come close to you?” I was WAYYY too tired and just woken up to realize this was creepy so I said sure. So this Frenchman is sitting really close to me, as I have just woken up, and Emily is still passed out on the ground. I don’t really remember a lot about what this man was saying, I know I told him about me getting lost in France, and he offered his home to me if I ever needed it. He made me write in his book…I don’t know why and I really don’t remember what I said, but I think I told him to go easy on the Axe next time.

    After officially waking up Emily and getting on with the day, we met everyone back up at the Café where parts of the Harry Potter book were written, the Elephant Café, a favorite of J.K. Rowling. We ordered food, looking out at the graveyard, where J.K. got many of her names for characters such as Tom Riddle, and sat for hours just talking. At the very last minute, Gavin accidentally knocked the underside of the table, opening a secret drawer. As the drawer opened, we found thousands of little notes written on tiny scraps of paper, stuffed in this tiny nook. We began unfolding all the secret notes, learning of peoples travels, hearing secrets from across the world, learning little words of wisdom. We sat for more hours, uncovering more and more letters, getting to know the world from one little tiny café in Scotland. At the end of our session, we all wrote our own letters, our secret, or words of advice to leave a mark on the next reader…it was probably one of the most magical moments of my time here, I have never felt so centered and connected to the world before.

    That night, we made a decision that would later save my life. We went on a Ghost Tour of Edinburgh. The tale of Edinburgh, is that there the city was once backed up against a haunted forest. The city decided to expand; building a new city in the Forest…there would be a bridge connecting Old Town to New Town. Good thing everyone believed that now the forest, New Town, and bridge are all haunted. So we took a fun Ghost tour of Edinburgh, they gave us these cute little wind-up flashlights that were no bigger than a quarter and lit up, well lit up about an inch in front of me. After this tour, it was getting pretty late, since it doesn’t get dark until about ten o’clock, this ghost tour went for days. (Do you see the mysterious Ghost face on the GRAVE!?!?)

     Tonight, we adventured for the bus. After finding the right bus, we jumped on and thought we were all set. Thinking that since the bus picks us up right outside the hotel, since it is a STOP, you would think it actually stops. Well, it didn’t. About fifteen minutes into the bus ride, I see our hotel pass on by. It took about 1 minute for that to click in, then finally I said, “Wait, wasn’t that our hotel?” Then another three minutes passed, questioning if we really passed our hotel. Another two minutes pooping our pants of fear if we should press the stop button, nervous it was an emergency stop and if they would be mad we pressed it. Another minute for me to run down the stairs and try to explain to the bus driver, we had passed our stop. All this adds to about 10 minutes passed our stop…so what does the bus driver do when two small American girls don’t realize you have to press the scary stop button when you want to get off the bus at a bus stop, he pulls over on the side of the freeway and opens the doors. Emily and I look at each other speechless and just get out. There was nothing we could do, so myself, Emily, and a very drunk man exit the bus. As we get out, the drunken man informs us that he would give us a ride, but he is too drunk for that. Oh, he also informs us, “Be careful now, the Police say it is really not safe to walk out here during the night.” Well great. It is 1 in the morning, we have just been warned by a drunken man that this road is unsafe, and we are in the Scottish woods, stranded in the complete darkness. Clinging to each other’s arms we walk so timidly down the road, yeah no sidewalk here, praying not to die. It is literally pitch dark since we are in the woods and I guess Scotland hasn’t invented highway lights yet. At every step, every noise is scaring us that much more; we are pushed up against a wall not of concrete, but of this forest that is supposedly HAUNTED! More than that, rats are running across my feet into this forest, and I am a 10 minute drive from my hotel. After a minute of walking, Emily and I remember we have our quarter sized wind-up flashlights, as we whip them out. Immediately we begin to feverishly wind-up our lights, hoping this small fracture of light will help save our lives. So now, Emily and I are walking in the forest highway of Scotland at one in the morning, next to a haunted forest, winding up these quarter sized flashlights like our life depended on it. Emily wound hers up so fast that her handle broke off, so now we are down a light and I continue so tenderly turn the wheel praying the light will continue to shine. After about 15 minutes of screaming at every bush, the sight of our own shadows and at any noise…we finally made it to our hotel. I laughed for about an hour and still laugh at the sight of that miniature light, me winding up that wheel, screaming in a haunted forest. Good times.

    The next day we woke up and actually met up with our group at the right time. Since I still have only cold clothes, I had to borrow a shirt from Emily, but am still in my tight blue jeans, that literally were on fire. I did not know we were going to hike up Mount Everest today, but I guess our teacher told us we were (he definitely never mentioned it). We took a train out to this town called Sterling, a place where every retiree should go and live for the remainder of their days. Sterling, The most peaceful city ever. It is nestled against this river, up against the mountains, sitting in its perfect green nature. The highlands were my favorite part of the trip; it was a metropolis of green. Picture fields and fields of grass, overbearing any sort of civilization, it was like the grass knew the streets weren’t meant to be there. We walked along the river side; the first picture below is the half way point of where we were walking to, in the top of that mountain, yeah we were hiking to that statue ahah. My feet started bleeding from the sweat sliding my ankle against my shoe. No joke, probably an 8 mile hike, and just before we got to the top of the mountain a man came straight out of the forest playing the bag pipe, I felt like painting blue over my face, Braveheart style, ready to go to war! After getting to the top we could look down on the whole city, which I would like to reiterate that I climbed through in my jeans. 

    That night I literally was pooped. My mom always says that phrase and everyone makes fun of me because it doesn’t really make sense, but I mean I was pooped. That night we took it easy, swam in the swimming pool at the hotel, even using the sauna and steam room to just relax.

     The next morning we woke up late, it was Sunday and we had no plans to meet up with anyone! We roamed the fields that did not look as scary during the day time and even made a trip to the beach. YES, Scotland does have a beach, I told you, Southern California in July. It was called Portobello Beach; I know they name everything after Portobello. We spent the whole day lying out, reading trashy English magazines, eating Doritos (the whole week I had the biggest craving, but NO ONE SOLD THEM ANYWHERE, I finally found them!). It was a glorious feeling, having the sand resting in between my toes, the waves crashing by my side; it was beautiful. The second two days of the Highlands and the beach totally crushed the city of Edinburgh, I preferred being out of the city, adventuring. I know that this was the longest blog ever, because it is three pages not double spaced on my Word, so I apologize. Now you understand why I was dreading writing it so much! I hope you get bored enough to read this because Scotland was lovely. I love you all and miss you all very much. Next weekend is Ireland, I have pretty high hopes!

P.S. I don't enough time nor space to explain that during my twelve mile hike we adventured through a cow pasture. I was climbing trees and walls, roaming the fields. I thought it would be pretty cool if I jumped off this wall, so I did. And I jumped into a hugggee pile of cow poop. It was ALL OVER my legs and shoes for the remainder of our twelve mile hike, mixing in my sweaty shoe. It was hilarious. Here are just some random pictures from the rest of my time in Scotland.

(Dogs secretly love me in Europe, they come to me!)

 

I love a good wish ;)

Love Always,
Kels.