Day 14: Most assuredly Oct 2nd.

And we go o;; into the wild blue...

Today we wake up at 7F00 ;or a reaon. se're o;; to ;ind the Loch Lomond. Bet you thought I wa going to ay the Loch Ne monter... F]

(Note: The Ses aren't here. ; should be repalced with f, and F is a : and s is in place of a capital W.)

 

se walk up to the Royal Mile to ;ind ome break;at and I have a quiche that i motly potatoe and Mike ha a "proper cottih break;at"F which i made o; augage, toat and ome yummy haggi. Es!

() IS thi worthe the e;;ort?

 

Nope. S o I will stop trying to do touch typing and will instead suck up having to peck type like I'm in grad school... (contempt here)

There was no contempt on the day that we went on our visit to the Scottish contryside. I thouhgt that it would continue to rain - it was raining when we got up and walked to breakfast, but by the time we got into the 16 person bus and underway it had stoüpped raining and by the time we got to the castle, Stirling castle, it had cleared. There were 13 ppl on the bus. On German lady visiting on an english course, 10 people from Spain and us. the driver's namd was Karen and she was sooo knowledgeable about her conrty. There were tons of things that we passed that she could tell us about: the plants, the history, deer, almpost anything we saw she knew about.

She told us that there was 5 million ppl in Scotland and that they have 40% of the land in the UK, so the have a lot of space.. and don't need a lot of roads. The roads she drove us over went from 4 land hughways donw to 1land tracks on both sides that if you met another car on, they had to back up to the nearest passing place to let us go by. The entire drive was beautiful, paved and twisty.

 

Mike and I spent 2 hrs at Stirling castle, exhaustivley searching the grounds. They are in the process of restoring the castle. It was used as army barracks until 1960 and lots of it had been damaged. Some archeaologists are also excavating the site to see if they can discobver the history of the site.

Mike loved runnign around the various courtyards like a monkey, along theouter walls and throught the underground passageways. We saw the kitchens, some amazing ceilings and tapestries. We got to the site before most of the tourists, but as we were leaving a group of peaople came up, all wearing baseball caps with viking horns on them, with a guide in a kilt. They were noisy.

We took off to a little town whose namd escapes me now, but it's in beteen Loch Lomond and Stirling castle. WE had lunch there, but not before weaving around the scottish highlands, looking at some beautiful sceenery and lochs and mountains and heather. It was a beautiful fall dayand all the ferns were turning bronw, but turning yellow and red first. It was stunning.

Mike and I had some pop, some pastries, an orange and a thingof curry and chips for lunch. Curry and chips is strange. Then we got back in the bus and drove past many many Lochs until we reache Loch Lomsnd, which has a power station at one end. It is 15 miles long and 5 miles wide at the widest part. It was beautiful and Mike and I hiked alongside the Loch for a while, after stopping at the hotel and going pee. We met a couple of ladies, Fiona and Mary, who are retired, but lively and members of a hiking club. They were nice. Fiona liked my shoes.

We got back in the van and back to the city. I fell asleep, as per usual but Mike stayed awake and listenen to the story that the driver was telling about Scotland. She tod us all absout Willam Wallace, Rsb Roy andRobert the Bruce, the kings and queen of note and some other stories of sheep and cow stealing. We got back by 6pm and spent 2 hrs in a nice wine cafe where we had yummy tomato soup and goat cheese salad. They were super. Ecco Vino the place was called.

Then we went and wathched the rugby mathch... I wathced a bit, and then caught up my blog and then Mike came in, totally pumped, even though `we` had lost - Scotland is who mike identifies with. They were playing Argentina and we had just figureded out who was who when I left. then we called our parents, because ti was Thankgiving. Mike left a message with his mom and I called mine. They were having a party, but we had a bad connection. Then Mike and I went to bed.