"You've got nothing!"
Scotland regrouped, worked out to many a montage and came back five years later - with the heaviest dumping of snow it has had in fifty years.
Scotland brung it
My week in Scotland was awesome! Beautiful, picaresque, breathtaking, awe inspiring -pick your word because all of them suffice.
It's funny that when I first arrived in Edinburgh I was feeling really down. I'd spent 12 hours on an uncomfortable bus and dragged my suitcase through the dark, slushy streets of Old Town but then I arrived at the Haggis office to a very friendly "hello" and my spirits were lifted. What was that familiar twang? Could it be?
Apparently every Australian expatriate is in Edinburgh right now and all of them were on my tour. More Aussies than you could poke a stick at and a couple of Kiwis thrown in for good measure. We were set for our laid back - no loud Americans - tour of Scotland.
The countryside had been pavlovard * in snow. We trudged up mountain sides, slipping and sliding through sherberty** powder, to discover the views which I have attempted to document.
Cairns of Clava (c. 1500B.C - 2000B.C)
One of the standing stones
Memorial to Battle of Culloden - last stand of the Jacobites
Loch Ness Monster
Loch Ness
Harry Potter Loch (movie four)
Hamish the hairy coo
(Many more photos on Facebook).
I learnt many things about Scotland's fascinating and completely brutal history, the most interesting of which were the talks on Scottish domestic life and a whisky appreciation group. (Getting pissed on single malt whisky at Morag's Hostel).
A few interesting facts were:
1. The highland man wore his kilt the whole year round. He only removed his garments during summer when it was soaked in urine to minimise tics, mites and other nasty parasites.
2. The mountainside life would plummet to -20 degrees during winter and still the door of the house was left open (probably because all the farm animals were brought into the house and smelt pretty bad, including the family of ten to twenty people and the above mentioned urine soaked kilts).
3. Apparently if you look at Google World you can see a mysterious dark shading in Loch Ness, which could be evidence of the shy Loch Ness monster.
4. Clans had more competition and bloody rivalry with each other than they did with foreign countries - see the Campbell/MacDonald incident online for more information.
The icing on the cake that became my unofficial birthday, was hanging out, eating Haggis, at the World's End Pub with some friends from the tour. Haggis is really nice - quite spicy. The pub was named the World's End because during the time when it cost money to leave Edinburgh, the pub was firmly situated on the boarder - for many people unable to afford the price of travel, it actually was the end of the world.
* This is a very accuarate description of the snow fall - so thick and deserty *** Sometimes I would climb over a small mound of snow only to discover it was a sharp bush.
** Sherberty is not a word but should be.
*** Deserty is also not a word and I can't stop with the food analogies. Oh and had the best cheese and leek bridie in the Isle of Skye
