Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Weekend Trip in the Highlands, Day 2

We woke up early the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast. The milk was warm and the corn flakes cereal had ZERO sugar on it...? I'm sorry, but I just can't deal with that. After I choked on some cornflakes, I resorted to toast (as usual) and it actually had some taste to it, thank God.
We all got ready and packed up our stuff. Michael was surprisingly upbeat and back to life. The creep-o who slept in our room was like a dead man walking, and the party-bus guy looked like he just got out of chemo treatment with his greenish gray skin. We boarded the bus and headed for Glencoe. Driving through the mountains and past all the Lochs was so unbelievably beautiful. I have never seen anything like the hills they have here in Scotland. When the bus pulled over, finally, I was so confused. We all got off and they told us we were hiking up the mountain. I couldn't wait. The air smelled soo fresh and I felt free in a way. We headed down into a little valley where we listened to Simon tell us a wee story about Glencoe's history. Then he told us that the little stream we were standing at had some of the most freshest water. It was tested before because 3 rivers run into it. He told us all to fill up our water bottles. It was so awesome. The water was freezing, but it tasted like the freshest water for sure. After everyone got to fill up, we headed up the mountain. It was such a hike, but the sights were incredible and I couldn't get over it. The pictures we all took do NOT do Glencoe any justice. You have to see it to believe it, for sure.I was so out of breath, but all of the fresh air helped to keep me smiling and feeling happy. We made it to a huge rock where everyone sat and rested. We took a ton of pictures and laughed at the top. (It wasn't really 'the top' at all, but it's the farthest we made it without falling back down the mountain.)Scotland is known for it's crazy weather, so Simon pointed out all of the different seasons that you could easily see in Glencoe. On one side it was blue skies and sunny, the other side it was raining, and the other had snow on the mountains. It was such a wild sight.After we spent a while up there, we had to head back down to the buses. I talked to Ziga on the way down about where we go on vacation in the summer, and he said most of the people in Europe travel to Croatia because it is so beautiful and has great beaches. He said it's a lot like Greece. Who knew? That would be an awesome place to visit I'm sure.
Next we headed to a little shop to buy some lunch. Me and Beth got sandwiches and crisps. I also got some reese pieces! Oh, were they ever delicious. It's been too long. We ate everything on the bus on our way to our next stop.
I'm not sure what the castle was called, unfortunately, but it was REALLY awesome. We had to walk a ways to get to it, like it was in the middle of no where, which was cool. We spent about a half hour there exploring around. Me and Beth tried climbing up into the windows and I even pretended to be Rapunzel (look closely and you'll find me). It was so much fun. Some of the internationals hung out on the dock outside of the castle by a Loch. It was such a nice day out. I wish we would have had more time there to see everything about the castle. There were so many great hiding places. Heheh.Our last stop of the day was one of the oldest pubs in Scotland called "Drovers Inn." It was made in 1705 and has so much history to it. There are so many old documents framed on the walls and so many famous people used to go there (like Rob Roy Macgregor, the Scottish Robin Hood). It was so soo neat to see everything. There were old animal heads decaying on the walls because they've been there for so long. A lot of people ordered drinks and we just sat for a while talking. Everything just looked so awesome and ancient. I loved it!I slept mostly on the way back to Glasgow. I was so tired from all of the walking and excitement. It was SUCH great trip. I'll definitely never forget it.

1 comment:

  1. I loved that you felt free climbing the mountains in Glencoe...and I'm sorry...the Scottish Robin Hood frequented Drover's Inn...how can your trip get anymore exciting? I can't wait until you can tell Greyson about all this:)

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