At last....

Ok, it's been awhile. But I've been drowning in holidays and it's really difficult to keep up. (That we could ALL have that problem...)

So, I went to Scotland about a month ago. For 4 days. Finally!! I've been obsessed with Scottish men and music for so long and I finally washed ashore with my boyfriend. No, wait. That can't be right... Yep... Tax boy agreed to go with me, poor sap. Moving right along...

We took the ferry over from North of Belfast and in two hours were at the Southern coast tip of Scotland. One lesson in sea-faring, the closer you are to the water, the less chance of sea sickness. And falling over. We drove up the West coast to Inverness on our first day. Long, long day. It's so far north that twilight lasted from 8 until 11 or so. Remarkable. Scotland is GEORGOUS!! Ireland is beautiful, but oh my... I just wasn't prepared for Scotland. Driving up the coast we stopped at a castle on a cliff called Culzean and walked the grounds for about 2 hours. It's on the edge of the land mass, so you can hear the waves crash on the rocks below and then walk into the forest where the birds are chirping and deer still roam around. It also happens to be a working farm. We could have spent much more time there, but we'd only been on the road for a couple of hours. Next we drove thru Doon. As in, Brig o' Doon, which means Bridge of Doon and was dually photographed. Next to the Brig sits a lovely B+B called the Costley B+B. I kid you not! We ventured on. Driving along the coast, thru forest, thru quaint villages until the sun started to set and we reached Loch Lomond. Stopping for dinner, I got a few nice shots of the lake, that really is as breathtaking as people say it is, and Tax Boy got to play sheep rescuer. A baby lamb was stuck in between fences and cut off from his mother. Tax Boy went to the rescue only to discover that he couldn't get to the lamb to rescue it. Not that said lamb was worried; he only stopped eating long enough to bleat back at his mother. Hungry little sucker. Back in the car and on the road we drove thru the Great Glen. This is an area I'd like to see again in the full daylight. It was dark dusk when we went thru, but we could still see what an amazing drive it is. The thing is, the mountains were so unusual. Each peak stood alone, so you could circle around the base. It was almost like Dr. Suess drew it. Just massive column after column until we came to Loch Ness. Too late to stop, we drove in to Inverness, where we spent the night in a lovely little hotel on the River Ness. Amazing view in the morning.

INVERNESS
I think Inverness was my favourite part of the trip. It's dripingly lovely. We shopped a little the next day and hiked up to the castle. Saw St. Andrews cathedral amid pink flowering trees, cricket players on the green. It just can't get more British than that. The bells were ringing, the sun was out (had to buy sunglasses... in Scotland!) the birds were chirping... it was perfect. We stopped for coffee on a patio overlooking the river and realized the bells were still ringing. And ringing. And not playing any discernable song we could think of. I suggested it sounded like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Idea quashed. It was just a perfect day. As we walked back along the river into town, we stopped in The Whiskey Store, which as you might imagine, sells Whiskey. Scotch as we Americans call it. Inverness is at the base of the Whiskey trail, where all the distilleries are located. Sort of like Napa Valley. We were going to do a tasting at Macallen, the Rolls Royce of Scotch, but since it was getting late, we went in to buy my brother his birthday gift in case we missed the tour and tasting. (we did) At the back of the store was a pyramid of wooden casks, each containing a special cask blend that gets bottled in the store. And they let you taste it. I tried Mcallen first, just as I'd remembered it. Then the sales lady had me try the Abelour, which was completely different. It's much lighter and a little fruitier. Then she gave me another one to try. It's called Lagavulin I think. (Dan, is that right?) Anyway, as soon as I smelled it, I knew it was the Scotch for me. It starts salty and then fades quickly and finishes slowly with a mellow wood smoke. I looked at it and had to keep from bursting out "Now that I could drink an entire glass of" It was goooooddd... Needless to say, I spend a lot of cash on liquor. Worth every penny. Except that Tax Boy has the bottle I bought for us... Must get that back.

THE WHISKEY TRAIL
So we left Inverness with my mouth numb from the drink and headed east to the other coast. Now this was supposed to be a 100 mile journey thru the highlands, which would give us plenty of time to drive down the coast and into Edinburgh for the night. Oops. Yeah, it's a 100 miles and it could be driven easily, but when you stop to go hiking every 20 miles or so, it takes you 5 hours. Worth it. Worth every minute of it. We stood in the source river on the Glen Levit estate. We hiked thru heather on the moors. We drove thru the ski pass and saw snow. We came down the other side of the mountain into a beautiful valley. There just wasn’t an ugly part that we saw. Well, until Glasgow that is, but more on that later. We hit the coast just as it was getting dark and pulled into a coast town just south of Aberdeen and just 2 miles north of the castle they filmed Hamlet in. Didn't remember that at the time, one of my co-workers went to school in Aberdeen and reminded me of it when I got back. So we had dinner in the beautiful little village, in a renovated Art Deco bakery. It was excellent. The place was beautiful, the food was good. Just a lovely evening. Back in the car and on to Edinburgh for the night. We arrived at 11pm and after many, many one way streets, we arrived at our guest house only to find out they don't have 24 hour reception. Luckily we were let in and passed out for the night. Really lovely guest house, and I'd recommend it to anyone staying there, except for one minor detail: check out is at 10:30 sharp. No exceptions. Even on holidays. Whatever... I guess it got us out into the city all the earlier, which is good, because there was much to see in Edinburgh.

EDINBURGH
Edinburgh is an interesting city. The castle looms high above on a rock. Seriously. A huge rock with a castle on it. If it weren’t so steep it would be a target. But it’s not. It’s the beginning of the royal mile, which is the street that runs directly from the palace to Holyrood Palace. All along the Royal mile are the shops and houses and churches that make up the elite part of the city. Directly below it is a massive park that separates the old town from the new town, which is on a grid like we expect it to be. Still old, still charming, it’s where most of the shopping/clubbing/eating takes place. What amazes me is that standing in one of the three parts of the city; you can still see the linear nature of the plan. (that is architect speak for ‘strips of town’) Edinburgh is long and skinny. When we got there in the morning, it was typical Scottish weather. Pissing down rain and getting foggier by the minute. It wasn’t too cold, so the effect was more “Oh isn’t this lovely and atmospheric” rather than “what the hell were we thinking!?” We wandered into the camera obscura, an early city sized telescope and by the time we exited, it was bright sun again. Amazing weather in this part of the world! We walked from the Castle down the royal mile to the cathedral, which contains St. Giles Chapel. This is where the queen attends church when she’s staying at Holyrood. Not so very often, I’d imagine, since Balmoral Castle is a mere 2 hours away. Why be with your subjects when you can shoot them in the woods and claim it was a hunting accident? Anyway… St. Giles was a gorgeous chapel: all carved wood and intricate designs and figures. The noble families have personal boxes with their crests on them, and since it’s so small (maybe 1000 square feet?) as they give the seat up to other families, the crest is moved up the wall, so you have a record of what families owned it before you. It was all very interesting. And yes, the queen has the best seat: on axis with the alter, right next to the exit. Back on to the street we continued down the royal mile in an effort to see both Holyrood and the new Scottish Parliament building by Spanish (sadly deceased) architect Enric Mirralles. The pictures actually do it some justice in a weird way because it’s a building of details without an overriding idea. Along the way we saw lots of pubs, more than two or three kilt makers, a couple of bag pipe shops and one memorable coffee house called Has Beans. Finally we reach Holyrood only to find it is locked up like Buckingham place. FYI: a mile, even a royal one, is a long way to walk for nothing. And now, after photographing the parliament we have to trudge 85% of the way back UP the royal mile to get down to the park. Stopped in a pub for some fortification and we were on our way in no time. The park was glorious. It starts with a small church and graveyard, the largest Celtic cross I’ve ever seen and includes 2 art museums and outdoor theatre for several hundred and a guy selling ice cream. Also an enormous monument to a Scottish author whose name escapes me. The biggest monument I’ve ever seen dedicated to one person, having never been to Washington DC. It was fantastic, I must say. Almost makes you want to be a dead Scottish author. And makes me wonder what they’ll come up with for JK Rowling. We shopped a little and I got sucked into a leather store. They had the most beautiful shoes… and a 50% off sale, so really? How could I resist?? Turns out, after much flirting from the salesman, I am a sucker for leather Italian handbags. Yep… bought Italian in Scotland. This will turn out to be a theme with me, you watch. I’ll go to Italy and buy a Russian handgun or something. So we wandered around most of the day taking far too many pictures because every time you turn around there’s something beautiful that just begs to be recorded. Finally we pour ourselves into the car and head the 2 hours (no really, 2 actual hours this time! On the freeway and everything) the 2 hours to Glasgow, which really is, as Drew Carey said, the Cleveland of Scotland.

GLASGOW
I’m tired of typing; you tired of reading yet? We’ve still got another whole trip to go yet…and photos... sigh.

So, Glasgow… we arrive, get slightly lost and then end up, driving smack along side the hotel. Nice. Glasgow on first impression reminds me of New York. Or a back alley in downtown LA. Not so scenic, but nothing fundamentally wrong with it. We head out to a pub, one of the only ones we can find, and have some beers. This place was huge. I’ve never seen a bar this large and this Disney-ed. In the theme of Scottish woodland enchanted forest with beer. Odd to say the least. After we leave, we decide to walk around and see about some clubs. I’ve been dying to go clubbing in Glasgow for years… they’ve got an amazing live music scene and the number of bands coming out of here is phenomenal. Did we go? No. Did we end up back at the hotel asleep before midnight? Yep… too much driving wore us out. We did get to see, however, that oh so rare of clubbing sights: 2 girls pushing their friend screaming thru the streets of Glasgow in a rolling office chair. Passenger girl seemed to be having a good time til they wrecked. Not to be dissuaded, girlfriends picked her up and put her back in the chair and the process started over again until they reached whatever club they were going to. Poor bouncer… But what I want to know is this: where do you get a rolling office chair at 11pm on a Sunday night?? Sigh… Dublin isn’t that fun… Morning dawns, I have massive amounts of coffee and we get to see a bit of Glasgow freeways because we can’t find Ikea. Major reason for going to Scotland is that they have the closest Ikea and I need stuff desperately. After finally finding it (3 freeway changes later, not 1 as hotel clerk assured me) we arrive into what feels like North Dallas strip shopping centre extraordinaire. Ikea, B+Q (the British version of Home Depot), all sorts of mega-retail stores including parking as far as the eye can see. Not so scenic Scotland. Many happy hours and several hundred pounds later, we roll out of Ikea, car bulging with stuff (hey, he bought stuff too!) on the road to head for home. I managed to get half my list, he managed to find all sorts of trinkets he couldn’t live without and we drove the coast back to the ferry.

It’s not exactly riding off into the sunset, but there you go.