In the Land of Haggis and Bagpipes... (Part 2)

Home, sweet home. Well, I guess, Chester, sweet Chester.

We got back to Chester Saturday night after one amazing week in Scotland. Surprising as it sounds, Scotland reminded me a lot of Arkansas. It had so many different kinds of hiking trails and mountains, along with amazing beaches and snowcapped mountains. As I have told some of the others, I would gladly move to Scotland in a heartbeat. The overall tour was great. After all the antics we had on Monday, we visited the legendary Loch Ness. Sadly, we couldn't find the creature, but I did however find the home of the MacLennan chief. Apparently, back when Scotland was still heavily family/clan ruled, each family had a chief (or clan) leader that would be in charge of the family. The current was leader of the MacLennans since he was 10 years old back in the 1970's, due to his father's death. After we left Loch Ness, we traveled to the forrest of Fairgaig, which was probably my favorite part of the trip. The trees were huge and the overall forest just seemed magical. So much so, that me and a few of the others actually got separated from the group and got temporarily lost. Once we found our bus, and the rest of the group met up with us, we toured around the rest of the loch, and made our way to the Isle of Sky, our second spot of the tour. After cooking a Valentine's Day pasta dinner and playing a couple of games, the group decided to call it a night.

The next morning we traveled to the main part of the Isle. We saw some local sites and different little towns, along with visiting more supernatural areas of Scotland. For example, we visited Tir Nan Iolaire which is supposedly where faires would gather a long time ago and grant the visitor good luck and knowledge if they dunked their head in the stream coming from one of the local valleys. We then moved on to the site called the Old Man of Storr, which is a mountain that is supposedly the remnants of a giant. The trail was one of the longer ones we went on during the tour, but once we made it to the top, it was definitely worth it. Neil, our guide, told us that Peter Jackson wanted to film a part of The Hobbit at Storr, but the New Zealand government refused, and supposedly paid Jackson to keep the filming in New Zealand. Jackson had the right idea though. Storr was definitely a place taken out of Tolken's books. It was another snowcapped mountain with an amazing view of Skye, as well as the rest of Scotland. Next up we visited Kilt Rock, which is named basically because it looks like a giant kilt. Nothing too intriguing there honestly, haha. Next up on our supernatural tour was Fairie Glen. Fairie Glen was once supposedly the headquarters of the faires in Scotland. According to Neil, there have been actual reports of people who have gone missing (supposedly due to fairies), along with documented sightings of said faires. Neil even told us of his own supernatural experiences while walking around the woods. As weird as it sounds, the overall land of Fairie Glen did feel different compared to the other places we visited. After Fairie Glen, we called it a day and went back to the hostel.

The next morning, we visited the Ben Nevis Whisky distillery, which was pretty interesting. Apparently the company gets the water for the whisky from a stream that is about a mile or two away. The distillery was surprisingly not huge, but definitely a cool thing to see. Next stop on the tour was the land of Glennfinnan, or what me and the others called "place with the Harry Potter bridge".  Along with having a statue dedicated to soliders from one of the Scottish wars, Glennfinnan is home to the Hogwarts 9 3/4 bridge. Me and some of the others made sure to get our fill of touristy/ Harry Potter fan pictures along the bridge. After that, we stopped at our last location on the tour, Oban.

The city of Oban is probably one of my favorite cities in Scotland besides Edinburgh. The city itself sits along the Atlantic Ocean, and has a good combination of new and old buildings. When we got there, some of the others and I walked around the city and explored the haunted castle remains of Dunollie (McDougall castle) and Oban Colosseum. Walking around all of the ruins within the city made me wonder what it would have been like growing up in a town that had all of these ancient places in it. Do the citizens care about them, or are they just simply tourist attractions? Either way, the relics were amazing. Later that night, we left to go to what the Scot's call a kaylie. A kaylie is a traditional Scottish event where people go to practice traditional Scottish dances and party. Every time someone goes up to dance, they usually get a new partner, so essentially it's a historical form of Scottish speed dating. After some good bagpiping tunes, we headed back to the hostel.

The next morning we left Oban and basically drove for the whole day. We made a few stops along the way, one of which was the William Wallance museum and tower. From the top of the tower, you could see the battlefield where they filmed the movie Braveheart, along with having an amazing panoramic view of the valley and city below. After the tower, we drove back to Edinburgh and our little hostel home, Castle Rock. That night, along with the following morning was dedicated to relaxing and getting some last minute exploring done of the town.

Overall, Scotland was an amazing experience. I hope to go there again at some point and do some more exploring. Honestly, because of all the hikes we were on, it kind of inspired me to do more of that when I get home. Something thing that I've noticed while here is that some of the British people I've talked to haven't really gone exploring around England. There was one girl that I talked to that said she has never been to Manchester or London, even though those cities are fairly close to Chester. It made me realize that even back in the states, there are some people who have never left their state, even though there is so much to do and see. This study abroad experience has made me want to explore more of the U.S. and even more of Arkansas. Another thing that is funny to me is that in the U.S., there are people who love everything about England and Europe, but think that America can be boring. However, some of the British students that I've talked to think the exact opposite. There have been a few times where I have been asked "Why of all places did you study in England?".  Some of them completely despise England, and want to go to the U.S because they think America is like how it is depicted on television. There have also been a few students who have said they've been to the states before, but have only been to the big states (New York, California, Florida primarily), but know nothing about any of the other 47. Long story short, it has been really interesting to see how people invision America over here.

Anyway, I guess that is enough for one day. Hope you all are enjoying the blog!

In the Land of Haggis and Bagpipes...

Greetings from Scotland everybody!

I know it has been a while, but I promise that I will post the earlier blogs in the next couple of days, but I thought I would just put up a quick update of what I'm up to. Yesterday, me and the group hopped on the train to Scotland to go on our MacBackpackers tour. We left Chester around 9 and got to Edinburgh around 2. As soon as we got off the train, we were already in the heart of the city. We eventually figured out our way around the town and stayed at the Castle Rock Hostel which is ranked the #1 hostel in all of Scotland and for a good reason too. It was this huge building that was about 3 floors. It had a this huge lounge with free tea and hot chocolate, along with a music room which had several guitars and a piano in it. We all piled our stuff into the room which was stacked with bunk beds. The hostel itself was run by what seemed like college grads and they were able to give us the low down of the whole city. After talking with them, we went back to the city center to take a look at the museums. Even though we didn't actually go in any of them, we still had a good time looking at the architecture. We even passed this huge tower that was dedicated to the author Sit Walter Scott. While we were passing by the National Museum, we ran into this band called the Big Peat, which was a bagpipe and Scottish drum band. They were parading through the city, and the coolest thing was that the sound was able to echo off the walls of the buildings, and was able to be heard throughout the city. After looking at the mini concert, we walked around some more and stumbled upon a café called The Elephant House. Didn't really know this until I walked in, but apparently it was the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book! We grabbed a bite to eat and then left to head back to the hostel. Along the way, we joked around that it would be a great idea to try and climb one of the mountains in middle of Edinburgh when it was pitch black. Even though it sounds like a crazy idea on paper, we did it anyway, and honestly, I regret nothing. Me, Nasti, Andrew, Brian, and Dillon made it to the top and were able to see the entire town Edinburgh at night. After some adventuring around we made our way back down and called it a night.

The next day, we woke up at around 8 to meet with our tour guide. This next bit is the ultimate story of how it is a small world. Our tour guide was going through the list of passagers and pointed out that me and him share the same last name (even though he spells his McLennan instead of McLennon) and that we were basically family and a part of the same clan. While we toured around, he gave me little bits of information about our family. Apparently, we were a family of bagpipers and worked for a saint that lived in the Highlands. We also played a fairly large part in the Battle of Cullden in 1776 which was a war that took place between the at-the-time government and this rebel group called the Jacobites. We got to tour around the battlefield of Cullden. We also made stops at Loch Morlich beach, which was a lake surrounded by mountains, but had sand like that of a beach. We ate lunch there, and then walked along some of the nature trails that surrounded the lake.

We finally made it to Inverness and had a chance to walk around the city. Along with having a huge city center, I found St. Andrew's Cathedral, which was probably one of the biggest Episcopalian churches I've ever seen. After we took a lap around the riverwalk, we went to go have dinner at the Black Friar (a local pub in town). Even though it took a lot of time to get our food, I would say it was a night well spent. They had a live band, which was amazing. They taught us some traditional Scottish dances, and even though it took a few tries, we eventually nailed them. I also had a chance to try haggis, and surprisingly it was really good. Basically to put a long story short, I have been loving Scotland so far. It's crazy to think that it is only the first day! Anyway, I think I'm going to call it a night, hopefully I'll be able to keep you all updated during the week!