Scotland:

We stayed at a youth hostel in Glasgow. The hostel itself was great, a lot nicer than the one we stayed at in Bath. We had our own bathroom and shower and a keycard for our room, and there were just 6 of us girls. I wasn't impressed with Glasgow as a city. We walked around Thursday afternoon and saw their cathedral. Behind the cathedral was an acropolis, which was amazing. It was this hill with level upon level of old graves. They're all giant stones, and all of the ones at the top are monuments, some of them were giant. Lots of the older graves were partly broken apart and covered in ivy. It was cool. It would have been wonderfully creepy at night. :) We spent the rest of the day wandering around and went out for dinner, and to a few pubs.

Friday we got up early and took the bus to Edinburgh. Edinburgh (which is pronounced like something between Edinburrrr/Edinburra/Edinburough depending who you speak to over here) was beautiful. We got off the bus and were confronted with wonderful architecture, an old castle, and bagpipes, all at once. The majority of street performers in Scotland seemed to be older men who dressed up to the nines and played bagpipes. I loved it. You could hear them all over the cities. It was a gorgeous day and we had lunch and wandered around and by the castle and through fields of daffodils and sat in a park with our shoes off and I had cotton candy. It was wonderful. We scaled a hill that had some random old buildings on top (including a replica of the Parthenon that was never completed because they ran out of money), and a great view. After some shopping and more time in the park, we tried to find a restaurant that the Let's Go guide recommended for dinner. It was booked. We found this cute place called the Blue Moon Cafe, which turned out to be a gay haven. The food was great and the people were friendly. Took the bus home, went to a little traditional pub, and went back to the hostel.

Saturday we were up early again and trecked around Glasgow trying to find the Mackintosh house. It was supposed to be a museum for Charles Renne Macintosh who Frank Lloyd Wright studied under. It was closed, however, since it was Easter weekend and almost everything in the UK shuts down Friday - Monday. We then took the bus to Stirling. A girl from Clark, Katherine (Lori, I think she was your roommate freshman year, and she hangs out with the Bissells), was on the bus. She's studying in Stiriling, but it was still weird. She lived with Adrienne last year so they had lots to talk about. Stirling was another cute city. We scaled a giant hill and went to Stirling castle, which was interesting. From the top, you can see across to another giant hill where they have a giant monument for William Wallace (you know, from Braveheart). Another great afternoon and back to Glasgow for dinner the little pub again, and sleep. That night there was a weird smelly girl in the room. Other than that, though, I have no complaints.

We accidentally checked out of the hostel an hour late, because we completely forgot about the time change, although we had discussed it in detail on Thursday. Oh well. Then my parents thought I was crazy when I was telling them about it.