Thursday, Brian took us all on the Corrib Princess for a cruise. It was pretty nice and relaxing, though I got some sun! Didn't think I'd need sunscreen at 4:30 in the afternoon but I guess I was wrong.
Friday was a little crazy with finishing up my paper (such a procrastinator), getting packed, and leaving for Scotland straight from class. When Libby and Jordan went to book our Highland day tour there wasn't room for me. So I had to skip class and go find another tour to do...which was looking hopeless since every company was booked. I finally found a tour through Haggis Adventures and hoped for the best. I slept for a good part of the way to Dublin airport and we got there with plenty of time. Turned out our flight was a little delayed so we just hung out and had a snack at the gate. The flight went well, little bumpy but good. I'm still shocked at how quick it was...like driving to Mooresville from home or something. It took about 30-40ish minutes. When we got there we didn't have to go through Customs...kinda sad because I wanted a Scotland stamp in my passport! haha We found a brochure on bus times and caught a bus to the train station in Edinburgh. From there we walked to the hostel, with the help of a few locals for directions....even though it was midnight. The hostel was a very artsy place....great atmosphere. I wasn't sure what to think, though, when I went up to get in bed. The room had 9 bunk beds and all were full...men and women. I was a little taken aback to see people in their underwear....like one old man laying sprawled in his tighty whities. Anyway, some guy had taken my bottom bunk bed, so I went downstairs to see what to do. I wound up taking the bunk above him. I have never slept on a top bunk and I was exhausted, so I dealt with it. The guy below me had hung his towel right by my head so I casually knocked it off into the floor....gross. I actually slept really well, even though I only had 4-5 hours of sleep before having to get up. I wound up using wet wipes to bathe with instead of taking a shower...if you wanted a towel you had to pay and I didn't want to get in the showers without shower shoes. I figured since we were there for such a short time I'd stick it out and take one when I got back to Galway. Anyway, I headed off on my own to get to the Haggis office for my tour. I stopped a couple times to make sure I was going in the right direction and made it on time with about 10 minutes to spare (had to be there at 7:45 AM :-/). It was raining quite a bit but the architecture in Edinburgh was so nice...I loved it. I hate I didn't get to see more of the city but I think the day tour was the best choice for the amount of time I had. Anyway, I got lucky and my tour guide was absolutely adorable. He wore a tshirt that said "Scotland, Wild & Sexy!" and a kilt. A girl from Australia, Kim, sat down beside me and we became friends, which is what I was hoping for since I was by myself. We headed off towards the Highlands and made a bathroom stop to see Hamish the hairy coo. There was also a baby hairy coo so Kim decided to name him Moey...and she decided to call me Kezzah, which is an Aussie name apparently. We drove on and the landscape was so gorgeous. We stopped off in the Weeping Glen...I think it may have been my favorite. We just stood in a valley and the mountains all around us were covered over in grass or heather with little streams coming down everywhere (since it was raining so much). On the way to Loch Ness, Fergus, the tour guide, pointed out all the great lochs...Loch Lenny, Lochy, Oich, and finally Ness. We also made a stop at the loch Sean Connery owns...where we got a lesson from Fergus on talking like Sean Connery and how to say 'loch' correctly haha. When we finally got to Loch Ness, Kim and I went off to a restaurant since I was starving. It was good food, bad service. Afterwards we went on the walking trail down to the loch where we searched for Nessie.....no sign of her :-p. Apparently on underwater sonar whatever they use, you can see big blobs of some kind of creature that live in the depths. The water is very black from all the peat that has leached into the water....which also preserves anything that dies in there. Scientists haven't seen the creatures that keep popping up on the radar but the population of them has remained pretty steady, and the Nessie sitings are thought to maybe be those creatures on their rare rise to the surface. On the way back to Edinburgh, we stopped off for a bathroom break and whiskey tasting. I wound up buying a bottle of Bruadar, Gaelic for dream, which is a blended whiskey with honey and sloe berries. I wound up taking a short nap on the way back since I was so tired. The tour was amazing and I'm glad I wound up going on it, even if I wasn't with my friends. Fergus was such a great tour guide and very passionate about Scotland. We finally got back to Edinburgh, where I met up with Libby and Jordan for dinner. Kim joined us as well. After dinner we just went back to the hostel to chill out and drink whiskey since I wouldn't be able to carry it on the plane with me. I hadn't realized I had been drinking all day...cider at lunch, whiskey tasting, cocktail at dinner, then the whiskey! Needless to say, I was feeling great and slept really well, despite the stale air and so many bodies in that room. 4:35 AM came early and we trudged up to the train station to catch the bus to the airport. We got there with pelnty of time to spare. I still had a little less than half a bottle of whiskey so I thought I'd just try to get it through security since others got their toiletries through without taking them out or having them in a bag. They caught it and I had to leave it behind :-( I was sad too that they didn't sell that kind in the airport. We found food in the airport and then boarded for Dublin. We got back to Dublin around 9 AM so Jordan and I exchanged our pounds back to euros (had 54 pounds left over!). We had booked our bus back to Galway for 10:45 just to leave some room for a delayed flight or whatever. Luckily there was room on the 9:45 and they let us get on early. I slept all the way back to Galway and then some when I got back to the apartment...felt so good to be back in my bed and Galway <3. We went to see Harry Potter at 4....sooo good. It was great getting to see a movie in a different country too. Afterwards I was going to go into town to shop but decided to chill out at the apartments. I uploaded photos from the weekend and crashed for a little while. Ali and I wound up going to a small pub we hadn't been to. It was an older crowd but that was definitely fine with me. The guy playing music was around 40 and talked to us for a while...then a man around 60 came and talked to us. It was just a nice little place, and Ali and I had some great bonding time.
Today I have class for 2 hours, then heading into town for lunch and shopping with Libby! Not sure what else we will get into today....soo sad that my time here in Ireland is coming to an end :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment