Time to catch you up on my adventures, starting with Scotland!

My very first visitors arrived on Wednesday, February 8th. They were my roommate from back home and her mom and one sister, and then our friend and her mom as well. They stayed with me, which was fun, and explored London for their first two days before we took off for Scotland by train early Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon we were greeted by a bagpipe band outside of the train station :) We did a little shopping, got food, and settled into our Airbnb.

We'd be here all day if I told you everything in Scotland that we did in detail so I must summarize.
Sunday, we spent all day on a bus tour that took us to Stirling Castle where Braveheart was filmed, made a quick stop at Doune Castle where Game of Thrones was filmed, ate lunch and did some shopping in a small town, stopped at the fault line between the Highlands and Lowlands, and ended the day at a Glengoyne Distillery before returning back to Glasgow.

Some of us girls got out at the fault line and hiked our way back to the Lowlands. I love hiking so I really enjoyed this and it was beautiful, but it would have been gorgeous and we would have been able to see so far into the Highlands if it wasn't overcast that day. Whiskey is a huge industry in Scotland so we stopped at a whiskey distillery at the base of the Highlands. I learned about the different blends of whiskey and it was fun to see the process. This distillery produced single malt whiskey which I learned is only to be mixed with water or more single malt whiskey and quite expensive ;)

Monday, we spent the day in Edinburgh. This is the capital and one of the most popular places to visit in Scotland because it is home of the Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle, with the Royal Mile of shops and restaurants running in between. We learned it is crazy expensive to live in Edinburgh. Our guide Sunday could afford his house in Glasgow for the price of a garage in Edinburgh and one person we met on the train ride there Monday commutes an hour each way to work. I loved seeing the Holyrood Palace because it had history dating so far back but yet is still used by the Queen regularly for business today. It was both good and bad that pictures weren't allowed to be taken inside the palace and castle. Bad because it meant I couldn't capture everything I saw to keep and share it with you, but good because the tour would have taken forever if everybody was allowed to stop frequently and take pictures. There is too much to see and you can't capture it all and do it justice.

This reminds me of my biggest struggle while here. I love soaking everything in as I travel and for me this usually means not taking pictures and being more present in the moment, but at the same time I want to capture the views and moments so I can remember them and share with you. I'm working on doing my best to update friends and family through, Snapchat, blogs, and vlogs but also know you just need to see these things in person at some point to really do them justice in fill in the gaps :)

In Edinburgh Castle, one of the things we definitely couldn't take pictures of that was cool was the Stone of Destiny. It is literally the most boring looking block of stone, so not cool in that way but rather because of the story....
The ancient stone was a powerful symbol for the Scottish monarchy because it had witnessed the coronation of its Scottish kings for hundreds of years, but in 1296 Edward I of England caputured the stone and had it built into his own throne. It was then used in the coronation ceremonies for the monarchs of England and then Great Britain. In 1950 on Christmas Day, four Scottish students managed to steal the stone from Westminister Abbey in London. A nationwide search began without success. The stone turned up 3 to 4 months later at Arbroath Abbey in Scotland and was returned to Westminister by the police. In 1996, the stone was returned to Scotland and can be seen in this Crown Room until the next coronation in Westminister Abbey. In this room is also the crown jewels, which were locked and hidden away at times in history.

There was so much history to learn between England and Scotland and its rulers! It's a challenge to follow all of the history of the monarchy for both. I think it would be best if I took an entire wall in my flat to map it out ;) Mary, Queen of Scots came up at many of our different stops and Lexis and I found her story especially interesting. There is a show called Reign on Netflix that is supposed to highlight her story.

Fun facts: Scotland's national animal is the unicorn

Haggis is super popular in Scotland and I would have probably tried it had I not found out what it was first and how it's cooked. Karen was the only brave sole that tried it in one of her other dishes :)

Don't give anyone the peace sign backwards in the UK, it's equivalent to flicking someone off. Karen learned this from a nice man when she went to order two tickets and then shared with us. I witnessed someone being teased a week later and their response was to give them the peace sign backwards. At first I was wondering what kind of a comeback that was and then I remembered haha.

Vocab lesson:
buggy = stroller
In Scotland, loch = lake
Also, lemonade is not what we think of as lemonade anywhere over here! Ordered lemondade in Scotland and basically got a Sprite. It was clear and carbonated and the waitress and I were both equally confused lol.
In Madrid I got excited because the bottled lemonade looked normal, only to open it and find out it was carbonated, eeck! Now it's basically always water or alcohol at restaurants since I don't like carbonated drinks- miss my option for in between the two!

PHOTOS OF MY SCOTLAND TRIP CAN BE FOUND IN THE PHOTOS TAB ABOVE IN THE ALBUM TITLED SCOTLAND

Take care!