men in skirts: where are your knickers?!?

So the Scotland leg of this trip had a bit of a rough start. Upon my arrival at the airport to check-in, I got a text saying the 2 Australian girls who were to meet me in Glasgow had missed their flights due to some traffic accident in London. Crap. Luckily, I had the hotel information, and they were able to re-book their flights for the following day. I ended up with just over 24 hours to kill in Glasgow alone.

Now Glasgow: I don't know how you treat your other 'special friends', but to tell you the truth- you didn't give me the best first impression. Oh yeah, the wifi on the airport bus was impressive, but the sketch guy on the dark street? You know, the obviously drunk one who swayed so badly on the sidewalk that he finally pitched forward... into the steel retaining wall? Not so impressive.

The first morning also started off interestingly. I woke up to the sound of voices in the hallway- the maids, I assumed. In my morning confusion though, I thought I'd somehow woken up in Turkey (my next destination) because for the life of me, I couldn't understand a thing the women were saying!! Was that English?!? It went on all day.  I've never been so utterly confused in my life. I thought every single person I passed on the street was a foreigner. It must have been nearly dinnertime before I could actually detect the English words underneath the thick Scottish accents. Whew! I'm not going crazy after all.

Spent the day at a museum, checking out a cool little street festival, and basically wandering the streets. That evening, Laudy and Lisa showed up and we went to dinner. Funny enough, none of us had any plans for sightseeing in Glasgow, so we decided to solicit some 'local' advice. You know what the locals said? "Hmm, things to do in Glasgow... well, you could go to Edinburgh!" HAHA. And so it was decided. The very next morning we set off for Edinburgh.

Now Edinbugh, whooee!  Gorgeous!  I loved the historical architecture, the castle, the narrow alleyways, the men in kilts!!  :-)  Over the next few days, the girls and I took a few tours of the Edinburgh castle, the Queen's palace, Dr Jeyll/Mr Hyde house, the city, and the pubs.  In fact, we found one pub we quite liked in particular, which had great live music.  What is it about a man with musical talent that makes him that much more attractive?  Hmm.  Think about it and get back to me, k?

Laudy, Lisa & myself in front of Edinburgh castle

The best part was our day trip to the Scottish Highlands, all the way up to Loch Ness.  All the days so far we'd been in Scotland had been rather cold and dreary, so surprise surprise when the day of our tour, the clouds parted and there was sun, glorious sun!  The Highlands have got the be one of the most visually stunning/green places I've seen.  I definitely want to go back.  We saw a 'hairy coo', which is, literally, a hairy cow, and did quite a bit of soaking in the sights at Loch Ness...  Such a tranquil spot, but I have to admit- I was quite gutted that Nessie didn't make an appearance.  Maybe next time?

the gorgeous Scottish highlands!

I had an extra day in Edinburgh after Laudy and Lisa left to catch their flights back to Australia.  Since we'd been pretty efficient at knocking out all the major tourist attractions, the only thing left I wanted to do was a tour of Mary King's Close, which was an underground area back in the day that housed small businesses and homes.  They try to make it scary, and they succeeded... dark underground places that have existed for centuries definitely have an edge on terror.  I'm just glad I opted out of the underground ghost tours.