Greetings everyone. I hope all is well in your respective schools, homes, alleys, cities, and countries. I'm supposed to be doing a detailed study of Welsh literature right now, but I figured that writing about something I actually care about might help get the creative juices flowing.
I'll start off with Glasgow. It's the largest city in Scotland (although Edinburgh is the capital), and is located just about 45 minutes away by train. One of my flatmates is from there and invited us to her home for a day to see the city and have dinner with her family. Glasgow is renowned for its shopping district (along with knivings), so naturally the two girls I was with wanted to spend several hours browsing through clothes they couldn't afford. It was all good fun though. Soon enough, all of the money spending had us hungry so we took a bus over to my friend's house. We met her lovely family, and her dad was nice enough to feed us lunch and drive us to Loch Lomond. Luckily, the entire day was sunny (a rare occurrence here in the UK). For the record, there's a Scotch whiskey named after Loch Lomond that quite tickles my fancy.
That night was honestly one of my favorite nights here so far. My friend's mum cooked us a delicious roast chicken, complete with mashed potatoes, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding. Oh, and did I mention the homemade berry crumble? Legit. Afterwords, her teenage brother and I had a few rounds of some much-needed FIFA and Call of Duty. Let me just say that I had GREATLY been craving the satisfaction of pwning noobs. Later, we all joined in for a 'Friends' sesh until we got sleepy-eyed and had to take the train back home. That day in Glasgow made me feel more like home than I have here all semester. Thanks Gilly :)
If that wasn't interesting ENOUGH :D (seriously, I won't be offended if you close this tab right now), I went to the Scottish Highlands and Loch Ness last weekend. I had really been wanting to go, and I figured that I would get absolute hell from my friends back home if I lived in Scotland for three months and didn't at least LOOK for Nessie. Unfortunately, my friend from uni in the States (who is currently studying abroad in Athens) couldn't make it...the airport she flew through on the way to Edinburgh basically jerked her around for two days. Sorry K-Chu :( but hey, at least you got a free night in an Amsterdam hotel, eh??
Anyway. I took a bus to Loch Ness at 8 a.m. on Saturday. On the way there, we drove through some of the more famous parts of the Highlands: Stirling Castle (think William Wallace), Elton John's huge pink castle, a free whiskey center, etc. I want to note here that although I haven't been to THAT many places in my life, the Scottish Highlands is absolutely the most beautiful one of them all. Seriously. It's hard to tell in photos, but the whole scene is just epic. Snow-capped mountains, rivers, thousands of sheep (speaking of, I vaguely remember reading that the Scottish census reported more sheep than people in the Highlands back in 2000).
Eventually, we arrived at the famous home of the Loch Ness Monster. First things first ----> I fully believe in this legend. I know, I know, mock me if you want. You just need to go there. First of all, the lake is 300m deep. That's really damn deep. Second of all, it's 24 miles long. Poseidon could be living in there and nobody would know. Furthermore, the group we were with took a little trip on a huge marine bio boat while we were there. During, their sonar picked up an 8 meter, one-ton moving object below. And as much as you want to doubt, this marine bio boat was the real deal. The biologist working the boat claims with 100% certainty that there are at LEAST 18 monsters living in the loch. Although now that I think about it, that guy was pretty loopy...
Either way, it was a great weekend. Knocked Loch Ness off my to-do list and had a relaxing scenic getaway. This weekend...my friend's ranch. Well, and lots of papers and reading.
For those of you who will be celebrating it next week, Happy Thanksgiving! May your forks be drowned in gravy and your bellies filled with the tenderest of turkeys.
And to all,
cheers.
