Last day in Scotland :(

I took the overnight train last night and idnt have wifi to blog so here is my late blog. We drove the whole day! We went to hadrians wall in england. It took at least 3 hours to get there. But once we entered England to get there there was a stop at the border where you could be on the border and be in two countries at once. 

I had England to my right and Scotland to my left. They also had a bagpiper at the border.

Hadrians wall was pretty lame. It looked exactly like a sheep stone fence. Then after driving 3 hour back from seeing something we had already seen in ireland and scotland, we went to a japanese resturant.

Turns out Im not as far away from home as i thought. I looked out my window and saw a car dealership with this car brand. 

Some of the boys on the trip wanted to get kilts so they wore them all day on the last day in scotland. we had alot of time on out hands before the train so we took lots of pictures and were all slap happy. Here is the result.

haha plenty of quotes from that night will never be forgotten.

Then we boarded the overnight train to London. The rooms were so small we had to share them with one other person.

 Thats pearl my roomate. We have been rooming together most of the trip except one night. Everynight he called her mom and dad and talked in Chinese to them. Super cool love her! 

Moo!!

We started off the day visiting Hamish the highland cow! He is very similar to a yak.

Then we went to a Loch. But not loch ness :( it was too far away and it is basically the same thing minus all the tourist shops.

After that was the perfect time for a nap. Just about everyone was sleeping on the bus.

Then we went to the bottom of Wallace Monument. We couldnt go to the top of the hill to see it because we didnt have enough time.

Then sterling castle!! The castle was alot like Edinburgh castle but smaller. It also had alot more museums inside, and re-enactors.

This castle was more of what i was expecting the castles to be. It was also raining. We had supper at jolly's again and went to a ghost,witches,and ghouls tour of Edinburgh.

They were really funny. The guy in the kilt dressed up in different costumes of people who died. First he was a demon.

Then a body collector during the black plague.

Then the famous female theif agnus.

And finally the highland warrior. Believe it or not since they had the really big kilt held by a brotch that could be cut off easliy making them stark naked. Whenever they went into battle all of them went into battle stark naked from the begining. 

Well tonight is my last night in Scotland tomorrow night I am taking the overnight train to London. Last day in the land of kilts :( 

A wee bit of scotland

Today I went into Edinburgh and we did the guided tour on the bus. Our guide was of course wearing a kilt!! Kilts kilts and more kilts. On the guided tour we saw the Greyfriars bobby.

There is his statue. His master was a police man and when he died his dog crawled under the church fence every night to sleep at his master's grave for 14 years untill the dog's death. The dog was buried in front of the church as an example of loyalty. Unbeknownst me J.K Rowling wrote the harry potter books here. She got most of the names from streets here. I was standing by an intersection of Fredrick street and George street. hmmm wonder where she used that?? We visited the Castle of Edinburgh. It is a castle and a military base for Scotland.

It is on a HUGE hill. Right by the entrance to the castle they had grand stands set up for concerts and the military tattoo....not ink. It is a military salute. The castle was preparing for the royal salute to the queen. No big deal but right now I am in the same city as the queen herself. She is having a party at a palace in Edinburgh. I didnt see her come in but when she did come in they shot all three cannons at the castle to welcome her. The castle was huge and there were lots and lots and lots of kilts. I LOVED it....and of course i had to get a picture.

Jealous?? They were both from schools here and that is their uniform they were on a field trip.I got to see the crown jewels of Scotland. Very beautiful....unfortunately we werent allowed to take pictures at all in that building. In the gift shop i got a Scotish CD of bagpipes and fifes and drums. Fair warning julia!!!!......i have and irish CD too. We got to walk aroud the city the rest of the day. We got lost a couple times but we made it back to the bus in time. After that we went back to the hotel to freshen up for the scottish meal and music. I wish i could put videos on here but i dont have a youtube account. I got video of bagpiping and dancing. They even invited us to do a dance. It was like 12th night ball in Scotland. And i ate haggis!! How many people can say that they have ate haggis in Scotland? I actually liked it. It tasted like meatloaf. We even had a separate course just for haggis. There was a special cerimony and everything. 

Here it is my haggis! They took one of the kids from my group to be the haggis bearer. After dinner a lady did a traditional scotish dance which was basically her jumping around on the tips of her toes with her arms up. But i didnt get any pictures because i was too busy watching. Over all I loved the meal and extras!! It makes me even more excited for the ball in january!! Tomorrow we will head to yet another castle and then at night take a ghost tour of Edinburgh. ooooooooooooo! (creepy ghost voice)

Hope you are enjoying me blogs!

Veronica

p.s i forgot this in my first blog thank you so much aunt paulette for letting me use your suitcase it is AMAZING! I owe you big!!

irish yogurt and black current!!

In case you have no idea what either of those are here you go! Irish yogurt is really good i had it for breakfast this morning in dublin. it is a thick custard like yogurt with fruit on the bottom. the kind i had was apple and black berriest. Black  current is a black berry only grown in europe it can also be red...but the black is better.so far today ive had it in jelly form and an apple and black current juice.

We went to bed very late last night and all of us got a wake up call promptly at 6am! But the good thing was that we got to slerp on the bus to belfast ireland. In Ireland it is separated into two different irelands. The half in belfast takes irish pounds and the half in kilarney takes euros! And even though that half of ireland scotland and england all use pounds they have different money but it all spends the same in all of the countries. 

Ok so since ive explained all of that back to my day!! We took the bus to a ferry. When James said we were taking a ferry i just expected a boat bigger than the modoc ferry but with the same concept to it. But it turned into being a smaller version of a cruise ship!! There were 10 decks. It had a cafe a resturant a movie theater and free wifi! Also with beautiful costal views of leaving Ireland and arriving in Scotland. When we walked into Scotland we didnt get our passports stamped :(. But we got a 3 hour bus ride to Edinburgh (ed in burrow). Along the way we saw cows and sheep and alot of the same things as Ireland. But their cows are monsters!! Biggest cows ive ever seen in my life. I wish we would of been closer or driving slower so i could of gotten a picture but it was nearly impossible. We were running really late for our dinner in Edinburgh. Which was an Italian resturant. I had a cheese pizza with spices it was very good! I will stay here for 3 nights before we take the over night train to London. In this hotel every guest is only allowed 30 min of wifi per day so no promises on long blogs till london. Because it takes so long to upload on European wifi......bad news is this hotel an the hotel before didnt have 

Accents green and castles

We left the hotel in Killarney this morning and headed to Blarney to visit the Blarney Castle. It is the third castle built there because the other two got destroyed by water. We had to walk up a very narrow spiral stone stair case to get to the Blarney Stone. 

Along the stairs were different rooms in the castle such as the great hall the kitchen and various bedrooms. After lots of climbing I made it to the top and kissed the stone by sitting down and bending back while holding onto a bar. It was pretty much just one stone built into the castle that was a different color than all of the rest. Now I can say that I have received the gift of gab from the Blarney Stone in Ireland!

After the castle we went for lunch in a little cafe called the Half Moon Cafe and I had an open faced chocked sandwich. It was very good. On the way back I got a smashed penny but actually t was a smashed 5 cent euro. It was still cool. On the way back to the bus we were lost and it took us a little bit but my group made it back. 

When we got on the bus James told us we wouldn't be going into downtown Dublin because there was an anti-gay march going on and the streets were closed and police everywhere,and I really didn't want to be involved in a riot overseas. So we spend longer at the rock of cashel. 

The rock of cashel is another castle. But this one was on top of a really big hill (more climbing) overlooking farm land and the town. It also had a huge stone wall surrounding it and graves inside it. It was actually pretty creepy. Huge birds swooping and graves next to it. It even had a Sweeney grave stone.

Other than that have I mentioned I LOVE Ireland?? The weather is perfect! It was a little warm in Blarney but that was just after all of the stairs but at the rock of cashel it was perfect. There was a nice breeze and a wonderful view. Tonight I'm staying in a hotel in Dublin but on the outskirts of town no worries. I just got back from seeing Irish dancers and Irish music at a restaurant. It was amazing and exciting every single minute I even bought their CD . Tomorrow I am getting on a ferry to Scottland. The journey continues! But I am kind of doubting it will top Ireland. We will see. 

Goodnight! :)

Killarney day two!

Alright! So apparently the sun doesn't set in Ireland until 11:30 pm!! Then it rises at 4ish! Crazy! The beds were pretty hard but I was so tired it didn't matter. After our Irish supper last night three friends and I walked around Killarney. We even had to walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk. We went through all the touristy shops and I got a hoodie and a thimble. The next morning we woke up we had breakfast in the hotel and it was off to the ring of Kerry! We learned about peat/bogs. It is basically natural  Irish firewood. It is rain and decayed vegetation...but not wood but it burns longer and stinks really bad. They have their own museum! It was a small modeled Irish village. Super cool. There was also a town that has a goat celebration. They celebrate it because a goat bahhhhed and warned them that an army was attacking the town and it saved the town from being attacked. We saw lots and lots and lots and lots of sheep. We went to the bay of dingle and saw the sea of Atlantic...not to be confused with the Atlantic Ocean even though it connects to the ocean. We just drove past it because the road was not even 2 feet from the huge drop off straight to the sea. The sea had an Island in the middle called the island of youth. With an Irish legend behind it. Then we had lunch and I had a shepards pie and apple pie. It was really good :) we got back on the bus and passed a lot of ruins of different people's houses. Then we went to the Atlantic Ocean on pebble beach. There was a statue of Charlie Chaplin. And lots of pebbles. I got a green one. Why not its Ireland! We drove past Killarney park. When we are driving through this is what I hear. "Is that the Great Wall of Ireland???"(stone fences keeping the sheep in that went on forever)-Alec and "Can we drive to America from here" no Alec you can only fly across the ocean! The park was so pretty!! But the roads were sooooo curvy and up and down and really narrow with a big tour bus and I got motion sick. Good news is I didn't actually "get sick" but it was still rough. Tonight is our past night in Killarney! Tomorrow we are going to the Blarney Stone to lean over backwards and kiss it to receive the gift of gab. Then stay the night in Dublin! 

                                  

                                     Pebble beach overlooking the Atlantic Ocean 

  

Top of the Morning! (late)

Well i finally made it to the UK! I got into Ireland at about 8:50am Ireland time (6hours ahead of the usa). we had a really long delay in philedelphia because of weather coming in. It was pretty rough. I could of sworn we were going to die at one point,but it got better. i didnt sleep very much...but how can you be tired when you are in IRELAND!!! ahhhhhh I love it!!! The weather is perfect only 56 degrees fahrenheit!! Alot better than at home! As soon as we meet up with our tour guide we got on a bus to the small town of Adare. By then it was 10:30am so I ended up gettin belgium waffles! Yum! After that we got back on our "coach" (what james our british tour guide calls our bus) to go to kilarney! We stopped at some mountains. I took lots of pictures but none of them can do it justice. we went on a boat ride around all of the mountains. Breath taking views!! Love it!!!! right now im getting ready for a traditional irish supper.