Tuesday, July 5, 2011

I'm on a bus!

So who wants to take a 3 day tour of Scotland?  PICK ME!!! Ok!  So yes ma’am Katie and I are taking a coach tour all around for the next three days.  Today we were picked up in Edinburgh around 8 am and then headed north towards Skye (an island on the western coast of Scotland.  But before we headed out Katie and I grabbed coffee at Starbucks and I had a major small world moment.  Remember Kelly the teacher from California I met and had coffee with in Bath…yep she was in line in front of me.  How crazy!?!

Well then 17 of us piled into a mini-coach bus with our Scottish driver, Collin.  He drives us around telling us story after story after story of the history and random facts about the areas we are seeing.  Also he likes to pick on us Americans.  I think it is quite funny, but Katie at times takes offense.  Oh and there is one other American, Julie who lives in Austin, Texas.  The three of us have become quite the little click.  You know Americans have to stick together ha!

We first made a stop in Glasgow to pick up a few more members on the tour and then we headed north.  First on the agenda was to check out the main lochs, which is their term for body of water or better known as a lake.  The four main ones we saw were Loch Lomond, Loch Linnhe, Loch Oich, and Loch Ness.  To start the journey we drove through the lowlands first then we moved up into the highlands.  We saw Ben Nevis, which is the largest mountain in Scotland.  We made lots of “Kodak moment” stops where we got 5-10 minutes to take a few pictures of the BEAUTIFUL scenery.  We drove through Fort William, Oben, Glencoe, Kyle of Lochalsh, and lots of other places.  We toured the castle, Eilean Donan Castle, used in the movie Maid of Honor with Patrick Dempsey.  This castle is used a lot for weddings as well.  Actually right as we were leaving they were setting up for a wedding that was gonna happen right after they closed.  Then as we were walking to the bus guests were starting to arrive and a lot of the men had on kilts and tux tops. It was so funny, but is how they dress up in Scotland.







Around 6pm we arrived in Skye in the small village right across the bridge called, Kyleakin.  It is so cute and makes me think of a small, sleepy town up on the New England coast…maybe Maine? The whole group was spread out between different bed and breakfasts.  Katie and I were at a precious one right on the water called the Cliff.  Our room had a spectacular view (look at the pictures)!!

For dinner Katie and I met up with our new friend Julie and we all took a cab across the bridge to Kyle, the town across the bay.  We ate a small seafood place that is located within the tiny train station.  It was soooo good!  I had crab cakes with a salad and potatoes.  Then we all ordered a dessert and shared all three.  We had sticky toffee pudding, chocolate and ice cream cake, and then a raspberry cancashan  (?).  So good!  As we were eating we noticed a really nice train parked with people in tuxes (and kilts) and fancy dresses eating dinner.  After investigating we found out it is called the Royal Scotsman train that makes a loop around Scotland.  It is a real ritzy train and costs about 1,000 pounds a night per person.  After dinner we were all three standing on the docks by the train station and one of the passengers wearing a kilt and tux top came up to take a picture of the water and duh we got a picture with him ha!  We even tried to get on the train, but with no luck we started to head back.  This time to head out we decided to walk so we could get some good pictures from the huge bridge and that we did! It was awesome because the sun was starting to set even though it was 10:30pm. 



Since we were so north the sun is up most of the day.  It rises around 2:30am and sets around 10:30pm.  When it does set it never gets complete dark.  See…
 the view from Skye bridge!
 Found me a man
The view from the B&B and this is at 11 pm
Cheers yall!

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