Welcome to the Motherland

Scotland is awesome. Since Al used to live in Edinburgh, we have recieved some pretty sweet hookups including: a free place to stay (shout out to Crazy P), a free tour at Al's old work place Mary Kings Close (thanks to Loose and Susan), and some free zoo action (well, thanks to my brother). It is really quite beautiful here, I got the full effect the day we climbed to the top of Arthur's Seat, which is a huge volcanic outcrop in the middle of the city. Atop the Seat, you can see the Castle, the Royal Mile and even Fife across the water! The weekend was also jam-packed with Scottish goodness when we met up with some of Al's old chums and went to the Meadows Festival in the middle of town. It was (for lack of a better term) a hippie-jam fest which included lots of drum circles, open-mic sets and vintage nic-nacs. We would also like to mention the generosity of the Edinburghians, supplying us with enough booze and food to keep us warm on that freezing cold festival day. On Tuesday we got to see the famous Edinburgh Castle where we did a tour of the Castle and its internal prisons, in addition to seeing the oldest building in Edinbugh, St Margarets Chapel. We were so inspired by the stories of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace that we decided to go out and buy the epic movie Braveheart last night!

On Wenesday, we went to the big city of Glasgow. Contrary to popular opinion, we actually did not find it as overwhelming and scary as expected. St Mungos Catherdral and some of the other older buildings are really impressive and at no time did we feel at all that we may be stabbed! Though, the highlight for us was Necropolis cemetary. It was located practically on the side of a cliff and overlooks most of the city. To top it all off my brother suggested the Wee Curry Shop which my family has fallen in love with over the years and, despite only holding a max 20 people, we had some of the best curry I have tasted to date.

I shall try to wrap up tidily with a little Stirling/Oban/Mull action...which has occupied us for the past four days. Stirling is adorable. The combination of castle, cemetary and Wallace Monument was creepy and thought provoking. We saw exactly where Braveheart was filmed...I mean where the battle of Stirling Bridge took place. The mighty William Wallace finally beat the sneaky English (sorry guys) for semi-independance. We only had 2 days there and quickly moved on to Oban where we enjoyed some sweet sweet Oban whisky tasting at the Oban distillery, mmmm. Starting to get the Scotch whisky bug like big brother I reckon. While in Oban we also took a ferry to the Isle of Mull for a day. We decided to bike around part of the island which is much much bigger than originally expected. Saw some of the most amazing sites on the trip so far though, including bunnies, lots and lots of sheep, and whole countrysides filled with mauve rhododendrons. I got to see Duart Castle (which Al has fond memories of from back in the day) and some other amazing sites on the way; however, the biking got a bit rough around the last 3 miles of our 24 mile trip when it seemed like it would never end! Our bums are still  suffering the consequences but we made it back to Oban just in time for the best fish and chips Al has ever tasted. I thought they were good, but Al went mental for them...fresh off the boat! 

Overall, Scotland definately holds a top spot for me so far, I'd say Al would agree. Let's see what ya got Thailand!