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After slumming it with no place to sleep in Galway, I had an early bus to Shannon, Ireland where I jumped on a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland. I knew next to nothing about the city or Scotland as a whole. I’m glad I decided to go there, however, because it turned out to be a wonderful place. It was very clean and filled with friendly people, more than willing to help some dumb American students. We stayed near Edinburgh Castle which sits on the top of a steep hill right in the center of the city. The castle and the nearby Princes Street Gardens give Edinburgh a very green feel.

As usual, we took a hop-on/hop-off bus tour of the center of the city. The tour provided a lot of good insight. For those who don’t know, the Harry Potter book series are my favorite fiction stories. JK Rowling, the author, wrote much of the early books while studying in Edinburgh. We found one of the cafes in which she frequently wrote in, The Elephant House. It was easy to understand how one could feel the creative juice while living in this city. The next day, we hiked up the hill at Holyrood Park. It turned out to be quite challenging but we were rewarded with the best views of the city.

A four hour bus ride to Inverness showed me much of the Scottish countryside, which is very different from the plains of the midwest. By the time we arrived it was too late to see any of what Inverness has to offer. We decided to get a traditional Scottish meal, which included haggis-filled chicken. According to Wikipedia, haggis is typically the heart, liver and lungs of a sheep minced with various other stuffing. Despite the gross description, it turned out to be quite good. The next morning we took a tour of Loch Ness, the famous lake which is said to house the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie. The lake is up to twenty six miles long at it’s ends and appears to be black due to the high concentration of seaweed. Unfortunately, a half hour boat trip didn’t bring give any sitings of Nessie.. The boat dropped us off at Urquhart Castle, which sits on the Loch.

The 13th century castle once provided great protection for the area. In addition to providing great pictures, the castle turned out to be my favorite part of Scotland.