Ciao From Rome...

Great Scotts!!!

This weekend Krista, Jess, and I went to Scotland.  We left Rome late on Thursday night to fly into Prestwick.  On the flight, Jess made a hysterical comment that the flight attendant happen to overhear while giving the safety presentation and you could tell for the rest of the presentation he was trying unsuccessfully to refrain from laughing.  Needless to say we were probably his favorite passengers on that flight.  During the flight, Jess and I decided to start the trip off on the right foot by cheers to the awesome time we were going to have.  We landed in Prestwick around midnight and I received another stamp on my passport. YAY!  We took a cab to the Adamton House Hotel and the man that checked us in was super nice.  We went to bed early because we wanted to be well rested for the next day. 

            We woke up early the next day to get ready then we caught a cab back to the airport so we could catch a train to Glasgow.  We bought our tickets and had some time to kill before the next train was leaving so we sat down and had some Starbucks and then we did some souvenir shopping.  I had been having a hard time trying to find the right gift for my brother and I finally found one while we were waiting so I was pretty excited about it.  I just hope he likes it as much as I thought he would.  Then we got on our train to Glasgow.  We arrived at Central Station and we all thought we should be looking for platform 9 ¾  because the station was the same style as the one in Harry Potter.  Then we headed to our hostel.  We checked in but couldn’t go in our room yet so we left our bags there and headed out to do some shopping.  The first store we went into we ended up spending a ton of time in but we all bought some really cute clothes that weren’t too expensive so it was sweet.  Since we had so many bags and we were only a block from our hostel we decided to go back and drop all of our stuff off in our room.  We met our roommates who were from Australia and chatted for a little and then we went to grab dinner.  After dinner we headed back to the hostel and got ready to go out.  We tried to convince the Australian girls to go out with us but they had a really early flight to catch so they couldn’t go.  We went downstairs to the bar at the hostel with the intention of only buying a few drinks and then going out.  We ended up staying there the whole night.  We talked a lot with our bartender, Daniel, from Ireland.  Jess and I pooled money for the night for drink buying and I guess she didn’t understand the exchange rate that well which resulted in us heavily over tipping the Daniel.  Awesome for him, sucked for us, but what can you do it was still a really fun night.  At one point Jess earned the name Ballerina Barbie since she decided to start dancing around the hall/stairwell I was sitting in while talking on the phone because she said her flats made her feel like she was a ballerina.  She was so graceful while dancing around that she fell down the stairs. It was quite the performance. 

            We had to be up early yet again the next morning to catch another train this time to Edinburgh.  We arrived in Edinburgh and found our Hostel which was called Castle Rock Hostel and was ranked in the top ten hostels and rightfully so.  The hostel’s staff was super up beat and helpful and the decorating inside was very fitting because they had all sorts of suits of armor around.  We stayed in a room called Plant Biology Room and my bed was “Cum Quat.”  The hostel was also conveniently located right by the castle.  After getting settled in we headed to the Edinburgh Castle.  It was cool to walk around in and we got a lot of fun pictures. Then we headed back towards the hostel and did a little more souvenir shopping.  We went to bed early that night because yet again we had to be up early the next day.

            Sunday was filled with a 12 hour bus trip to the Highlands that was awesome.  Our driver was very knowledgeable, funny, and we got to hear the wonderful Scottish accent all day.  The whole trip was filled with amazing views and scenery.  On the way up into the Highlands our driver told us about the history of the Highlands and we stopped to see a Scottish cow, Hemish.  Hemish was AWESOME!  We all bought bags of feed from the store, squash and celery, and fed him.  Later in the day we went to Loch Ness and took a boat ride to try to catch a glimpse of Nessie.  Unfortunately, our mission was unsuccessful.  When we got back on the bus to return to Edinburgh it was really hot on the bus.  Our driver said it is never that warm there that early in the year so we really lucked out with some beautiful weather minus the hot bus.  It turned out to be good though because he added an extra stop at this little waterfall that was really pretty.  At the last stop I bought ice cream and the very first lick I went to take of it the whole scoop fell onto the ground.  It was a pretty tragic moment because I was looking forward to the ice cream sooo much because it was homemade and it was so warm out.  Jess and Krista thought it was hilarious and they made fun of me.  When we arrived back in Edinburgh we were all really exhausted and we just wanted to grab a quick bite to eat, pack, and go to sleep because we needed to leave at 4 am to catch our flight back to Rome.  We went to a pub called “The Filling Station.”  There was a wait so we went to the bar to grab a beer where we met Clark, Shane, John, and Max who were all members of the US Army and they were travelling this weekend but are regularly stationed in Germany.  We chatted with them until our table was ready. We had dinner and went to grab one more beer on our way out.  The Army guys came and joined us for more drinks on their way out and invited us to their hostel where there was suppose to be live music.  We went back to our hostel and packed and then figured what the heck we are only here once lets go out.  I am sooooo glad we did we had an awesome time!!!!  After their hostel bar closed we headed to a place called Bumblebee.  There danced and continued drinking with the boys until we sadly had to say goodbye to catch our flight.  We left a little past 3 am which was later than we had intended.  We hurried back to the hostel and to the bus stop only to discover that we had missed the bus.  In the end we caught the next bus and everything ended up being ok.  Jess had another graceful move when she was sitting on her bag and the wheels rolled out and she fell on the ground.  It was really funny at the time because it didn’t bother her that bad due to alcohol working its magic but it actually ended up really bothering her.  Needless to say it was the epic weekend that we had hoped for!!!!