A wee little weekend trip to Scotland

This past weekend was filled with lots of plaid, haggis, and a monster too which means one thing...I went to Scotland!
I met with my study abroad group at King's Cross train station Friday morning where we departed for Edinburgh. It was so pretty seeing the country side of England from the train. After a four hour ride we arrived in the city of Edinburgh. We made sure everyone knew we were tourists as we met our crazy tour guide dressed in a kilt where he directed us to our hostel. I was a little anxious to see what the hostel was like as I knew this was going to be my first of many hostel experiences. The hostel ended up being really quite nice and clean so no complaints there!
After we dropped off our things our tour guide took us for a walking tour around Edinburgh. The town was absolutely beautiful. The architecture of all the buildings and the castle perched up on the hill made you feel like you were in a post card. After our walking tour  my friends and I made our way to the cemetery in Edinburgh. Yes this might seem like an odd stop but the cemetery was actually where J.K. Rowling got inspiration for many of her character's names in Harry Potter. We were on a mission to find Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort) as I remember reading that he was buried in this cemetery. It took awhile to find the grave but we did it..along with other American tourists.

The Harry Potter fun continued as we then went to the Elephant House cafe where J.K. Rowling is known to have written much of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and other Harry Potter books. Being the crazy fan that I am it was such a cool experience walking inside and seeing pictures of her writing in the very cafe that I was in.

Afterwards we went to the local pub called the Last Drop which is appropriately named as it is located right next to the place where people were hung in the city. Now while in Scotland you must do as the Scottish do and that means one thing...eat Haggis. My grandpa warned me that it was going to be quite disgusting but I had to try it anyways. I was told at the restaurant that its "lamb oatmeal"(which I now know is a nice way to put what I was really eating). But I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed it so much that I even ordered it for dinner again the next day.

The next day we were up bright and early for our 2 day trip through the Highlands. We made our way by first stopping at Sterling Castle. Our tour guide said it's the most important castle in Scottish history but then again he seemed to think everything done in Scotland was the most important whatever. I'll definitely say though that the castle was gorgeous and had beautiful views of the town.

Afterwards we were off into the mountains. We spent a majority of the time on the bus just driving through but I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was. The moment was slightly cheesie as our tour guide played Scottish music the entire ride but it felt like I was in a movie listening to the classic tunes while driving on the tiny narrow roads.

We stopped in the town of Loch Nes for the night. It was such a quaint and cute little town. And while I went to bed in Loch Nes I woke up in Narnia. This picture is the view from my hostel window that morning (not too bad huh?).

As I didn't think the Highlands could look any more beautiful the snow was the chery on top! We spent the rest of the day making our way back to Edinburugh. The group and I made a few stops on the way as we visited a battle field, a national park and I even got to see some hairy coos (hairy cows as we would say).

I had such a fantastic weekend that I can't wait to do more traveling and expereince so many different cultures while I'm abroad!