1-April-2006

Wow, what a day in Scotland. I think this is the first April Fool’s Day in a long time that I haven’t been apart of or even heard one April Fool’s Joke. Strange. We decided to do a bit of sight seeing today and we happened to come on the weekend of a Scottish holiday. This meant that all of the historic touristy traps were free!! We started off this morning by heading north to the only lake in Scotland, (I can’t think of the name right now, but I’ll get back to you). It’s the only lake in Scotland because all of the other bodies of water are called Lochs. There was a church built on an island in the middle of the lake around the 11th century. There are a few walls and some ruins left on this relatively small island, but it made for some fun exploring. As we were climbing all over grassy knolls, rocks, and roots, I felt like we were in Houghton on the tech trails. Good feelings.

After that we headed to the famous Edinbrough castle. That area of Scotland is more touristy than Glasgow is. There were a few Scots playing the bagpipes in their kilts and lots of souvenir type shops. The castle was pretty amazing. It has also been standing since at least the 11th century. Also, Edinbrough has some fantastic geographical features in its town. There is a huge rock close to the parliament building and by huge rock I mean small mountain. There were people climbing it and it looked like a really good time. From the top of the castle there were some incredible sights. The Carlton Hill (I think that’s the name) was located on an opposite cliff and looked like a very cool place. Jim said that there was a museum and a few other ruins up there. Jim and Gillian made perfect tour guides.

Jim grew up in Edinbrough so on the way home we had to relive his childhood. He took us to a very old bomb shelter type thing. Even he doesn’t know when it was built or the real reason for its construction, but it was amazing nonetheless. Apparently he has been inside of it, but we didn’t get to do that today. There are a few floors for bunks and it’s pretty much built into the ground and some of it is underground. Kind of fun and exciting.

For the remainder of the evening we acted like big bums. We watched some “Friends” and a movie called Crash – good movie, highly recommended. Tomorrow we are going to do a bit of touring around Glasgow before our 3pm flight. That will begin the long trek back to Torino. Scotland has been absolutely amazing thus far. I wonder what it would take to do some studying up here…