Scotland and Ireland

Well, I am sitting here at my hostel in Florence, taking a little break, and catching up on some blogs. I am now in week 2 of the 5-week spring break. I will hopefully be able to catch everyone up with some quick blogs.

So the trip to Scotland was organized by the school, so there were about 40 kids (mostly from Leicester.) This was okay, because I got to stay in the hostel with people I knew, but I much prefer smaller group traveling than the big groups. We got into Edinburgh and had a little walking tour, seeing some interesting things including author's houses, and heard a story about the man who Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was based on. There was a huge castle in Edinburgh that we unfortunately did not get to visit because we arrived too late. We went to the White Elephant, where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter books.
That night, cara and I actually ate haggis!! I was expecting something horrible... but it actually wasn't too bad, kind of like meatloaf.
The next day, we drove up through the highlands (wow.. beautiful) and I learned a lot about the history of the Scottish Highlanders. I also saw the train line that is the Hogwarts express train from the movies. We made it to Loch Ness, and I jumped in... but sadly the monster didn't come get me.. and I didn't even see it. that was sad, but i'm glad i got to jump in loch ness. (even though the water was freezing.. about 40 degrees fahrenheit! yikes!)
We stayed in Inverness which was okay.. and then the next day we drove back down, stopping at Urqhuart castle, which was mostly ruined, but a couple walls were still up. I also learned about how historically inaccurate Braveheart was... thanks a lot mel gibson...
One of the best things, we drove by and saw the castle that is every castle (except the one at the end of the film, on the island) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The next weekend, cara and i got up super early to leave for Dublin. Most of our time in Dublin was wandering around looking at things. There is a weird monument (just a really tall single spire) right in the center of O'Connell street(a very main street). We went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. That was really sweet.. I dont remember when it was done, but it was very very ornate and colorful. There was also a really cool exhibit talking about how it was made.
There was a really cool Viking museum that talked about the Viking inhabitation of Dublin, and I learned a lot about Viking culture and that was pretty neat. I also saw a Viking longboat that was made exactly like one they dug up in Denmark, and then they actually sailed this boat over to Dublin. It was really cool.
The Guinness Store house was awesome, a huge museum where you could see much of the history of Guinness and its brewing. There is also a cool observatory at the top where there is a great view of the whole city, and they gave you a free pint of Guinness, and wow was that fresh Guinness delicious!!
oh yeah.. also there was an Archaeological museum, and we saw some bodies that had been mummified in bogs.. that was pretty sweet.

That was about it for Ireland and Scotland.. i'm sure i forgot some stuff.. just ask me about it later!