Scotland

Unfortunately, the past few days we have not had Wifi access because we switched hotels in edinburgh and it's 6 pounds to use 1 hour of internet...in other words $12/hr. which no one obviously wanted to use! Right now I'm in a Burger King so that I could check emails and do a little more research for our school work since we're going to be on a 5 hour bus ride tomorrow and I'll want to get some writing done, so i need some sources. Anyways, this will be a little short because I have a bunch of stuff to get done before leaving BK. In the past few days, we've checked out the National Gallery of Scotland, the Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace along with having class, checking out some stores and going out to Dropkick Murphy's. On Sunday, Elizabeth and I also went to mass at St. Mary's Cathedral and didn't realize that we would be there for a mass not in our language. We aren't sure what it was but we are thinking either Polish or maybe Russian...not really sure but our proffesor informed us that there were a fairly large amount of Polish people around here so that's what we're leaning towards. It was an interesting venture. Everything in this city is so awesome. It's build amazingly and has a great history. I'm so happy we've had a few days here but am also very excited to leave tomorrow for London. (not to mention tomorrow's my birthday!) We'll be there for about 9ish days and hopefully I'll be able to keep this more updated because hopefully we'll have internet that's free!!! Sorry about this being so short...but keep checking out my photobucket album and all it's pictures!

Cheers,
Chelsea

So, we arrived in Edinburgh on Thursday and checked in at the Cairn hotel which is very close to the Royal Mile. After settling in, we headed towards the Royal Mile to check out what's around. We walked through the beautiful park on Princess St. and then went find a bar that our professor suggested. It's called the tron and it's specifically for college students. We picked up some dinner from a cool little place called walkabout...it kind of reminded me of a dave and busters but without so many games. We then took some showers and went back to the Tron! It was a lot of fun and we met a few people and got some interviews for our project. Yesterday we had class in the park and then went check out the shops on Princess St. and had some lunch. Then we took a shower, took a nap and went down to a tour called the city of the dead. It was a haunted graveyard/historical tour. It was pretty cool..but not as fun as it was made out to be. We then went out to a bar called the Three Sisters. It was really big and had a dance floor and we saw about 4 different bachellorette parties and a couple bachelor parties. They like dress up with some type of theme out here. It's pretty interesting and funny all at the same time. The people are quite shameless. We've decided that instead of celebrating my birthday we're going to throw me a bachellorette party and it's gonna be really funny! We figured it would mean free drinks...it could be fun. The bar closed around 1 and so we were back in the hotel by about 145 and we hung out in the lobby for about an hour and 15 minutes and then headed out for our 3 am hike up Authur's Seat to watch the sun rise and see the entirety of Edinbourgh. We were in for quite an adventure. As we were walking towards Calton Hill on our way to the mountain we were to singing Father Abraham and a random guy started singing with us. We started talking and told him we were going up to Arthur's seat and asked for better directions than we already had. Instead of just telling us...he decided to walk with us and be our tour guide up the mountain...it was THE hardest hike i've ever participated in, but soooo worth it. It was absolutely beautiful to see the city from that high and unfortunately we didn't get to see and AMAZING view of the sun rising because of the clouds but it was beautiful. Then we hiked back to the hotel by 6 and slept until noon. We showered, ate lunch, and waited for the group to take the bus to Rosslyn Chapel. It was very cool to see what we saw in the Da Vinci Code live. It wasn't very cool that there was some scaffolding around it but it was still pretty and cool to walk around. There was definately some great sculptures and stained glass. Now, we're just hanging out and most of the group is going out tonight but I'm taking a break to try and get rid of these allergy symptoms and do some homework and get some good sleep! Well, thanks again for coming read!

Our last night in Dublin was a quiet one but then early Monday morning we packed up our things, left the Kinlay House Dublin behind and flew RyanAir to Glasgow, Scotland. Once again we were in a city and EB, Jamie and I were EXHAUSTED. So that meant take a nap, eat a great Greek lunch and meet Dimeitri, a very nice Greek guy that gave us some hints about the city and told us about Greece. He also was our best interview yet for our PR project. After lunch, we settled in and went check out the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It was amazing. It was free, with plenty of paintings (a few of my favorites will be in pictures in my photobucket album). The building was also amazingly beautiful. After that we walked around and then ate a little and called it a super early night. There was no way our bodies would function much longer. The next morning we were up bright and early, had a nice breakfast and hopped on a long bus ride to Skye. We got to make a few picture stops along with visits to the Doune Castle (the one from Monty Python and the Holy Grail...we re-did the coconut scene), and the Eilean Donon Castle. They were amazing...and of course if you look at my pictures you'll notice that I'm "flipping through Europe" and taking random flipping pictures at certain stops. Our bus trip may have been long but totally worth it. We ate at two different seafood restaurants for lunch and dinner. I had mussels, scallops, and trout between the two and it was all great! We are in Skye now and staying right on the water. The internet access is sparce but I did manage to get it for this short period! sorry pictures are going to be delayed for a little bit probably but I'll get them up as soon as possible! Cheers!