I was born 37 years ago somwhere near the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. I am mortal, and I am not alone. Now is the time of the Gathering, when a mother and her three children will embark on a journey to the Highlands of Scotland, hopefully avoiding the power of the Quickening. In the end, will there be only one?
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The End
Minor issue on the last day in Scotland. Lana got out of the shower and discovered a tick had made a home in her leg. It was full on panic. Luckily, she had a pair of tweezers in her kit and I was able to pull it out. But it was a struggle. I hope I got it all. Good thing we'll be going home tomorrow so she can get it checked at the doctor just to be sure. We figure the tick likely came from a bench she sat down on in the park.
Today was just a day of travelling from Glasgow to Aberdeen. Took about 4 hours from door to door.
We had a final dinner together in Scotland and a last drink at the pub next door.
I think if I were to come here again, I would definitely explore more of Aberdeen and Inverness. The cities were just fine, and a lot of fun, but I feel like the real parts of Scotland are in the highlands.
It's definitely a beautiful country that is rich in history. Gruesome history, sure. But also a proud one from what I gather.
A few things I've learned while here...
1. Tennents is the acceptable beer to drink in the pub. Not Guinness.
2. Scotland invented the world.
3. Ice hockey is derived from the Scottish sport, Shinty.
4. Older ladies love the lushious red locks on Lane's head.
5. Our family (The Florence's) are part of the Gordon Clan dating back to the days of Macbeth.
6. The Scottish have an extreme disdain for the English. More so after brexit.
7. Ticks are huge in Scotland.
8. Bonny Prince Charles is a pussy.
9. You can visit Nova Scotia in Edinburgh
10. Don't mess with the Scots. They're a violent angry bunch when they need to be. However, they have a far greater kindness than us Canadians.
We are going to be boarding out plane home in a few hours. It's going to be great to get home, but I will certainly reflect on this trip for the rest of my life. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to experience this country with my Mom, sister, and brother.
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Today was a pretty quiet day. I think we're all fairly tired. Lane is sick with a child, so he spent the day watching British gameshows and drinking tea. Mom, Lana, and I headed out for the afternoon to check out Pollock House and Park.
The park is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. They even had fields for Hairy Coos and Clydesdale Horses.
We visited Pollock House and had a bit of a history lesson on the house itself, as well as the families that loved there throughout the 1700s. In fact, there's a bit of Canadian heritage in the house too. When you first walk in, there's the Nova Scotia flag at the top of crown molding. (I couldn't get a photo).
As early as 1624, King James offered a number of land grants to his loyal landowners. These land grants were in what is now Nova Scotia. In order to receive the land, the receiver was to stand on his piece of land and declare allegiance to the King. Seeing as Nova Scotia was pretty far from England, the good ol' King decided, what the hell. We'll just declare Nova Scotia as our own, but we'll do it in Scotland at the Edinburgh Castle. I'm not sure how that works, but I guess when you're the King, you get to just make shit up.
We wandered the park for a while looking for an escape to the main road. We had to back track a little, but we made it! Pretty decent hike today and yesterday. I think we averaged 10 to 15 km a day.
Tonight we're just kicking back and waiting for Gogglebox to start. I might not make it. I think all the activities are catching up to me and I'm ready for bed. I don't think I'm alone either.
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Off to Glasgow today! This is sadly our last stop before going back home. We covered a lot of ground in Scotland. I'm excited to see the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow. I feel like there's a bit of a rivalry between the cities. Kind of like Cold Lake and Bonnyville maybe. But less redneck and more... Angry Scottish type rivalry.
The morning started out sooo great on the train. This pupper, Toby, entertained is the whole way. Such a good boy. His owners were playing fetch with him on the train. They had a second dog with them but I didn't catch his name. It was his first train ride, so he was in hiding.
We arrived in Glasgow, Queen Street and needed to decide how to get to our rental. Quite a debacle. We found the bus station we needed, however, the bus we had googled up wasn't doing that route any longer. So, we tossed around the idea of taking an Uber. Should we? Shouldn't we? There's 4 other bus routes at our current location that goes where we need it to. That seems easy enough. But, we could take an Uber. Should we call one from here? Maybe we should find a bakery. Oh, look, there's a bus we could jump on. And another. Nah, let's go up to the bakery and call an Uber. Ok. Let's go, yeah? Yeah. Lana says, "Should I call the Uber?" Holy fuck. Yes. Call the Uber. My shoulders are going to be gone from this bag. Ok, Uber called. Are we on the right side of the street? We should cross the street, yeah? I don't know. Sure. Let's move from the location we ordered the Uber from. Makes sense. And then we'll stand under the sign that reads, "no loading at any time". So, Uber called Lana. "You're at the wrong pavilion location." Oh good. Can we just take one of the 15 buses that have passed by? After a scramble for bus fare, and confirming with a nice lady at the stop, we made it onto the bus. Apparently Uber works really well in Vegas... I'm sure it does here too when you're not a tourist and know where you're going. We later found out that Lana gave Uber our end destination as our starting destination. Whoops... Oh well, the important thing is, we made it.
Ever walk into a place, not really expecting anything in particular, but then, like a ton of bricks, something hits you. Something overwhelming comes over you, and you just have this revelation about where you are. Not just physically, but mentally too. The revelation for me, being how lucky I am in life to experience everything I have. Good and bad, because it's all about perspective after all. I could go on and get really personal, but I'll spare you and keep those thoughts for myself. Because they are personal. :P
So what was the place to cause suck introspectiveness? The Cathedral in Glasgow. I'm not a religious person by any means, but this place felt... I don't know how to explain it, but if I were a 5 year old, I'd say, magical.
Moving on! For supper we hit up a Brazilian restaurant, Boteco. Lana had minnows. Legit. Deep fried minnows. They had eyes. EYES! There were other fried things like Calamari and shrimp. I went with a Caprese Salad and some shrimp slathered in garlic butter. Very good. We took the bus home and stopped for some wine and cheese. (Cheap wine, cheap cheese... The best kind especially if you're from rural Alberta)
I'd like to check out the pub downstairs from our apartment. It's called Titwood. There's also a place down the road called Lebowski's. I don't know if it's a pub, it a department store. I kinda hope it's a drone store that only sells bathrobes and Persian carpets though.
Tonight, we're looking for a TV program called, Gogglebox. It's a reality TV show about people watching reality TV. Yes, that's right. Not a typo. And it's hilarious. It's people's reactions to reality TV programs. For example, the one TV program they were watching was Naked Attraction. Basically, there's 2 females that are naked, and a man chooses his partner. The one episode we caught the other night had a woman named, Titsiana. Yup. You are likely reading that correctly. (Tit-see-ana). She won. Obviously. Huge Tits. Almost like it was meant to be for her. Haha!
Random thing I love here (outside of the whiskey), is chips. I fucking love chips to begin with, but here, they are amazing. I want to bring a case of them home.
So it looks like tonight is all about the Hot Toddies, chips, and Gogglebox. As our tour guide would say... Faaantastic!
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At the distillery. We were not allowed to take any photos of the inside of the distillery though. Bummer.
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It's a wee bit of a rough go this morning. I'm not sure what happened, but I spent most of the night awake with stomach pains. Might have been the mushroom burger, might have been just straight up Crohn's. I think I caught a couple hours of sleep anyhow. Likely kept my brother up too though.
So, another early morning on this God damn bus. Today we visit the highlands folk museum, the Dalwhinney Whiskey Distillery, and... The HAIRY COOS!
The Highlands folk museum reminded me a little of Fort Edmonton Park. Pretty neat to see how things used to be in the highlands. There was an old curling shack and pond in the pine forest where the Highlanders would play. There was also a Shinty Pitch. Shinty is pretty cool. When the Scots migrated to Canada, they took a lot of their heritage with them. Shinty was one of them that later evolved into ice hockey. Great story behind that.
We stopped at the Dalwhinney Whiskey Distillery next where we toured the distillery and had samples. Very interesting place. I was really trying to focus on the tour guide because it's whiskey, and I love whiskey. But in my state, I was ready to fall asleep standing up. So, I kind of missed a lot of the explanation on how they do their distilling. I do know that they are an old school shop. They use oak burbon barrels that have been burned out to store the whiskey for 15 years before bottling. Even the wash barrels are made of wood. They keep it simple, but consistent. And it proves great results in the sampling we had. I liked it anyhow. I'm hoping the duty free shop has a bottle I can bring home.
The last stop on our very long 3 day bus tour was to see the Hairy Coo! Cute things they are. And massive! We took a few photos, tried to encourage the Coo to come to the fence. He was quite content lounging in the grass, chewing on the grass.
I kept nodding off on the bus. My brother was super nice and caught a video of it. Really attractive too. Mouth gaping open, head bobbing, with my princess pillow around my neck. Thanks Lane. Much appreciated.
We got back to Edinburgh around 6:30 pm. And boy was I glad to get the hell off that bus. We found our way to the apartment to find one of the beds had no linens. Great. It did work out in the end though. The property owner came with the extra bedding for us. Whew. Even though I was feeling ok by the end if the day, Mom told me take the bedroom next to the bathroom... Just in case. I was grateful for the just in case because the other beds we downstairs. And...I had the best sleep since we arrived in Scotland. (Posting this a day late on account of I needed to pass out!)
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Early start to a long ass day. We're in a 12-13 hour tour today. Heading to the beautiful Isle of Skye.
Breakfast was great at the B&B! I heard the bus driver ask for some brown sauce with his breakfast. Gonna have to Google that later. No idea what that might be, but we think it might be the coffee here. It's pretty hit or miss. Sometimes it's really great, and other times it's shite.
Our tour guide/driver said he was up and down all night running a temperature, so I offered to take the wheel. We'll see how that plays out.
Gotta have a lot of patience to be a tour bus driver. Especially when you're on a timed schedule. Some people are just a piss off. Have some decency and be in time people. Yes, I may be calling the kettle black, Miss show-up-ten-minutes-late-for-meetings. But that's usually on my own dime, not everyone else's.
We toured up to the Isle of Skye today. The weather was fantastic! As expected, rain and wind were in the cards this morning. Just absolutely beautiful.
We stopped at a place called Sligachan where Sean told us a story of the river that flows through the village. The MacDonald clan and the McLeod clan were famous for not liking one another. So naturally, they decided they should marry a couple from each clan. The tallest, most handsome man from the MacDonald clan, and the most beautiful woman from the McLeod clan were chosen to marry. However, the beautiful woman, on her way to marry her handsome MacDonald man, fell flat on her face. She fell so badly that her eyeballs were hanging out of her eye sockets. So she wouldn't scare the groom, she put a veil over her face. Under the bridge of the river, lived a troll (naturally). He came up to find the distraught woman there. He asked what was wrong, so she showed him her face. Of course the troll was taken aback by her hideousness, but then told her to put her face in the river for 7 minutes, and the water off the river would make her the most beautiful woman in the world. So, she did so, and then ran away with the troll. The end. I guess the poor handsome MacDonald man was left to his own devices. Poor guy. Anyhow, it's said that the water from this river will make you beautiful. I didn't try it out though. Mind you, my feet got wet, so maybe I'll have the most beautiful feet in the world. That would be impossible though. Feet are nasty. All feet. Blech.
We took a bus tour around the peninsula, which was cool, but I think I'm done with smelling everyone's farts. My own included. Yeesh. To entertain ourselves when the scenery was covered by the fog and mist, we played a game that Lane and I used to when we were wee children. We used to count towers on the side of the road, and whoever had the most towers by the time we reached our destination, won the game. Instead of towers, we counted black sheep. I was winning, until we got off and back on the bus, and swapped sides. Lane is attempting to claim my win. Totally unfair. The score is 7-3 right now.
We stopped at a brewing company just before leaving Skye. The beer was... Terrible. I like beer, but this was just disgusting. But hey, it was free beer.
Our last stop was the ever anticipated Eilean Donan Castle. (AKA The Highlander Castle). Which, isn't very popular over here in regards to the TV show or movie. Weird. Maybe the Scots didn't like the show or something. We didn't get to go in though, we were only there to do a quick photo opportunity, which was just fine too. Pretty cool to see in person. I didn't see the Highlander himself, though, my brother claims he is the only one... I'll decide.
Alright. At 6:43 PM, I just want to get off this god dammed bus. I'm tired, my feet are wet, I'm hangry, and my brother keeps reading over my shoulder to see if I'm writing about him. Get over it. Oh good, now he's threatening to take me to the highest courts in Scotland for slander. And to punish me in the worst way possible. Yikes. Judging by what we have learned here over the past week, that could get messy. It was suggested, death by farts. "I fart in your general direction!"
Ha! The score is 7-7. And only 20 minutes to Inverness...
Tomorrow we head back down to the lowlands - Edinburgh for one night, and then off to Glasgow on Saturday. It's been a great sightseeing tour, but I'll be glad to get the hell off that bus.
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Harry Potter quidditch match from Prisoner of Azkaban filmed here at the bottom of the Three Sisters.
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Here's a photo of me at the Harry Potter train tracks that my brother took. Great photo.
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