Scotland

Firstly, I'd like to apologize to all the people who have been waiting for this post the whole week (I know there are some) - I had to play the guitar for the residents at work this week so I had to practice this week. But now I'm gonna tell everybody a bit about my trip to Scotland.

My trip started off on Wednesday morning and I flew from Bristol to Inverness. My mp3 player didn't play after I had gone through the security- I guess the x-rays had some effect on it. But yeah, I flew to Scotland in silence.
When we got below the clouds I started to look out the window to see if I can recognize Loch Ness from the above as it is located very close to Inverness. And, surprise, surprise. We flew over it. It seemed big from the plane.
But when I got to the airport, I managed to get the bus to Inverness in 5mins so I was at the city central pretty early. I decided to get my ticket for the Loch Ness tour and then went and got some postcards and wondered around in the town. It was a small town- everything was in the easy-walking distance. The sun was shining, it was a warm day. I went to the rives Ness that flows through the town, saw the Inverness castle. Just wandered around. Then I went to the bus station to start my tour to Loch Ness. There were about 10 people altogether going on the tour and then off we went. The guide wasn't as funny as the one I had in Ireland but I found out some interesting things. Jimmy Page used to have a house next to Loch Ness for 10 years.
Then we got to Loch Ness and got on the boat which took us to the Urquhart castle. It was a lovely drive- the mountains surrounding the big lake, some wind, sun starting to set soon. I could sense a little bit of magic in the air as this was still supposed to be the home of Nessie. Unfortunately I didn't see any monsters in the water. There were some statues out of the water but nothing in the water. Loch Ness is the biggest water reservoir in the UK and it gives more water to people than all other reservoirs put together. Loch Ness is by the way more than 200m deep.
During the boat trip I started to talk to one Indian guy who was visiting his sister in England and was on a short trip to Scotland. We talked the whole afternoon and in the evening as well. The guy was 24 yrs old and didn't look like a typical Indian. He reminded me more of Spanish or Greek men. He looked cute. And he spoke really good English and we had lots of things to talk about. It's a bit sad, he's living in India.... Anyway, by the time we got to the castle ruins, the sun had already started to go behind the mountain tops. It was a lovely sunset, we walked around in the remains of the castle and spoke and took pictures. I really loved that day because I was in a lovely nature and got to travel. The nature in Scotland is a bit similar to the one in Estonia- I really miss the fur trees which we don't have in the Southern England but Scotland had it all. The autumn looked like the Estonian autumn- t was lovely. And I was on the same latitude as Estonia.
In the evening me and this Indian guy went to a pub and he wanted to buy me a drink. Such a gentlemen. So we talked and talked and it was a lovely evening. Then he had to catch the train to Glasgow and I sent him to the station. After that I returned to the pub where I had another pint and wrote all the postcards and posted them before I took my train to Aberdeen.
Oh, one thing I found out about India that I find really interesting and odd- they have all the people divided into different classes based on people's middle names that come from the ancient times. So they have the upper classes, middle class, lower class and "untouchable" people. The last ones are so bad classification that when you even talk to them you have to wash yourself in the sacred river. The people aren't allowed to marry anyone in the lower class then themselves. The girls who marry to a person in the lower or upper class, will automatically become the members of the class they are marrying into. But the classes are just names- the highest class can be cleaners and the lowest class members can be doctors. So it has nothing to do with the occupation. I've never heard of anything like that.

But yeah, Aberdeen.I got there pretty late, but Sirle came to the train station. It was nice to see an Estonian after such a long time. And speak to someone in Estonian face to face. We went straight to Sirle's apartement and talked there for a little bit and then went to sleep. Sirle had a test at school in the morning so I got to sleep late. It was nice. When she got back from the school we had some breakfast and then went to the city. Aberdeen is really grey. It's all made out of granite and it has no colour in it whatsoever. But the buildings looked nice- like most of the architecture in the UK. The schoolhouse was lovely- it was a really old house. Typical british building. Then we also went to the library which had been opened some months ago. It was a building made out of glass and really modern. I liked it. Will put some picturs here as well.
We walked around in the city, went to botanic garden, walked by the river, saw the biggest building in Europe that's made out of granite, saw the statue that prince Charles had opened in October. It was a bit damp and rainy weather so we decided to go and grab a meal from Subway and then headed back to Sirle's apartement. By that time her roommate Kirsti, had also gotten back home. I didn't see her in the morning- I was asleep when she went to school. Kirsti, by the way, went to NRG also. We all talked for a while about lots of things, were a bit nostalgic over NRG and then saw also another former NRG student who graduated in the spring. Didn't know her before. There are by the way, 4 people from NRG in Aberdeen right now.
In the evening we went out and tried a cider called Brothers, which had different flavours- toffee, strawberry and lemon. It's the first cider so far in the UK that I have actually liked. After some while we went back to the apartement and to sleep as I had to catch a train early to go Dundee.

In Dundee, Teele was already waiting for me in the train station. We went straight to her place with a taxi because she had a lecture in the school she had to attend and then I just watched a movie at her place and stayed in the internet. When she got back I made pancakes while she finished one of her studies. Then we got a bit into a state and tried to watch Grey's Anatomy. It was interesting- I didn't manage to follow it all the time but never mind. I'm always slow on thinking. After the movie we went to a pub and tried to watch Estonian football game with Ireland but it wasn't in TV at the pub we went to, so checked the core through phone. Teele's friend also joined us and we walked around in the city and Teele showed us her dreamboat- the "Unicorn" and the city at night. Then we eventually ended up in a pub with live music. One more of Teele's friends joined us and it was a fun night. After the pub we all went back to her apartement and continued the party over there with T's roommates.
The following day we went up to the highest hill (to me it was a mountain) in the middle of Dundee. It was a clear day with sunshine and it was lovely up there. I had a half-an-hour hangover which, I deeply suspect, actually came from the Mcdonalds' food I ate in the morning (yeah, I know now for sure- it's not the thing for me and I don't like it). But it was a lovely day out and it was a brilliant view from the top of that hill. Dundee is twice the size of Tartu and has 150 000 inhabitants, so it's a pretty small city. But I quite liked it. The whole day the friend of T was hanging around with us and we all went to a university-leisure house where we had a pint. After that we went to T's place to get ready to go out. T works in a club where she takes photographs of the drunken people and then puts them into keyrings and sells them. So she got me and her two friends a free pass to the club and we went there, got couple of shots. A friend of T (I'm not gonna tell the names here, he's the one who was with us the whole two days), told he'll never get drunk and he will never go on the dancefloor. Well, I managed to get him into the state where he was dancing the whole night and was drunk as well. But I didn't get drunk although I had couple of really good and strong shots. Nevermind. After the club finished, T had to stay in the club for some more time and me and T's friend went to his place to wait for T. From there we headed to T's place where we just spoke and "stared" at the ceiling (or I watched T's friend staring at the ceiling and just laughing and acting odd....).  When T's friend left at about 5am we went to sleep and in 3hrs time I got up, had a shower and then we went  for a breakfast in the town and saw the Remembrance day parade a bit and then I catched a train to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is lovely. The moment I stepped out of the rail station, my mouth fell wide open. Everywhere you looked- stunning buildings. Just amazing! I met Maarja and Karl and then we headed back to their place where we just put my bag. On the way to there we walked past a cafe where J.K. Rowling had written "Harry Potter". We grabbed a coffe from there. I can say- it was a lovely creamy cappucino that I had. After we had dropped off my bag, we went  to see the city. It was nice, sunny day, and we went up the the Edinburgh castle, walked the Royal Mile, climbed up to the Arthur's Seat. Edinburgh is located on top of 7 hills. Lots of places with lovely views.We walked around a lot on that day and in the evening just stayed in and drank some wine because Maarja wasn't feeling that good. We talked a lot about my work, Maarja's work, Karl's band and their life in Scotland. It was a lovely evening.
The following day we went to see some more Edinburgh. Walked on the Princes Street and the Grassmarket. We also wanted to go to Colton hill but Maarja wasn't feeling that good and Karl had to go to some meeting, so I went up there by myself.  It was a bit rainy, so I didn't stay there for long. I got back to the central and started to look for a place to eat haggis. I walked a lot on that day between the tourism information, Royal Mile, Princes street. The pubs were too expensive so I wanted to buy some haggis from the shop but one shop in the central had only veggie haggis. I got really annoyed by the end of the evening. I must have walked about 7-8 miles on that day. I felt like a local already.
When I got back to their apartement, me and Karl ate some haggis because Maarja was at work and she didn't like lamb (by the way- haggis is a bery disgusting sounding traditional Scottish dish, made out of the leftovers of the stuff in the sheep's stomach, but it tasted actually pretty good. You just shouldn't think what youre eating, otherwize you're not able to eat it). Yeah, haggis was a lot better than I expected it to be.
After eating we went out to a pub in the Grassmarket which had live music. The man who was playing, was really good. His fingers moved on the guitar neck with incredible speed. Karl was really admiring his playing. At one point, when the artist had a break, the guys in the pub started singing some song and most of the pub joined in. It was some song in Dutch, as I heard later from the bartender, but he didn't know why those guys sang the song. I've never seen anything like this in a pub, so it was very very cool :) We were just staring with Karl, really surprised. But it was an enjoyable evening. Maarja didn't join us so we went back to their apartement, soon. And then went to sleep. I had to go to the airport really early in the morning so I left in the darkness.
As I had slept really little, I slept throughout most of the flight and my friend, Pam, picked me up at the airport and took me home where I just slept and behave really lazy.

About Scotland overall- it was a great week and I really enjoyed it. It was warmer than I expected it to be, because everybody told me it's gonna be colder than in south. But it was actually the same or even warmer. Less rain, for sure. I had taken all my winter clothers with me, which I actually didn't need much. Heh.
I expected Scotland to be a bit more stunning but it didn't impress me as much as I had expected. It was beautiful, you can't deny that, but to me, Ireland is more amazing.
But. I love Scotland as well. I have a MacDonalds' clan tartan pattern scarf now, too.
Scotland's definetely a place to see, I recommmend it to everybody. I just wasn't that impressed, because it was in some ways like Estonia which I'm used to. But, Estonia has lovely nature, so defientely worth seeing.