A Summer Road Trip- Scotland in Pictures

This summer, I went on an amazing road trip through England and Scotland with my family. I could sit here, four months later with the snow falling outside my window, and write pages upon pages about how beautiful it was: but a picture is worth a thousand words, so why tell you when I could show you?

The first night of our trip was spent in Belgium. We had an amazing campground right by the beach, so of course my sister and I took about a million photos by the water- this one is probably my favorite.

After three days of driving, we finally made it to Scotland!

Our first stop was the capital, Edinburgh.

Edinburgh as seen from The Mound. 

Of course my sister and I went into Camera Obscura and took a bunch of silly pictures...

…but there's no denying that the view from the top is one of Edinburgh's best.

The Grassmarket is also always worth a visit- two streets stacked on top of eachother isn't something you see every day.

Our next stop was Aberlour, in the Highlands.

It's not a trip to Scotland if you don't hit up a Whiskey distillary- or five. This was the Cardhu Distillary in Aberlour.

We also took a tour of the Glen Moray Distillary, where we learend a lot about the process of Whiskey-making. 

Some of the casks where whiskey is stored to mature over several years. Two had plastic bottoms so we could see the difference that a different type of cask makes- the whiskeys are completely different colors.

Wow, something not whiskey-related! We took a day trip to the town of Pennan, where the movie "Local Hero" was filmed. 

Loch Ness is a must for a proper Scotland road trip, so next, we spent three days in Inverness.

After Inverness we stayed in a town called Fort Williams, in the west of Scotland. From there we took a day trip to the Isle of Skye. 

Kilt Rock on the Isle of Skye, a waterfall that empties right into the sea.

One of my personal highlights from the stay in Fort Williams was taking a ride on the Jacobite Train (aka the Hogwarts Express)... 

And crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

On our last day in Scotland, we visited Oban. We wanted to tour the Whiskey distillary, but they were all booked out for that day, so we just walked around and explored the city.

We ended our Road Trip with three days in London, a city that’s been on my travel bucket list for as long as I can remember. Even though we couldn’t go to the Warner Bros Studios  (which I had been looking forward to), I still had an amazing time- and there’s always next time, right?

We did all the typical tourist-y things, like visit Tower Bridge... 

...see Big Ben...

…and take a ride on the London Eye!

There's just something about the black cabs.

A guard in front of Buckingham Palace.

I mean, obviously I had to visit go to King's Cross as well.

Hyde Park. It actually started raining about two minutes after this picture was taken. 

I truly had a great time exploring the UK with my family. Of course, not everything went smoothly- we got lost a few times,  had to change plans because of stormy weather and don't even get me started on the long discussions about what movies to watch in the camper- but aren't those the small imperfections that make a road trip perfect? 

A Week in Scotland (Pt.2)

This is part two of my Scotland trip- if you haven't already, you should probably go back one post and read part one first, or else you might be a bit confused!

The rest of my week in Edinburgh was a bit more routined than the first few days: every morning, I got on the 49 bus from Portobello to Leith to get to my classes, which were from 9am-12pm. Afterwards, we all had lunch together in the common room before heading out for whichever adventure was planned for that day.

Monday afternoon, we visited the National Museum of Scotland. We got into little groups and had a list of things to find in the museum, and got creative photographing them. The results were hilarious, and I'm gutted that I don't have the photos- maybe I'll put them up in a separate post another time, if I can manage to get my hands on them!

Nevertheless, photos or not the museum was absolutely beautiful. There was a huge, open main hall going up three or four stories, and loads of smaller rooms and corridors surrounded it. The museum had a bunch of different wings each surrounding a different topic, so there is definitely something interesting for everyone. 

After the museum, we had a bit of extra time left, so two of my friends and I made a quick stop by Primark. I'd never been before, (even though we have it in Germany too, as I later learned) but had heard a lot of good things, and since even my host mother recommended it to us, we decided to go take a look. 

That look turned into nearly an hour of going through racks and trying on clothes, and all three of us left the store with big bags, yet not too badly damaged wallets. I have yet to see just how good the quality of the clothes are, since I haven't had them for too long, but so far, they've made a pretty decent impression on me.

Tuesday was National Art Gallery day. I have to admit, I went into this afternoon with relatively low expectations, seeing as I’ve never really been much of an “Art Person” and assumed I would just be bored for two hours, but on the contrary, I really enjoyed it. It felt so peaceful to walk through big, colorful rooms with high ceilings, and there were sofas and squishy chairs everywhere to sit down in. We had to find various pieces of art, and write down what room they were in or complete drawings of them. I’m absolutely terrible at drawing, so I let my much more talented friend take over that job and instead resigned myself to asking the employees for help when we needed it: a necessity at times, seeing as some of the things we were supposed to be looking for turned out to not actually be in the gallery anymore. 

Seeing as we didn’t have anything planned for Wednesday afternoon, two of my best friends and I decided to pay a visit to a place called Camera Obscura. It was six stories of dark mirror mazes, spinning tunnels, dented, twisted or wavy mirrors, and a bunch more cool optical illusions. We had a bunch of fun messing around with everything and trying everything out, and when we got to the very top, we were greeted by an amazing view of Edinburgh and the sun peeking out between the clouds. 

My last two nights were by far the best of my trip. Wednesday, I got to do a Ghost Tour, which was so fun. It wasn’t at all scary, like I was expecting, but incredibly entertaining and funny. We walked around Edinburgh for an hour any a half and learned about the pest, medieval laws and punishments and notable criminals, all accompanied by costumes and dramatic acting, and yet again my stomach hurt from laughing when the night was over.

After spending my thursday afternoon packing my bags to fly back home the next day, I went to a Ceilidh the english school organized for us. There was a man with some bagpipes, who taught all of us a bunch of traditional scottish dances, and we had to attempt to do them with each other. Seeing as there were 26 guys and only 14 girls, there were a lot of boys dancing the girl parts-some a lot more enthusiastically than others. It was a night that I wish I could relive over and over and that I’m sure I’ll remember for a long time. 

The entire trip was an incredible experience, and I  thoroughly enjoyed ever minute of it. I completely fell in love with Edinburgh and can’t wait to got back this summer!

A Week in Scotland (Pt.1)

About a month ago, I had the chance to travel to Edinburgh for a week, along with 39 other 10th-graders and two teachers from my school.  

Is there anything more tourist-y than taking a picture of red telephone boxes?

I consider myself pretty well-travelled, especially for my age, and have been on more trans-atlantic flights than I can count, but this was my first time both in the UK and flying on my own. Even though I had to get up at two in the morning on the day of departure (we were flying from Cologne, which is about four hours away from where I live in Germany), I was up until 11pm the night before, checking and double-checking that I had my passport, my chargers for my phone and camera and everything else I might need for a week away from home in a place I’d never been. As a result, I was insanely tired when my alarm sounded just three short hours after I’d gone to bed and I ended up spending most of the bus ride to the airport in the early hours of the morning asleep. My nerves weren’t calmed until after we’d passed through security, where any feelings of anxiety vanished and were replaced by nothing but excitement. 

The 1.5 hour flight went by quickly, and before I knew it, we were at Edinburgh International Airport. Customs were no problem, I found my luggage and I was able to exchange my Euros for Pounds easily, thus eliminating three more of my worries, and by the time I was in the bus headed for the school we’d be taking classes at, I felt like life was perfect. The rest of the day consisted of introductions, short placement tests and then going home to our host families. Being a native speaker of English, I was a bit worried about the reactions of the Scottish to 1) my american accent and 2) the fact that the goal of the trip was to learn to speak english more fluently, which I obviously already could . As it turned out, I needn’t have worried, because everyone was incredibly friendly, and I learned that the main focus of our classes wouldn’t be grammar or spelling, but rather topics like scottish myths and legends, communication and social networking and music throughout the ages. 

The "birthplace" of Harry Potter

My first two full days in Scotland were filled with a rally around Edinburgh, a trip to Edinburgh Castle and an all-day excursion to St. Andrews, a lovely seaside town with a large university where Prince William and Kate met. Being the Harry Potter nerd that I am, I particularly enjoyed seeing the Elephant House in Edinburgh (a.k.a. the cafe J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter in), along with all the old buildings and the view from the castle. 

Edinburgh Caslte…

…and the view from the top!

Because our host family lived in Portobello, which is right by the sea, my friend and I made several stops by the beach in the evenings. Seeing as southern Germany is very far from any beaches, I hadn't really been to many since my move from Michigan nearly four years ago, so I was (naturally) very excited to feel wind in my hair and the sand under my feet again. 

St. Andrews was beautiful as well. We saw the Ruins of an old castle, the Uni and an old graveyard, and then had some free time to walk around the charming main street and along the beach.

The castle Ruins in St. Andrews

I had so many adventures that I couldn't possibly fit them all into one blog post without it becoming insanely long, so this will only be part one of my trip: part two will be up as soon as possible!