Scotland 2009 Part one

So the next couple of posts are going to be pretty long. I'm going to use the blog as a bit of a journal for my trip to Scotland/Ireland in August. Don't worry I'm putting pictures in too!

At the end of July I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Scotland and Ireland with my dad, brother Alex and sister Amy. We were scheduled to fly out of Calgary at 8:20 July 29th so we made sure that we were at the airport by 4 to check in etc. As we were waiting in line we found out that the flight was delayed by 17 hours something about a fan blade malfunctioning.

This is my sad fast picture that we had to wait until the 30th to fly out. Amy and I both took them.

Thsi is dad and I on the airplane finally! We flew out of Calgary on Air Transat/ Thomas Cook at about 3:30pm on the 30th. It was an okay flight. I sat with dad and Alex and Amy sat together. We all took turns with the window seat so we could take pictures. I read, listened to music and watched t.v. on the seatback t.v.'s. They were really cool they also had a feature that showed where we started from on a map and where we were going, you could see exactly where we were at the time and the altitude, temp outside etc.

This is a sign at the Glasgow Airport. We finally landed at 5:40am and sat on the Tarcmac for about 40 minutes waiting for a gate to be available. Apparently the airport wasn't ready for us since our flight had been due to arrive the previous day. We got through customs, got our luggage etc. and made it out and found Uncle James and Sarah who were there to pick us up. Sarah had to work so we hurried out. Sarah and Amy went in Sarah's car with most of the luggage while Dad, Alex and I went in James' Jag! We made it to James' flat and unpacked and showered. Sarah gave us orders that we were to meet her at her work for lunch. Auntie Trish came over to say hi and then we figured out where to go to catch the bus. We were lucky the bus by James' flat the 41 is extremely handy. It took us right to Sarah's work and right into town to Waverly bridge and pretty much anywhere we wanted to go. We made it to Sarah's work and went to the pub next door for a pub lunch. After lunch dad, Alex and Amy and I went for a walk to kill time for awhile. We saw a lot of neat things like Greyfriars Bobby statue, The elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book. We walked down the mound and along the park on Princes Street below the Castle. We did a little shopping and then headed back to the Flat. Beth, Sam, Tom and John came over for Fish supper. It was really greasy but yummy. The Fish and Chips come's wrapped in brown paper. I managed to stay up until 8 and then crashed. Amy and I shared a room, dad had Uncle James' room and Alex was in the living room.

This is a picture of a double decker bus and it's actually the 41 that we took a lot while we were there.

This is the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter

This is me at the bottom of the Mound with the Castle in the background

This is Cramond, the first night we were there James took Amy, dad and I down there before we had our Fish Supper to see what it looks like. It's the cutest little fishing village and it's not far from James's flat.

On the Saturday Sarah came over and we took a mini road trip out to see a couple of Castles. Sarah was going to borrow a friends car that was bigger than hers but wasn't able to. James had put dad on his insurance so he could drive the car if he needed to. Before we left James gave dad a crash course in driving his Jag and let him practice driving on the wrong side of the road. So dad drove the JAg and Sarah navigated. Our first stop was Doune Castle (above) Monty Python and the Holy Grail was partly filmed here.

This is me inside Doune castle. I took so many pictures. It was really neat to wander around and look at all the rooms. The stairways up to the top are crazy, they are so windy and not very wide. I'm a bit of a klutz so it was interesting.

After Doune Castle we went to The Wallace Monument. You park at the bottom and then you can either walk (hike) to the monument or ride a bus. We all walked up. The picture above is a shot of the monument as I was walking up.

This is me in front of Wallace Monument. We decided that we didn't want to climb to the top of it. There's something like 300 steps up to the top.

After the monument we drove around Stirling so Sarah could show us the University and some of the places that she had lived in when she was in Stirling. We also stopped at Tesco's and got sandwhiches for lunch and yummy Orange Fanta to drink (at least I did) After that we drove to Stirling Castle ( we actually ate lunch at the Castle) The picture above is of Stirling Castle. I think it was definitly one of my favourites. In a lot of the rooms in Stirling Castle they actually have little displays of statues and things to show what the Castle would have looked like many years ago.

The picture above is of me pretending to chop wood in Stirling Castle. Sarah knows where all the motion sensors are and what you can get away with touching so that made taking pictures all the more fun. Sarah was an awesome tour guide.