I'm back in Galway, my hope of getting to Spain and Morocco now officially laid to rest, at least for the rest of this semester. But now I have an extra week and a half of time to travel around Ireland, and I'm definitely far from having seen everything there is to see here! I'm sorting out a few little day trips and maybe even an overnight trip or two, so my time will be well spent. I've been in Dublin with my parents as their flight was rescheduled for Wednesday, but it was cancelled, too. However they did get off the ground this morning, so they're finally on their way home.
Now... a much more interesting topic: Scotland! It was wet. It was windy. It was stunning! Granted, I suppose my impression was more specifically of Edinburgh than all of Scotland, but what a gorgeous city! Meg, Alan, Brad, and I got in early Sunday evening, and, it being Easter Sunday, we went to our hostel which was a little outside the city (but on a beach) and relaxed there for the evening since most things in Edinburgh were closed. Monday started out chilly and drizzling, but the rain stopped around 1:00, and that aside Edinburgh was much too exciting to be dampened by something as trivial as the weather. We strolled up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle and spent a good portion of the day there, then warmed our souls with a bit of scotch through a tour/tasting venue (sorry folks, but that's not the drink for me). Then we roamed the streets northwest of the castle for a while before attempting an "authentic" Mexican food restaurant (okay, come on, it's not like we eat Mexican much... ever... in Ireland, can you really blame us - Alan excluded since he's Irish - for wanting a little taste of home?). Not bad, but I've never in my life heard of a Mexican food place running out of rice... Then back to the hostel for Meg and me to work on school projects and such.
I'll let the pictures explain why I think Edinburgh is such a neat city:
Tuesday was rather less climatic. I spent the morning trying to get a video uploaded and sent out to run for office in OP. It was taking longer than expected so I told Meg and Alan to go on into town though Brad stuck around while I was trying to work. We were supposed to rendezvous with them for lunch then go to Rosslyn Chapel (sound familiar? It's near the end of the Divinci Code, though not why I wanted to go see it), but that failed miserably on all counts. Meg and Alan had left by the time we finished lunch because of a bit of a problem with the phones, so we caught a bus that was supposed to take us within walking distance of the chapel. The seven mile journey took about forty minutes with all of the stops the bus made, then we had a nice walk that by Irish, and apparently Scottish standards would be short, but, well, suffice it to say we got plenty of fresh air. However when we got there it was under construction until autumn, so we couldn't really see much of anything. Thus we headed back. Meg and Alan missed it altogether by accidentally taking the bus to the end of its route. Hey, at least we can say we tried!
But we redeemed ourselves valiantly (if I may say so myself) with a heroic effort to make the most of our morning on Wednesday before leaving. We awoke early and persuaded the shuttle driver to drop us off on the way to town at the Royal Botanic Garden which he passes en route. Although quite bitter he grudgingly conceded and Meg, Alan, and I spent a glorious hour losing ourselves in those blossoming acres (Brad was nowhere to be found when we left though he'd been woken up earlier). We toured the extensive greenhouses and Meg flirted with the flowers (as Alan says, she's not species specific). It also happened to be the first time the sun came out during our sojourn in Scotland which was rather well timed. We then enjoyed a cheerful cup of tea once we got our luggage before catching the bus to the airport (Brad still MIA, though he found us in the terminal).
