The Highlands and my last day in Scotland

On my final day in Scotland, Tash, Matt, Liz, and I took a bus tour of the highlands.  We saw some highland cattle and lots of gorgeous mountains and mirror reflective lochs.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  Plus, while Ireland is astoundingly green, Scotland is in the midst of autumn and everything was beautiful shades of gold and clay.  It reminded me somewhat of Virginia, but obviously these mountain were significantly larger.

Natasha, me, and Liz, in front of Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain.

Standing in front of two of the three sister mountains

We also saw the "French" castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and lots of highland cattle.

This little guy's name is Hamish

At the gift shop we stopped at for lunch, I went to the whisky shop counter to make my purchases and there were samples of whisky (that's how they spell it in Scotland), so I had my first taste of whisky.  These were of course in tiny quarter-shot plastic cups, filled only a few centimeters. The first was okay, the second was gross.

Then we went to Urquhart Castle and sailed on Loch Ness.  I never realized the loch was so incredibly deep.  The guide told us one research team found a colony of arctic fish in there.  We didn't see Nessie, but it was still a beautiful boat ride.

Urquhart Castle

On Loch Ness

The back view from our ferry

The goofy statue of Nessie

Loch Ness

We left at 7:20 to make the 8:15 tour (we got there way too early, arriving at 7:25), and the tour didn't get back to Edinburgh until 8:15 at night.  So it was a really long day.  I slept a lot on the bus in the morning, I couldn't keep my eyes open, but by night I was fine.

Later, as it was my last night in Scotland, Tash invited me out to a club again and I'd had so much fun Thursday night I couldn't say no even though I had to get up at 5 for my flight Sunday morning.  We had so much fun, and again, plaid explosion! So I don't in any way regret the decision to go out, but I got back and by the time I'd showered it was 3:10.  With less than 2 hours of sleep, I made it to the airport, on the plane, and somehow stayed awake until 2 this afternoon until I took a three-hour nap.  I'm still really sleepy though, so if anything in these three posts doesn't make sense, I blame that.  Now I will add pictures very soon, but hopefully this account will tide you over. (Added.)  I had an incredibly fun time.  Scotland was amazing!!!

Stereotypes!

And now I have to crash.