Scotland

After completing my first week of "take," I was out of the hospital by 9am Friday with no weekend commitments. In a moment of spontaneity, I grabbed a few things, hopped in the car, and started following signs pointing to "The North." Before long, I had crossed over Hadrian's Wall and was on my way to Glasgow. This marked the first destination point on my journey through Europe that I would be returning to (aside from London), having visited Scotland extensively in middle school. The funny thing is that I really didn't remember very much from my previous trip, even though it wasn't that long ago (Yes I AM in denial about my age). After checking in to a student dormatory (one of the last available rooms in the city) I explored around the city and formulated a plan for the rest of the weekend.

I got up early Saturday and drove up to the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond, where I had breakfast and hiked around a little. Being in the foothills surrounding some of Scotland's lakes started making me feel a little homesick, since it closely resembled many of my favorite hikes in the Little Belts (yes I'm still eating my heart out about missing the ranch this year). For comic relief, I stopped at the Rob Roy visitor center for some of the most priceless amateur acting around. I'm serious, this was even better than the Ben Franklin Museum in Philly. I felt like I was watching a waterbed commercial or something. Anyway, I pressed on to Stirling where the castle and William Wallace monument could be seen towering above the trees. After touching up on a quick history lesson at the Wallace monument, I went down to the site of the Battle of Sterling Bridge and cued up my iPod to listen to the words of Scotland's Patron Saint (Mel Gibson): "Sons of Scotland! I am William Wallace...And I see a whole army of my country men, here, in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?....Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live... at least for a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, JUST ONE CHANCE, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!" To round out my tour of Stirling, I went to the statue of Robert the Bruce and sight of the Battle of Bannockburn where Scotland ultimately achieved her independence.

By the time I got to Edinburgh that evening, there were no rooms left in the entire city. For the first time I had to pay the price for the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach to traveling. Fortunately, it was a small price to pay. Just an extra 10 pounds and on hour and a half of driving around aimlessly in a city that would have made a great location for a U2 concert. (Technically the streets DO have names, they just aren't written down on any signs anywhere). The Bed and Breakfast turned out to be 2 blocks from a beach (I went to a public high school so I haven't quite figured out the geography of how that one works out yet). I got to bed early and arrived the next morning at the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland for a quick tour before heading back to Oxford.