isle of skye obsessed.

So this weekend, I went on a trip to the Isle of Skye with the ISC.

and fell in love with everything about it.

maybe it was all the sunshine, but there's definitely something special about that island.

I guess we should start at the very beginning so you can get the whole story/adventure weekend. We left in two coaches [that's a charter bus] at 6:30. There were 100 or so of us going and each bus had their own tour guide from Haggis Adventures. The whole weekend was spent traveling and such with our one bus gang, so we never saw the other 50 people again. Haha. Our guide was Scot. Please tell me someone else catches the hilarity of that. He was only a couple years older than me and quite a hoot. It was also his first guided tour, which I honestly didn't even think about really until he mentioned it at the very end of the trip. He wore a kilt and played the accordion, but more on that later. The journey was apparently supposed to be 4 hours. But we were in a large bus, so that obviously was false. A good 3 hours of the trip consisted of horrifically windy roads. And it was dark the whole way there so we couldn't enjoy the scenery, but that wasn't a big deal as we'd get to see the good stuff over the next two days. Elizabeth, Maddie, and I sat in the very back of the bus, thus I imagine the twists and turns were a bit worse. I think everyone was kinda feeling not so great by the time we made it to this town called Fort William, where we took a mandatory 45 min stop for the bus driver. Scot apparently worked at some pub/club place there so we all got to go there and hang out for that time. Then it was back on the bus for like another hour or so until we finally made it to Kyleakin, the tiny village where our hostel was. By that time it was around 1am so we pretty much just got off the bus and got to our room and fell asleep. The hostel seemed like it was an old home converted to hostel because there were a bunch of rooms and ours was on the top floor, with just the 3 of us friends in it. There were I think 2 caravans in the backyard where bigger groups of people stayed. But all the rooms inside the hostel were 2-5? people in each.

We had to be ready to go by 10:30 the next morning [again mandatory ~9 hours of sleep for the bus driver...must be a UK thing? or a tour thing?] so we got a fairly good night's rest. The beds were quite comfortable and the pillows were soo much nicer than the one I have in my dorm room. How can hostels have better beds and pillows than a university? Breakfast was heavy on the carbs: we were allowed to have 2 pieces of toast, 1 scone, and a bowl of cereal along with whatever juice/milk/water to drink. The scone was really tasty and they had peanut butter so I had that on my toast! Once we were all gathered up on the bus, we were off. Actually we first took a short walk to the pier to hear a wee story about Saucy Mary and see Castle Moil where she lived. There's no way I can re-tell every story I heard on this trip because Scot was full of them. Or maybe Scotland is just full of them. I actually enjoyed history for once! Ha. Saucy Mary has a pub named after her in Kyleakin, if that's anything. She basically got money from sailors by blocking this channel that they had to go through or else they would have to travel much longer all the way around Skye and as a thank you, she flashed them. Saucy Mary. Yep. After that, we got on the buses and drove north. The first stop was at this waterfall...I think it was called Mouth Waterfall? That's probably completely wrong; I probably just couldn't understand Scot's Scottish accent or the name was in Gaelic. It was situated in a peet bog, which was not really surprising, as a lot of Skye is boggy. That means the ground was wet, muddy, and squishy. I am so thankful for my sweet waterproof shoes. I still tried to avoid the worst boggy areas to get closer to the falls, but at one point one of my shoes completely went under bog and I didn't get wet! Awesome. Good to know they really work, too! We got back on the bus and drove a little more to this river that separates the north and south of Skye, as well as back in the day, the rival clans of McDonald and McLeod. It was called the Sligachan River. Don't ask how to pronounce that because I can't remember. At this stop, things got interactive as Scot told us the story about how the McDonalds and McLeods tried to solve their rivalry by marrying their son and daughter, respectively. It would've been great, minus a mishap at the river. The girl was riding her horse across the river with her dog and pageboy. The horse trips and the poor girl is sent head first into the river and knocks her face on a rock, ripping her eye out of the socket. Ew. What was she to do? They hurry back to their clan and are like what do we do?! She ends up just wearing a veil so that the man she's about to marry won't see her, since he had never before...it would be alright. Only once they got married, the veil is lifted and the guy freaks! Thinking it is a trick, the McLeods send the girl packing and carve out the eye of the horse, dog, and pageboy as a little payback. When the girl makes it to the river again, she sits down on a rock and cries her eyes out [eye?]. She then hears a little voice below her, asking her why she's crying. It's the king of the faeries. Normally mean little tricksters, the faery feels awful for the poor girl and vows to do some good. So he says, "I can make you eternally beautiful. See this river is blessed. If you dip your face in it for 7 seconds, you'll be forever beautiful." Of course, she takes him up on this offer and whooooeee, she comes out gorgeous. STUNNING. And remember the horse, dog, and pageboy? Well they do it too, coming out a stallion, a beautiful dog, and a lovely little boy! HA. Sucks to be you, McLeod clan. So the whole time, Scot is telling this story, he recruited people to be the girl, horse, and guy. It was hilarious to watch. Then he had the girl stick her face in the river and asked if any of the rest of us wanted to. I would've, but the water was frigid and no one else was jumping to do it all at once. Only one other guy took him up on his offer. He was a red head so jokes all around that he still had red hair but now had a soul after doing it. Haha. I think after this we went and saw another waterfall and then we stopped for lunch and exploring at this town called Portree, the 'capital' of Skye. It's the largest town in the Skye and home to the only secondary school on the island. What?! Legit. It was really cute and pretty. Also, home to a cheap, tasty bakery. I got a chocolate cake thing for 61p. Noms.

Realizing this is going to turn into the world's longest post if I try to fit all of Saturday's adventures in this so, I'll leave it at that and continue in another post. More than likely, there's gonna be like 5 posts about Isle of Skye. It's all really good stuff and I'm obviously going to include photos so get ready. It's too late to write another post tonight, so maybe tomorrow. In the mean time, pictures to go along with Saturday-up till lunch break. =) Also, complete sidenote, but I was just listening to "Caledonia" on repeat whilst writing this post. Dougie MacLean version. Youtube it.

our quaint hostel

Castle Moil where Saucy Mary lived

waterfall #2338 haha

cheesin' with the Scottish coat of arms

stunning scenery

interactive story telling at Sligachan River

Portree

northern lights, or not.

I didn't want to get you too excited that I actually saw the Northern Lights. But now you're probably all disappointed, but I promise you the adventure trying to see the Northern Lights is equally entertaining to read!
So I think it was maybe two weeks ago, there was a good chance to see the Northern Lights, albeit not cloudy and the moon not too bright. So my friend Elizabeth and I decided it would be fun to climb Arthur's Seat when it got late at night to try to see some cool lights. Well the only lights we saw were the city lights because even though Arthur's Seat is high up, it's still too close to the city. I'll never say this again, but thank goodness for light pollution because we didn't have a flashlight so if there hadn't been any pollution we would not have been able to climb Arthur's Seat at all. Granted, having a flashlight still would have helped a lot because we had no clue what we were doing. We followed the closest trail that had rock steps up for a while and then it mysteriously ended. So we forged our own path for a bit, only to be stopped by a large rock face that we attempted to scale and then came to our senses about. So we turned around and tried the other way, getting nowhere. Shortly after we walked back down a ways, we saw a group coming down so we scampered up the way they were going down.We ended up at the top of a completely grassy hill.  Not yet Arthur's Seat. We panicked for a moment that the two weren't connected but after tramping our way through the cushy grasses, we discovered they were in fact connected. Only then we lost the trail again. Thankfully, we ran into another group coming down this crevice and they assured us it was much easier to climb up it than it was to go down it like they were. So we shimmied our way up this crevice and realized we'd made it to the top of Arthur's Seat! Praise the Lord. It was so windy, so we didn't stay up there for long, just long enough to take some photos and video of the howlin' winds. So much for seeing the Northern Lights. But it was still quite nice up there, seeing the whole city in the dark, yet lit by all the buildings' lights. Coming back down was a whole nother adventure. There was no way we were going to be able to figure out how to go down the way we came up, so we just kinda wandered our way down. We ran across the grassy hill and got nowhere, so somehow we found a little path and followed it down. We ended up walking through what was basically a little forest. The trees were squeaking in the wind. It was kinda creepy, especially since we had no clue where we were going to pop out. The path surprisingly popped out at the road and we realized we were all the way on the back side of Arthur's Seat. I don't think I'd ever been that happy to make it onto a road. [I was going to say solid ground, but the path we were walking on was solid, it was just unknown. haha] So that's pretty much it. We didn't see the Northern lights, but we did experience some strong winds and some scary wandering in the dark. It was awesome!
Now for Edinburgh Castle. We toured that just this past weekend. It was a gorgeous day [as it has been a lot this past week/2 weeks or so. It was quite a steal because we went with the ISC so we paid a fraction of the price and didn't have to stick with them once we got in there. We got to see the city from the battlements and I pretended to shoot a cannon. We saw the Great Hall and where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI. We saw the prisons where they kept POWs which was really cool. Also got to go to the Scottish War Museum and saw lots of guns and outfits and stuff. ha. One of the neatest parts of the castle tour was seeing the crown jewels: the sword, crown, septre and the Stone of Destiny. We couldn't take pictures so you'll just have to imagine the shiny jewels and such. We spent almost 2 hours walking through the castle and it was so amazing. It was like a small town. Although there wasn't a lot of rooms that we were allowed to explore, but what we could see was legit.
Tonight I'm going to an event called "Around the World in 80 Cultures" with food and other cultural things and tomorrow I'm seeing The Hunger Games at 'midnight'...it's actually at 8pm, but it's the premiere here! Then Friday it's off to the Isle of Skye! So there's a lot of good blogging material ahead and I can't wait to tell you!

Arthur's Seat at night

Boom.

Prisoners' living quarters

Key to the castle!

you snooze, you lose

That title really has nothing to do with anything. If it did, I'd be writing about how I slept late and missed a lecture or something. But it's impossible for me to sleep that late, seeing as the only lecture I have that is even in the morning hours is at 11:10. I'm not one to sleep in either. Also, missing a lecture is not that big of a deal. I'm a goody two shoes and have only purposely skipped one lecture. Although I've already made plans to skip the rest of my Art History lectures after next Tuesday. Next Tuesday is the day I present in my tutorial and I will turn in my essay, too. After that there is no reason for me to go to anything Art History because that essay is my final exam. I just had a bit of a fright thinking maybe it isn't, but it really is. Thank the Lord.
So anyways, what have I been up to since I last wrote? I realized it has been since I got back from Belgium that I last wrote. That's frankly not okay. Well, besides researching and writing essays about Art History, I've gone clubbing, climbed Arthur's Seat at night, toured the inside of Edinburgh Castle, enjoyed the weather, and improved in my bagpipe skills. I know you all really are glad to hear about that last point. I no longer sound like a dying duck. At least like 90% of the time I don't. Funny story about that actually. Well not really funny, but today I was practicing like I normally do in the mornings in the tutorial room in the Scottish History and Celtic Studies building on campus. About 15 minutes into my practicing, I'm interrupted by an older lady and this guy. The lady procceeds to ask me if I'm supposed to be in there and I say yes, I'm just practicing. They're just coming in to look for a book or something, so I sit there for a bit then just start practicing again. The lady leaves and the guy apologizes for bothering me. I tell him he's not, it's more like my playing would be bothering him. Then we have a delightful chat about America and how they perceive Scotland [all bogs and fog and glens of the highlands?]. He continues to search for this book and I bumble my way through "Amazing Grace". Happily, he states he can recognize it as "Amazing Grace"! We chat a little bit more about how the guy teaching my bagpipe class taught this kid's dad in Glasgow and how Virginia has the biggest Highland Games...not anywhere in Scotland?! Weird. Then he says some classic Scottish/English phrases as in "Bloody hell, I can't find this book" or something like that. I learned a little more than I wanted to about what he was looking for...some statistical analysis book that apparently he just found out there was a newer edition of, so I'm not sure what he was even looking for. But whatever. It was entertaining. Then he left, saying "cheers". Splendid. I should have asked him his name. It was probably something very Scottish. He had a spectacular accent.
Moving on. I'm not sure I should try to cover all these events in one post. That bagpiping tale turned out much longer than anticipated. So I'll just write about my clubbing adventure, then Arthur's Seat and the castle in another? It's so nice to be writing about things unrelated to Art History...that's probably why I'm rambling and telling you random stories. Okay. So clubbing. I went with my friends right after we got back from Belgium. Well, not RIGHT after. The Saturday night after we had gotten back on Thursday night. Friday was Elizabeth's birthday but that's apparently not a big going out night for people so we postponed the craziness till Saturday and just ate chips and salsa and sponge cake on her birthday while watching She's the Man. My kind of night. Clubbing is not my kind of thing, but both Elizabeth and Maddie love dancing and such and I needed to at least go once since it's a big thing here. We went to The Hive. All I'd heard about it before going was that it was super sketch and gross and filled with freshers so I wasn't too excited. But we got there just before 10 so we didn't have to pay and no one was there yet. Obviously. They all go out late. So we walked around the place a little and sat and waited for more people to come so it was less weird dancing on the empty dance floor. Eventually the place filled up and we danced to top hits, mostly American top 40 stuff with some randoms thrown in there. I didn't completely hate it and I danced with two guys...albeit they were the most awkward strangers I've ever danced with. Granted they were probably the only strangers I've danced with because the last dance I went to was junior prom. Ha. I hit a dancing wall after I got away from the last weird guy and we thankfully left shortly after that. I know I sound like it was horrible, but I enjoyed myself the majority of the night until it got a little too crowded and everyone got drunker. I imagine the things I heard about The Hive being sketchy and gross happen much later than we were there for, thank goodness. Early all the way! I don't know if I'll ever go out dancing again, but I'm glad I did it at least once. Go me.
Check out my next post for some stories and pictures of Arthur's Seat by night and inside Edinburgh castle!

the letter B suits me: travels pt. DEUX

Before I continue with Part 2 of Belgium travels, can I just point out how much the letter B shows up in things I do? I go to Baylor where their mascot is the bear; my name is Beth; I'm learning to play bagpipes; I went to Belgium where I visited Brussels and Bruges. They drink lots of beer. Ha.

Anyways...I finished the last post talking about Tuesday. So Wednesday. BRUGES. or Brugge. That's the French spelling. We took a train and got there shortly after 11. The ride was only an hour. We had a little trouble figuring out what train we wanted, but we just asked someone if it was the right train and then we saw this guy from our hostel and asked if he was going to Brugge too since he was getting on the same train, but he wasn't; there were other stops along the way. Brugge was the first one I think. Regardless, one hour on a train and we were there! We found a little information place and got a map and then just followed a bunch of people closer to the city center and the explorers were off and running! The map we had to buy had a list of 10 things to see in Brugge so after we'd seen the main central area and bumped into a little market selling food and flowers, we looked on that list and found the most photographed place in Brugge and saw some more of the canal. Basically, we just walked around the whole time we were there trying to find cool stuff to see. Then we started getting hungry and came to the conclusion that everything in Brugge is overpriced and not surprisingly there weren't even that many places to chose from because a lot were shopping sorts of places, oh tourist town. So then we decided we'd just go back to Brussels a little earlier than planned since there wasn't really anything else we knew to do or see that we hadn't already found. We made our way back to the train station and saw this other train station or some sort of important building that was on the 10 things to do/see and that was one we hadn't seen yet! Ha. Once getting back to Brussels, we got waffles on the cheap! I just had a plain one and seriously, pretty sure I died and went to heaven. It was so good! It was warm and fresh, and plain is relative; it had sugar or something sweet on it and it was perfect! I want to go back to Brussels, just for the waffles. Later, after realizing a waffle wasn't going to hold the hunger off that long, we searched for a good pizza place because we were all kind of craving it. I found this local Italian place that sounded pretty nice from the reviews online so that's where we went. I failed to realize that all the reviews had been automatically translated from French into English, which wouldn't have mattered much except we soon came to see that we'd pick a super local place; no one knew English! The guy who gave us our menus did a tiny bit, but our waitress didn't know any so we couldn't ask for still water because it wasn't listed on the menu and I couldn't ask a question about something I was debating trying, so we all just got Margarita pizzas. It was really good pizza, so I'm not complaining. The place was really small and you could see the cook making all the food because the kitchen was open and just in a corner of the restaurant. Cozy. Needless to say, the locals got it right, it was good food. That was the only time we really suffered not knowing much French past hello, good bye, thank you, please, and what's your name? Oh well. Another thing of note, Scottish people are so much more friendly. Maybe it was because there's a language barrier, but I felt like the people in Belgium weren't nearly as smiley and whatever.

Thursday we had to be checked out of the hostel by 11, but that was plenty of time. We were allowed to stay after we'd checked out too, so we stayed a little longer figuring out where things were that we wanted to do before we left and how to get to the right station that the bus that takes us to the airport would be at. Our flight wasn't leaving until 9 though so we had plenty of time before we had to get the bus [at 6]. I wish we could've gotten an earlier flight, but hey, this was a cheap Ryanair flight so it was the only one they had and we took it! We went to this art museum we had seen on Tuesday and got the combo ticket so we could see the older art since Maddie really likes art history and I thought it'd be good to maybe see art that I'd seen in class. But I was soon reminded that when I'm hungry and tired, I get grumpy and museums get really old really fast. So I was kind of a grumpy gills for the latter part of our visit to the museum until we finally left and got waffles again. Haha. I feel like the best part of Belgium for me was the food. Why am I not surprised? I love food. Anyways, we got waffles at the same place we had on Wednesday, only this time I got mine with chocolate! Noms. I could go on about the waffles. I miss walking around and smelling them wherever we went because there was never a shop or waffle van far away. So excellent. It's a wonder the people in Belgium aren't fatter. Maybe because they actually can walk places instead of having to drive everywhere? After we got waffles, we found our way to the tram and went to the station to wait before we had to catch the bus to the airport. So much waiting, but eventually we got to the airport and waited some more and then before we knew it, it was bye Belgium, hello again Scotland! It felt really good to come back to familiarity and a language I could understand [minus the fact I thought the guy at customs asked what we were studying at university, not which university we're at..awk]. I'm all about a nice, friendly Scottish accent. It sounds so right. Haha It's also strange to think that coming back to Scotland was like coming home. I feel settled enough here to not feel as out of place. So lovely. It's already March. Soon I'll be off on Spring Break adventures with my mom and sister. Can't wait. But we've still got a month and a few days before that gets here!

belfry tower in Bruges

hanging out by the canal

most photographed area in Bruges?

Beer wall with the 1000+ Belgian beers

St. Michael's Cathedral, Brussels

Couldn't resist making y'all jealous of the deliciousness

So, that's all I've got for now in travel news. Hope you're getting a chance to travel or explore new things!
SEE PART ONE HERE!

travel bug pt. 1

So it's been a while and for a good reason; I've been traveling!!
The greatest thing about studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh is that they have what is called "Innovative Learning Week". Basically, it's a week off of official classes and there are just random seminars and events going on over the week that aren't required at all, but are there for learning purposes more for people who actually go to school here to learn about different aspects related to their major or other majors they may be interested in. At least that's how I see it. Thus, for us study abroad kids, it's obviously going to be pinned as a week of travel. Even kids that do go here go travel or back home. But apparently enough people go to the events so it exists. and it is fabulous.
So last Saturday, I went on a trip with the ISC to Aberdeen, Scotland. We were supposed to get to see two castles and spend time exploring Aberdeen, but things didn't work out that way and there was a lot of miscommunication so we ended up just seeing one castle [and having to pay again if we wanted to go in and see more of it! I ended up not doing that because I didn't know if we'd be refunded 100% and the castle was pretty spectacular without seeing the innards.] and spending 2 hours wandering around Aberdeen. It was fun to get to do some other Scottish city exploring.

Dunnotar Castle, Aberdeen

Then Monday, which was the start of Innovative Learning Week. My alarm woke me up at 5:30 am and I was sitting in a taxi on the way to the airport by 6. My backpack was stuffed and because the dining hall obviously wasn't open, I packed as many snacks as I could for breakfast and future breakfasts. Nothing like some multigrain Cheerios and weird apple bars from Tesco! So we got to the airport and got our passports checked or whatever, went through security [they didn't make everyone take off their shoes! It was so nice! haha], and then waited to get on our plane. Ryanair doesn't assign seats unless you pay so it was pretty much a mad rush to get our boarding passes checked and to get on the plane. We had to wait on this shuttle bus thing for forever, but finally it moved and we got to our plane and successfully found 3 seats in a row so Maddie, Elizabeth, and I could all sit together!

Grand Place, Brussels

Eventually, we made it to Brussels after a little confusion in trying to get bus tickets to the city. The station where the airport bus dropped us off was still a ways away from our hostel, but I'd printed out directions for the supposed 15 min walk. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the road we wanted to go on and wandered around for much too long, so we broke down and got a taxi. Pretty certain the taxi guy ripped us off, but at least we got to our hostel. Except when we got to our hostel, we had to wait until 4pm before we could check in and drop off our bags and it was only 1:30 so we spent the next couple of hours wandering around Brussels and trying not to kill our backs. Ha. We saw the Grand Place and I tried to do Ellen Degeneres' "Dance Dare" by dancing behind some random lady but she turned around really quickly [probably because I was wearing my backbag and it was clanging...] and I didn't notice. Awkward. Once it was 4, we got checked in at our hostel and settled in there a bit and then decided to head out to find somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up at this yummy Italian restaurant, but not after being accosted by multiple restaurant guys trying to offer us deals to get us to eat their food.

Showing how to make chocolates

Tuesday, we started our day by going to the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate. This was fantastic, if only for all the chocolate samples we got to eat. We walked to the Central Station to look into getting train tickets to Bruges, and found Parliament and a strange statue park, as well as a bunch of museums. We went to this one called the Coudenberg or something like that. It was basically an underground palace. Really cool to walk below the city. After that we were pretty ravenous, so we found a place to get frites [aka french fries]. I love how they serve them in a cone, but I didn't like how the sauce really overwhelmed the top fries and then the poor bottom ones got nothing. I got mine with Andalouse [sp?] sauce which was pretty good. I don't really like fries to begin with but they're big in Belgium so I couldn't not have them, basically like a heart attack in a cone because the guy put so much salt on them and then slathered the top in the sauce, and obviously they're fried. Delicious. I think once we finished those, we went back to the hostel to figure out the public transport system so we could go to the Atomium. That's this crazy structure that was made for the World's Fair in 1900 something. Now it's just like the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Tower...a symbol of Belgium, but no real purpose. It was much larger than I expected it to be, but there was nothing else to do around where it was, so it was a quick trip. When we got back, guess what was on TV? BAYLOR VS UT! Granted it was a game that originally played Monday and it was Tuesday but go ESPN America for showing it and there weren't commercials. =) Baylor also pulled out a win which was awesome. We had a quickish dinner at a kebab [they spelled it 'kebap'] place because it was cold out so we didn't want to walk far and it was cheaper, too! Later, around 10, we went to Delirium Cafe, this crazy bar that has something around 2000 different beers and 3 levels. It was really a cool atmosphere as it wasn't just young people, but older people, too.  I actually tried several sips of beer; the first kind, Leroy Christmas, was a dark beer and not very appealing. We moved to a different room and Maddie and Elizabeth got a strawberry beer and a cherry beer. The cherry one tasted like cough syrup, but the strawberry was a little better. I think it's safe to say that I won't become a beer drinker ever, though. Ha.

Well, I'm gonna end this post here, so it doesn't get too overwhelming to read. I'll write about Wednesday and Thursday later this week!
Here are some more pictures to enjoy!

A view of Brussels

Coudenberg

Royal Palace, Brussels

Frites, a Brussels staple

Atomium

trains, aching feet, castles

Today I took a train with my two friends to a little town outside Edinburgh called North Berwick. This town was home to two castles we intended to walk to and explore, Dirleton and Tantallon. We had googled pictures of each before and noted that Tantallon was right next to the water [Firth of Forth] up on a cliff edge. Basically, it was the cooler one so we thought we'd go to that one first. I have this fabulous book about walking around Edinburgh and several places nearby and that's how we found out about these castles. So we took the train which was loads of fun and a pretty good deal. It was about 1.5 miles to get to the train station and then once in North Berwick, the book said it was about 2.5miles to Tantallon from the station. It recommended to take a taxi or bus but we didn't want to pay for that so we decided to walk. And walk we did. It took a bit of a turn around to find the right road and then we walked down that road for a bit until it weirdly ended and hit a golf course...we were unsure what to do from there, but there was a sign mentioning a path sorta through the golf course that people and their dogs could take. [complete sidenote but there are some crazy guys outside who just broke out into "You Give Love a Bad Name" HA.] So yeah. We tried to take this path but ended up like completely on the golf course and that was awkward and wasn't getting us much of anywhere. So then we saw this couple walking on this little path closer to the coastline. We headed down there and walked along the coast for forever and it was lovely. At this point we still couldn't see the castle. Here we are walking right along the water on a nice little bit of sand and it ends. It's pretty much just cliffs around us but there wasn't anything else we could really do sooo we climbed up what looked like the least straight up area and closet to the road. We made it up and reached the road! Walking along the road for a good 20 or so minutes we saw a sign that said "Tantallon Castle 1/4 mile" and we actually could see the castle in the distance! Upon making it to the castle, we learned it was £5 to get in. But there was no way to really get a good view of the castle without paying the £5 plus we were so glad we actually found the castle. We paid and then went in and promptly sat down to eat lunch...at like 2:45. ha. Then we went exploring! The castle was really cool! There were a lot of windy staircases, which I'm not a big fan of, but it was fine. The views were sweet and there were a lot of neat things to see within the castle. Worth it. When we left we just took the main road we discovered back into town. It was 3miles to the train station from the castle...ayiii. So all in all, at the end of the day, between walking to and from the train station in Edinburgh and then adventuring around North Berwick, we walked like 9 miles. Whoa, Nelly. My feet were killing me. It didn't help that I got a blister yesterday when we walked to another train station to see if we could find it without getting lost, thinking that was the one we'd be going out of, but it wasn't. Thankfully, the one we ended up going out of was not as far of a walk. =) But whose feet wouldn't hurt after that much walking?! It was great to get out of the city and just go exploring other parts of Scotland.

i danced. and liked it.

In fact, I'm obsessed. I'm not very good because, let's be honest, I've got horrendous rhythm. Throw multiple dance steps at me and things get wild. But I did it anyways even when I screwed it up terrifically. Tonight I ceilidh[pronounced kay-lee] danced and country danced. TWO HOURS. It was awesome! I'll post a video at the end of this of the ceilidh flash mob I mentioned a bit ago; the dance they are doing is one I learned tonight!
I'll probably end up joining the society and am definitely going to go to lessons again. Too much fun.
Today was actually a really good day. I've decided Thursdays are my favorite days. Really because I don't have Art History and have my bagpipe tutorial and don't have to wait till 4 to have class. haha Today, I was solo at my bagpipe tutorial so that was actually really nice. I improved so much and learned the first bar of "Amazing Grace"! Practicing is always awkward because the walls are so thin here so EVERYONE can hear when I play. That's probably why when I practiced this last week, it sounded so bad because I wasn't blowing loud enough. But now I know I have to put in a little more effort to make things actually sound how they're supposed to. Sorry in advance neighbors!
Welp, that's all I got for now. Happy almost weekend! Those of you who are in Indy, enjoy all the Super Bowl festivities! Those of you who aren't but still care about the Super Bowl, happy chips and queso/salsa nommin' at parties! =)