The last few days in Scotland have been a little more chaotic, and a little less planned, than the Irish segment of our tour, so we have had days varying from really good ... to days that were mediocre at best.

The first day we arrived in Glasgow, we wandered around the city rather aimlessly. We almost made it to places of interest, but we invariably turned around right before getting to them. Obviously we only found this out later, when looking at a detailed map.

One of the goals we had was to meet up with Amy Walsh and her husband J-P, but we weren't quite sure how we were going to accomplish this. In the meantime, we went on with our "plans," which consisted mainly of doing plenty of walking, building up ravenous appetites and eating until we were stuffed. We became so disoriented and turned around that we ended up eating at the same cafe three times.

D spent much of the day whining about wanting to go and see a Glasgow cemetery on which she had somehow found a brochure: Exciting stuff. We did actually set out to visit it, but D was forced to turn back once Amy and I forced her hand. She was attempting to lead us down yet another dark and scary alley by the river Clyde, and we had had enough.

Later that night, however, we set out on further travels abroad in Glasgow. Amy Walsh had mentioned that we might perhaps meet at a bar named Haraughty's, because it is quite close to where JP's family lives. Hence the three of us elected to go and find Haraughty's Pub. However, this task was somewhat complicated by the difficult spelling of this particular bar. The name Haraughty's is not so easy to find when you are just told Haraughty's, It sounds exactly the same as Harriotty's, or Harrody's or Haroddies, or Harrod Dee's, etc.. We tried all these options in Google before we left so that we would have clear directions. We finally tracked it down by searching "Glasgow bars and Pubs," and then scrolling down to "H". The first thing we noticed was that the bar was far past the cemetery we had failed to reach earlier in the day.

Inexplicably, we decided to go again, and not only to go again, but to walk. D was not a happy camper at this democratic decision. Forty-five minutes of walking later, in the dark, in probably not the most salubrious part of town, we reached the Pub; We reached Haraughty's. We had made it.

Unfortunately, there were only 6 people in the pub, none of them was a woman, and I would guess that there were no Walshes or O'Connors among them. ( I'm not completely positive of this, but they were not the Walsh's or O'Connor's we were looking for.) To make matters worse, we were starving, and there was no food served at the pub. We promptly took the bus all the way back to the hostel.

After dinner, we decided to call our quest a night!! We have since had a meeting and all three of us have agreed that every day of our trip MUST have some purpose to it. We have had enough of wandering aimlessly, and we are not good at winging things. Nothing, we agreed, irritates us more than aimless wandering.

So, the next day we decided that in our tours, we had covered most of Glasgow already. We therefore took the train into Edinburgh. We climbed Carlton Hill, walked past the Royal Scottish residence, Holy rood Palace, where D was advised just to sneak in as an under 17 year old by one of the Palace guards. Then we headed towards Arthur's Seat. This is a small mountain overlooking the City of Edinburgh and the hike probably took us 45 minutes to climb up. The view was great, but even more impressive was the wind up there. I have learned two things about Scotland so far: First, there are many hills; and second, it is always windy.

We really had to brace ourselves up there to avoid literally being blown off the mountain. Actually, it was mainly D who had to brace herself, although I had to be a little careful. We went to a flatter, grassy part near the top, and copied some others there by undoing our jackets and then raising them above our heads to make a kind of sail. We then leaned into the wind as far as we could go, without falling over. While Amy and I tried this new Scottish pastime, D spent her time picking up loose change that people were dropping out of their pockets. The afternoon proved to be quite productive financially as it paid for lunch.

At some point D got the brilliant idea of jumping into the wind to see how far we would be pushed backwards. Yes, even someone with a Princeton degree can be stupid. She soon realized this, as she picked herself off the ground. She had literally been hurled backwards onto her posterior. It was fun to watch, but no doubt it was painful to experience.

Later, having left Arthur's Seat, we refueled, and then went to the Scotland National Museum. The place had free admission, and it was huge and very well put together. The displays covered the entire history of Scotland and its people from the Ice Age until the present. Unfortunately the museum closed while we were browsing through the 18th century, so we're still a little fuzzy on what happened to the country after that..

When we returned to the hostel. we went to watch the Scotland/Argentina soccer friendly, where we met up with Amy W and JP O'Connor at last. It was great to see them, and as always they kept us laughing all night long.

We had an early morning on Thursday, as we had signed up for a bus tour to the Highlands and to see Loch Ness. However when we arrived at the meeting point, the bus was nowhere to be seen. We were greeted by a sign telling "Rhian Wilkinson and her party of three to call immediately." Apparently we were the only three to sign up for the day tour and so it had been cancelled. Blerg. It was still too early to think seriously at this point, so we went for a coffee.

A few hours later we had re-planned our day, and were headed by train to Stirling. In Stirling we climbed up to the Wallace Monument (we climbed all the way up there, as we had not been told about the free shuttle bus until we were on top of the mountain. However, we did have a good look at the monument from the outside since a view of the inner parts cost 8 pounds sterling ($18 Cdn) for each of us. There's nothing like a road trip to show you how cheap you really are.

We did have a warming bowl of soup in the Wallace Memorial Cafe though, so we know there is always enough money for food. We took the shuttle back down, which still left us a shocking distance from the downtown area, and so we walked over to Stirling Castle. This was a good visit, and at the castle we went on a tour that filled in some of the history we had missed in the museum.

What was left of the rest of the day was spent relaxing and catching up on some much-needed laundry. I was so low on my fresh laundry supplies that I was forced to wear my "going out" shirt and my running shorts. I enjoyed the strange looks that this evinced from other people, especially as it was freezing outside.

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