We saw the mountains!

We went north into the Scottish Highlands, into the national park, without really knowing what we will see. We knew it would be colder, and less populated, but we definitely weren’t expecting such beautiful, snowy mountains as the ones we saw. We even wandered upon an old looking ski resort, still functional for the most part, but certainly too derelict to use in some. There was a lot of empty space, some sheep, a few cows, and the occasional tourist town, but generally it was a lot of pretty, and a lot of lonely.
Tomorrow morning we leave the time share, and head into Edinburgh for the day. At 9 pm, we leave from the bus station, heading to Glasgow, from where we’ll go to the coast, then to Belfast. Tomorrow is the last full day on this island. I realized today that our time here is more than halfway done, and that truly made me very sad. The UK is very beautiful, and I’m sure that Ireland will be as well… Who wouldn’t love a country that has so many sheep, absolutely everywhere? All jokes aside, almost every place we’ve seen here, we keep saying we want to stay for longer.

It’s a pretty cool place. Congrats, guys. Cheers!

The business card of that really good restaurant in St. Andrews

It really does have some of the best food we’ve had in the UK.

I have highland cow earmuffs

Yes, you read that correctly. They look something like this:

Or this:

And they are the wonderful result of visiting St. Andrews, in Fife County, today.
St. Andrews is a smaller town, located on the coast of Scotland, north of Edinburgh. It consists of maybe three or four streets running parallel to the coast and about five streets running transversely to those. It doesn’t have a lot of area to work with, but it manages to fit a ton into what it has. A castle, a cathedral, shops, tons of restaurants, a railway station, a university… And people still have room to fit there. It’s an awesome little town.
We started off with finding a free parking space, which has turned out to, generally, be rather difficult in the UK. As it is, there were two areas of gratis parking in the town, one by the library, the other by the water. All the others were paid, with a maximum parking period of two hours. We capitalized on a vacated spot on the water side.
The castle was a short walk away from our car, and cost 5.50 GBP a person to enter. Although the castle is quite run down, due to some of the history explained pre-site entry, they put a lot of effort into extra exhibits that they house in the gift shop building. The site is also home to one of the few remaining examples of siege and counter siege, and we were actually able to see, and enter, it in person! I can’t figure out how to write it without including the whole history of the castle, so to the internet with you.
Unfortunately, we found out in the gift shop that the cathedral is closed for renovation, so we decided to consolidate a walk around the town with finding lunch. The street with all the main shops was crowded with high school age children, and the restaurants that weren’t too expensive has lines extending out the door. Forced to explore the side streets, we find a little place called The Dinner Plate and, in it, the best food we have had yet here. It has a large menu, including foods from several Asian countries, though we had our choices limited by the smaller, yet satisfying, lunch specials menu. For 8 GBP, we got a starter, entree and rice, and all of these were sizeable and very delicious. Look it up, if you’re ever in the area.
Tomorrow we’re going to go further north, so in an effort to get up early, I’m going to go to sleep NOW.

Scottish sheep are very welcoming

They are only slightly less indifferent than the British ones. I’m in Scotland, in the Sandilands, about half an hour from Edinborough, and 45 minutes from Glasgow. Today was mostly a travel and grocery shopping day, although Matt and I did go for a light hike this morning from our hostel to Hadrian’s Wall.
The funny story is that, last night, I pointed out the window of our hostel room to a section of a stone wall visible in the distance, and joked that, look! we don’t need to visit the wall tomorrow, we already have seen it.
I was absolutely right.
Nevertheless, we went to walk along the wall for a good distance, traversing cow patty mine fields, and avoiding an inscrutable bull. The section of the wall that we visited is claimed (by the visitor center almost immediately adjacent to it) to be the best preserved section of the wall. This, however, is not to be confused with the section by Carlisle, which is the longest unbroken preserved section, but tend to be only knee high. This part of the wall actually comes to be quite high, and we skene a good long while looking over it, and discussing the history involved with the feat of building and defending it. For the specifics, look to books and the internet, as I never claimed to be a historian. From what I do know, however, it’s quite worth looking into.
It was almost noon by the time we left the British countryside, en route to the North, as it is called on the traffic signs on the roads.
We got here much before the check in time, so we went to town and stocked up on lots of meat, rice, eggs (we already had lettuce and pasta), and spices for less than 25 GBP. We actually bought more than just that, so we actually made off like kings. If you’re ever short on money, Tesco tends to have wonderful deals, as long as your not too worried about the “best by” date bring within the week. It enabled us to have lamb tikka masala with rice tonight, and after a week of street food, it was quite wonderful.
Since today is a slower day, and we have already decided that tomorrow we would like to enjoy finally having a more steady homestead, and would like to say now about our time in the lake district.
The day we were leaving it, we decided to take the long way around, and see some of the  beautiful lakes and peaks in the area. We were must definitely not disappointed. I hope to find a Wi-Fi access point in order to upload some pictures, as I do not trust myself with words enough to paint a sufficient picture. Maybe I will try another day, when I haven’t already had two glasses of wine.
Tonight I plan to relax, and I have the same plan for tonight. For now, it’s time to watch some TV, then hit the hay. I wish happy counting sheep.