Scotland--Day 2

Me and Yassmeen with William Wallace!

The Kilt Factory, where kilts are made

Edinburgh Castle


Me with the guard on duty there

Working hard at the Whiskey Museum with Yassmeen and Cat

The Military Tattoo Advertisement

Bagpipers of Scotland--The opening act!

On Saturday morning, we rose early since we had a scheduled tour of Edinburgh castle at that time. The castle itself is situation high up on hill and overlooks most of the city. I knew it would be a Holy Cross-esque hike to the top. In order to get to the castle, we all boarded on the coach bus (trust me, I didn't want to get back on for a long, loong time) for the 10 minute ride to the castle. However, there was a small snag. The leaders of our group ending up leading Nigel, our bus driver, down a one way street! He was a volatile, Mr. Clean look alike and ended up flipping out! After coaxing him to do a 26 point turn in the middle of the street, Nigel said, "There's no way I can turn this bus around! It's not a car; it's a fifty-nine seater!" After some expletives and more disgruntled statements from Nigel, they ended up letting us off all the bus, while our group leader ran down the end of the street so Nigel could back up the bus a good 300 yards or so to the previous intersection. I did not envy him at that moment in time, yet I wondered why our leaders (from the US!) are supposed to provide the bus driver (a UK driver) with detailed directions. It didn't seem right.

The Castle itself was beautiful. It was a large, circular building, and in the front of the castle, huge bleachers were set up for the evening--the Military Tattoo. Before the Scotland trip, I heard countless stories of the Tattoo, and at first, I thought we were getting a tour of a tattoo parlor and didn't understand the huge fuss about it. The Tattoo is a musical performance/event that is compromised of many different musical acts. For example, there is traditional Scottish bagpippers in kilts, but there are also dancers from Tawain, a military marching band from Massachusetts (YAY!), and professional ,young motorcyclists. Tickets are usually sold out VERY far in advance, and our group tickets were purchased in November of 2006 just for this event!!! :)

After completing the castle tour with audioguides, we got sucked into the Scottish kilt-making museum, which turned out to be a black hole of gift shops. The weaving/textile factory was in the middle, and it required you to walk around through countless gift shops just to get out. I thought I would never see the light of day, but we finally made it out of there!

After the Castle, we grabbed lunch at a nearby café, and only had a small amount of of time before our next appointment at HolyRood, the palace of Scotland. We thought we would pop into the very famous Whiskey museum. I am not a fan of whiskey at all, but this tour changed my mind! After buying our tickets (about 7 pounds each), we went into the museum and were served a blended whiskey in a special whiskey glass. Our tour guide explained to us that blended whiskey means that it is part whiskey from barley and also part whiskey made from mixed grains. I learned how to swirl, smell, and taste the whiskey in a very posh manner. The whiskey didn't taste like anything--it didn't leave an alcohol smell/potency in my taste buds, but it partly burned/warmed my throat as it went down. It may sound strange, but I felt it more in my throat than my mouth. Through the tour, I learned numerous tidbits about whiskey (probably more than I ever wanted to know): it needs at least 3 years in a barrel to ferment, it varies in color and smell, and blended whiskies are produced at a much higher rate than barley whiskies. I also made the obvious connection to scotch. Whenever you hear someone in a movie say, "scotch on the rocks," they are referring to scottish whiskey. I'll get it next time Sean Connery utters that in a movie. The highlight of the whiskey museum was the barrel ride! We got to sit in barrels (made for about 4 people) and take a trip around the museum for the history of whiskey. The ride was dark, complete with life-like figures smuggling whiskey during its scarcity and at the end, we were led straight to the gift shop!

After the whiskey tour, we headed to the HolyRood, the old Scotland palace, and did a quick tour through there, since everyone was exhausted from all the walking/touring. We headed back to Pollock Halls for a quick dinner, and then left to go to the Military Tattoo, almost 2 hours early! The tattoo started at 9, but we were advised to get there as early as possible. The Royal Mile, the main street in Scotland, was shut down since the street was literally a wall of crowds to get into this event. After slowly making my way through the crowd, by grabbing onto sweatshirts of other friends and staying close with one of the group leaders, Margaret Love (doesn't she have a great name?), we finally made our way to our seats in the bleachers.

The actual Tattoo went by so quickly--there were so many amazing musical and performance acts, from the young boys (ages 6-12) who did motorcycle stunts to the military marching band from Massachusetts....I absolutely loved it! No wonder the event sells out so quickly. If you ever have a chance to go to Scotland, DEFINITELY going to the Military Tattoo, the castle, and the whiskey museum. More adventures to come involving our last day in Scotland...special appearance by penguins!