Destination: Scotland...

It is done. My super duper gray beanie with a red and white stripe is officially walking around in London somewhere. Yes, that is right. My favorite beanie has a new owner. How could this happen you ask...

Well it all began a few weeks ago when we discovered our schedule included a 3 day weekend.....

Three day weekends are the best! Of course on 3 day weekends you have to take full advantage of this extra day, thus why the boys (Gavin, Jacob, and Geoff) went to Istanbul and Savannah and Barrett went to London. Due to the fact that I had already been to London and being the only girl going to Turkey didn't sound very appealing, I decided Sierra and I should do something adventurous!

Since I have always had a secret obsession with the Scottish accent and have always dreamed of visiting anywhere in Scotland, I convinced Sierra (didn't take much) that we should go out on a limb and see what we could come up with. Before we knew it we became the proud owners of 2 plane tickets to Glasgow, Scotland.

On the recommendation of one of our amazing AIB staffers (Stefanie), after arriving we decided to grab an hour ferry from Ardrossan to the Isle or Arran. If you are into the outdoors and love to just be in the pure presence of the Lord's glorious creation, then I suggest you put Arran on your list of places to go. It was absolutely beautiful!!

According to the lovely little pamphlet given to us by the nice man at the front desk of our hostel, the Isle is about 25 miles from top to bottom and 12 miles across. The road running around the outside of the Island is 57 miles across. Only 4,500 people populate the Island, and 3,000 of those live in the 3 big villages.

There are all sorts of interesting animals on the Island too. In our short time there, we were only able to see the red deer, a sea otter, and plenty of sheep scattered about. We are told though that you can pretty regularly see seals, badgers, red squirrels, golden eagles, hen harriers, and basking sharks and dolphins. Basically the whole island is just one big nature trail.

The ferry dropped us off in Brodick where we took a bus to our hostel in Lochranza. The 20 minute bus ride was absolutely gorgeous! Mostly the road followed the coast, but it often weaved into the country side surrounding us with beautiful mountains.

All around the mountains you could spot sheep.

Arran has lots of sheep! They aren't always fenced in either. Often our bus would come to a stop as a sheep decided to lazily cross the street. They were everywhere and not even afraid of the passing cars! They just chilled, eating their grass as our bus flew past them only a few feet away. It was insane!

The buses in Lochronza are a hoot. I would not describe them as punctual or structured. Sure there were "bus stops" but that really did not mean much. You just told the driver when to stop and there you were. When we asked him where our hostel was he told us not to worry, "I'll give you a shout out when we get there." And he did. In fact he took us right to the front door. It was great!

Our hostel turned out to be super neat! The location was fabulous! Standing in the driveway you could throw a rock and hit the wet land that fills with ocean water at high tide. Looking to the left, we were only about 150 yards from an old castle. It was perfect!

After dropping of our bags at the hostel, we set out to explore! We spent the whole afte
rnoon climbing through the castle and hiking around the area. Our hostel gave us information on a trail to take that would take us to a spot where there are normally seals. From there we were supposed to find another tail that passes the spot where red deer hang out.

Although we never found the seals, and our second trail decided to hide from us, we made out own path and had a blast! At one point we found 2 deer and got withing 30 feet of them. After passing many sheep, we decided our goal would be to hug one. Yeah, umm, that didn't work out so well. We could get withing maybe 10 ft, but then they were off. And those little buggers could skedaddle. So mission hug sheep failed, but it was still a great day!

To top everything off, we got back to the hostel and met a new friend. The way hostels work is that there are normally several people to a room. And you don't necessarily know your other roommates. Some are co-ed (I personally stay away from those) while others are separated by gender.

The room Sierra and I got was a 4 person female "dorm" (as they call them) so we shared it with another older lady. She was the coolest! Her name was Lindsay. She is originally from England but has been living in Scotland for a few years and loves to travel. She normally stays in her tent but decided to check into this hostel for the week because the weather was supposed to get nasty.

This is us with our new friend the mountain woman.

I am so glad she picked the hostel so we could meet her! She had the most interesting stories! Sierra and I probably chatted with her for a good hour or two. Man this lady was hard core! She just picks a place and backpacks through. The next day she had plans to hike up one of the mountains. So cool =)

The next morning we woke up super early to catch the bus back to Brodick so we could see another castle and check out the shops. Out 2 favorites were the Arran Aromatics (where they made and sold had soaps, lotions, candles, and other bath items), and the Island Cheese Co. The Cheese place was heavenly! Oh boy!

They had a table where you could sample all the different cheeses! Of course some were AWESOME while others....well lets just say some mold should not be given the label "cheese." Just throw it away for goodness sake! Our favorite sample was the raspberry infused cranberry cheese! So we bought a block and called is breakfast and lunch! Perfection!

As we got closer to town we started losing track of time in all the cute shops and ended up arriving at our ferry just as it pulled away. Thats ok, we recovered by playing around in the town while we waited 2 more hours for the next one. I was actually glad we missed the first ferry.

When we finally made our way back to Glasgow, we just walked around the town for the rest of the day and shopped. We met so many interesting people. Scottish people are sooo friendly! I definitely want to live there!

Speaking of friendly people, I suppose this leads me into my final story from Scotland and most memorable experience so far in Europe. Where did my beanie go...

But since this thing is getting so long, I will save that story for tomorrow. =) Ohh cliff hanger! But until then you can enjoy the pretty pictures =)

Locranza Castel

Brodick Castle

the sunset was gorgeous! This doesn't even do it justice...

look...its a face

this is right outside our hostel

more pics to come later...