Bonnie Scotland

Scotland, oh Scotland. A country I just discovered wasn't a province in England not more than a year ago. Still, when my girl Sammy said she had booked tickets, I jumped at the opportunity to spend a week traveling with her!

Not to make myself sound like a super ignorant American (I figured I kinda already did that in my first paragraph) but here is a conclusive list of the things I knew about Scotland prior to my trip: whiskey, time warp portals (Outlander anyone?), kilts, bagpipes, and a strong accent that even native english speakers can't understand.

I am happy to inform you, Scotland gives a lot more.

We flew into Edinburgh where my good friend Adi is doing his masters. Adi and I met traveling last summer and have staying in contact, and he was nice enough to be our guide for the week!! He was seriously the best guide ever. He knew everything!! He even drove us up into the Highlands for a day. But I'll get back to that later.

First lesson learned: Scotland is COLD!! For some reason, after living in Germany, I thought there was no where on the planet who could have worse summers than here. I was wrong. It might have been 40 degrees, but I could be rounding up. I was freezing. Adi drove us home, then took us to a pub where he instructed Sammy on all the different flavors and we listened to live music.

 The next day we woke up and did a walking tour of Edinburgh. We learned a lot about the dark past of Edinburgh!! We also got to see where many famous authors got there start, along with the cemetary JK Rowling walked around when she needed inspiration. You can find the names of characters on the graves!!

Pond on the way to old town

Edinburgh Castle

Graveyard

This marked the graves of people who died from infectious diseases.. to warn grave robbers

Where JK Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potters

Bagpiper

After this, we walked hiked to the top of Edinburgh to a place called Arthurs Seat. You can see a 360 degree panoramic of the entire city. It's really beautiful. Especially with the ocean in the background. It was one of those moments where I look out and can't believe that some people don't believe in a god. There's no way something a gorgeous as that could have happened by accident. But that just my opinion. It was very windy and we were quite cold, but stayed up there as long as possible. A lady was up there playing the bagpipes which made it even better!

Half-way up

The ocean

Casually bagpipping

Freezing

Old chapel ruins on the way down

Edinburgh sunset (it's on a bay, that's the other side in the background)

We woke up super early the next morning and drove up! I don't know where we stopped, but Adi knew all the good places. Our final stop was Loch Ness, where we said hi to Nessie and played in Castle Urquart. We drank lots of hot chocolate and saw lots of rainbows on the way up!!

Doune Castle, where Monty Python was filmed

Rainbow over Urquart Castle

Group Photo

God reminding us He's not going to flood to earth again. Phew!

We were exhausted when we got back. Sammy and I watched a movie and slept a long time. The next day we went to the Scottish Musuem. We saw lots of cool things, like the first cloned sheep "Dolly" who has since been stuffed. We also saw the first chest board and found a lots of cool coins. Oh, and we got our New Year's Eve outfits. You like?

We went home and watched a movie/waited for Adi to get home. Then we cooked dinner and went to our underground tour!! As mentioned before, Edinburgh has a dark history. One of which is an underground city. Once affluent, later abondoned, then reused by the homeless, drug-addicts, prostitutes, and such types of people. It was three stories underground and there were no windows. All the water from the streets washed into the lowest floor (remember they used to throw their poop on the streets) and the average life span of someone living here was 3-6 months. Gross. It was so bad, the cops wouldn't even go in it. Now it's used to give tourists a fright. The lead you in their by candle light and tell you the darkest stories and some of paranormal activity. It was a bit hokey, but we still got a good scare and had a LOT of fun.

After this, we went to pub to hear live music. All in all, the trip was a huge success. We had such a great time and most of it was thanks to our awesome host Adi!! Thanks again!

Boom Goes the Dynamite

About 70 years ago, there was this war... It was kind of world wide, no big deal. It was the second time such a war has happened... Therefore the name "World War Two". Maybe you've heard of it?
 A lot of it took place in the very town I'm living it.

As a result, occasionally when doing construction or the unlucky child is walking through the woods (too soon?) they uncover one. This happened less than a block from where Erik lives:

It weighs a whopping 550 pounds!!!

A similar type of bomb was found earlier this year in  another town in Germany. While trying to excavate it, it was set off and three people were killed. It was a tragic accident that kind of shook up the town. To prevent this from happening, as soon as it was identified the nearby buildings were evacuated (including Erik's building)

After careful inspection, they realized it was unsafe to try to disarm, so they were going to set it off. It was all over the news, but I was working and wasn't able to follow it as closely as I would have liked. Around 10 pm, I was about 1.5 miles away, and I heard a gianormous "BOOM!" I called my host mom. "Christa did you hear that?" "Yes!", she answered. "The entire house shook!" I couldn't believe it. We live about 2 miles from where the bomb is, and our house shook!!!

The next day was very exciting. Everyone wanted to get a look at the aftermath. The police had blocked off the site, but you could get pretty close. Within about a 2 block radius, the downstairs windows of many buildings were broken (including Erik's building, but luckily he's on the 3rd floor).

The view from Erik's building. The bomb was on the other side of the Mc Donalds

Can you see the broken windows?

The smell of smoke and gunpowder was really strong. The next day it started to rain, and poured for the next four days. Four days later, the smell of gunpowder was still there.

I have to say, it was a pretty eye-opening experience. Being American, I have never seen war or the affects of war on my own soil. I see it in movies and hear about it on TV shows, but I have never been through anything close to a war zone. It was brought to my attention that this particular bomb was dropped a few hundred times a day, on one city. That blew my mind. Seeing and feeling the impact of what just one bomb could do, I couldn't imagine having to listen to that blast 100 times.

This is the construction site, but you can see all the blackend walls from the blast.

I guess now I have a better chance of trying to understand the calamities of war. I never really realized how sheltered Americans are. I have no fear of war on American soil. It makes me wonder if people experienced war first hand if we might not get involved in as many as we do. Hmm. Who knows. I don't mean to get all political, I'm just saying. I'm really glad I got to witness this with my own two eyes.

If you're interested, here is a link to the video of the fireball created by the bomb. It's pretty impressive if I do say so myself. You can skip to 19 seconds to just see the blast and the aftermath.