I'm back and let me just tell you... Scotland is AMAZING... but I'm happy to be back in Dublin...

Greetings from Scotland!! (well, not really, because we're back in Dublin now)

Well, ladies and gents. I am back from my holiday in Scotland. This is my favorite picture of the entire trip, and it was the last day. This was a stray dog that Darko befriended at the Millrace lodge in Navan. You'll hear more about that in a bit.

After a fun night of drinking on Sunday with the Swedes and other random travelers, we went to the airport at midnight, Sunday night/early Monday morning. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30 in the morning, so we had some time to spare. Apparently there were a number of other travelers who had the same idea as us, to go to the airport and sleep, because there were no chairs left to sprawl out on. Therefore, we ended up on the floor. Since he is a boy, and apparently boys can sleep anywhere regardless of the surface, Darko fell fast asleep. I guess it helped that he was still a bit drunk from that night's festivities. I actually was able to sleep a bit as well, but I was awoken at about 2:3o by policemen asking to see our passports, to make sure we were actually at the airport for a reason. I had to wake Darko to get his passport, but shortly after that he was fast asleep again. I on the other hand, remained awake, and freezing. We were beside an open door, and we were on tile floors. Not a good combination when it's minus 30 degrees outside. Just kidding. It wasn't really THAT cold, but it was close. So I sit and listen to my ipod for a bit, occasionally getting up to walk around. We had decided to check in around 5, but at 4:30 I seriously thought I was going to freeze to death, so I woke Darko up, probably not a good idea, and we checked in for our flight. We were both a little irritated at that point, and I was a little worried this would have a bearing on the trip. BUT, it didn't. We both cheered up and began enjoying our time together. The flight took off on time and within an hour or so we had landed in Edinburgh Scotland. It was cold there. Colder than here in Dublin, but not entirely unmanageable. We jumped on the bus and headed into the city.

On the bus into the city, my Feder-bear went everywhere with us. Don't judge me.

This was me on the bus, after twenty four hours without showering, being up all night long, and managing a bit of a hangover. I think I look pretty good, considering.

We arrive at the hostel around 9, and our check in wasn't supposed to occure until 2, so, again, we had a bit of time to spare. Before leaving the airport, Darko had bought some really disgusting coffee. Not by choice of course, but still. At that point we needed a good cup of brew. So Darko invited me to Starbucks. We both had some really good coffee, and I said "You know why it's good? Because it's American." He started to laugh, but only because he knew it was true. So we hung out at Starbucks and then decided to walk around a bit. We made our way up high street and ended up at the castle on the hill. Let me pause here a second and tell you a little about the geography of Edinburgh. Everything is on a hill. I swear to god. You have to walk up steep STEEP hills to get anywhere. The only plus side to walking up the hills, is that when you get to leave, it's mostly downhill. The castle was no exception. However, the hill was not nearly as bad as it looked from the bus when we were coming into the city. We went to the castle. We didn't actually go in because it was 11 pounds (22 dollars) to go in and look around, and really, that wasn't necessary. So we just took some pics from outside. There was this cool horse statue that I told Darko to climb up on and sit, so that I could take a picture, but he didn't and this was as close as he got. Now, what's cool about this shot is that I sent my mother a postcard with this statue on it. I'm hoping she puts that, as well as this picture in the scrapbook. That, at least, was my intention when sending her the postcard. Hint hint, mother.

Considering we had both been awake for a while, with not much sleep, we decided to head back to the hostel. It was only about 11:30 at this point, so we still had some time. I fell asleep on one of the chairs, and Darko slept on the couch, until 2 when we were finally admitted into our room. After that we both desperately needed to shower. So we took showers, had some lunch, and headed back out. So we were just wandering around and we came upon a theatre, as in a stage theatre, not a movie theatre. Now we all know how much I love the theatre, but what most of you don't know is that SO DOES DARKO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!! AND the show FAME had premiered that night and was going to be on all week. So I desperately begged Darko to take me, which wasn't that difficult considering he loves musicals just as much as I do. So we bought tickets for Thursday night, and I was as happy as a clam. At this point it was around 7:30 and we decided to look for a pub. Now, in Dublin, there is SERIOUSLY a pub about every other shop. Not so much in Edinburgh. We kept walking and walking and had not seen any pubs. Finally we stopped and asked, and were directed, up a hill, to what seemed like typically scottish pub. We went in, had one drink, decided we were exhausted, and left to go to sleep. That was Monday.

I forgot something. When we were booking our hostel we booked a 16 bed dorm, like we always do, because they are cheaper and not nearly as bad as one would think. BUT, when we got there and checked in, they had put us in a four bed room with another couple, and I don't think they charged us more for it. AND, there was one other couple in the room, but they left Tuesday morning, and we had the room to ourselves until Friday night. I seriously felt like we were on a honeymoon.

This was a memorial built for Sir Walter Scott. It was hard to get the entire thing, but this was the best angle.

Tuesday was slightly uneventful. We went to the gallery of art, and tried to decide what kind of tours we wanted to take. The art gallery was really nice. It had a few Titians, El Greco's, and Rembrandts. It was definitely not a waste of time. We sat for a while on the benches outside the gallery and talked for a while and discussed what we would do the following day. We concluded that we should take a tour of the highlands, so that's what we did. We booked the trip and then had some lunch. Our lunch consisted of scottish food at this adorable little Scottish pub, where Darko had Haggis, Neeps, and tatties (yeah, don't ask, cause really I'm not sure what they are) and I just had a chicken sandwhich. Since we had to get up early for our tour the next morning, we called it an early night on Tuesday.

The next morning we left for our tour at 8:15 in the morning. Up until that point I really hadn't heard that many Scottish accents, but the tour guide was a born and raised native, so he had a nice thick one. The highlands tour was amazing. The scenery was beautiful and it was so nice to just sit back and enjoy everything. All of the pictures of that tour are on facebook. I'll put some of the better ones up here.

8:15 in the morning, waiting for the bus.

Isn't this just adorable. I told you, Feder-Bear, everywhere.

Who thinks it looks like there was a picture of scenery and then Darko was cut out and placed in front of it?

We stopped for a bit of a rest.

There was a tour of a Whiskey Brewery. However, Darko and I had both seen breweries before. So instead of actually going on the tour, we found the bar and made our way through a few shots of whiskey on our own. This was the result :-)

This was the big yellow bus we spent most of the day on. How Pretty.

While on the tour, at one of the stops, Darko bought my Feder-Bear a companion. It should be noted that this is the first present he's bought me. I will treasure it always.

The highlands tour was so great. I would recommend it to anyone. We got back to Edinburgh around 5:30 and hung out for a while at the hostel. We made dinner and had a quiet evening in.

Thursday was bad. I was having one of those days. You know, the kind of day when nothing goes right and you just want to kill everyone around you. We went to visit some ruins, and I was irritated before we even left the hostel. And then it started to rain, and the wind was ridiculous, after it had been sunny not two minutes before. So then, the ruins, of course were up a hill, and then some steps, and then another hill. I wanted to kill someone, and it just so happened that Darko was the only person around me. If he had said "Come Katie", one more time, I seriously think I would have thrown either himself or myself off the side of the cliff we were walking up. I was so irritated. I knew I just needed to be alone for a little while, so at lunch I told Darko I was just going to walk around for a bit by myself. It worked. I walked around for an hour or so and was good as new. I had to be better, FAME was that night.

The play was good. The music was amazing as was the dancing. I think there was a problem with the sound system though. A lot of the songs were really hard to understand and I think it had to do with the fact that the actual MUSIC was much to loud, you couldn't hear the people singing. It was a bit frustrating at times, but still. When you could understand the words the songs were amazing, and when you couldn't, you knew they were good. I would definitely tell people to see FAME. It's a good show.


I need to pause here again. I can't tell you how much I laughed on Thursday night. Earlier in the week I made the mistake of saying that if he went to America, everyone would think that Darko was Russian. He was saying that he thought he had a pretty good American accent, and I said "No, people would automatically know you weren't American, and chances are they would think you were Russian". So, he actually started talking with a Russian accent, and started saying things that were so stereotypically Russian, that I just laughed and laughed. And he wouldn't stop. When you guys meet him, he'll have to do it for you. When you first meet him you don't really think about what his accent sounds like until you hear him talk with a different one, and realize it's not the same. I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants walking home from the theatre. I wish I could describe how funny it was. Man. I'm lauging just thinking about it now.



Friday we had lunch at Pizza Hut. That's right. I got him to eat American food, and he liked it. Then we did some shopping and talked about going to the zoo, but stayed at the hostel for a while instead. Everyone knows what a pub crawl is, correct? When you go to a bunch of different pubs in one area. They always have them advertised in hostels, but Darko and I decided to do one on our own. At around 7 we headed out and made the decision to just stop at the first pub we came to, have one drink, move on to the next, etc. Pub crawls in general are not very good ideas because you tend to drink A LOT. This was no exception. At every single bar we stopped at I had a pint of bulmers and a shot of Sambuca, except for one that didn't have Sambuca, at which I had some Jack Daniels instead, bleh. Raise your hand if you know what Sambuca is. It is the BEST liquere EVER. It tastes like liquorice and has a very sweet, like candy, after taste. It's dangerous because it hardly tastes of alcohol at all. So yes, by about the third pub I was feeling good, and by the sixth, I was gone. The last thing I clearly remember is taking four shots of Sambuca in a five minute period at the last pub we went to. I was COMPLETELY gone, as was Darko. I'm surprised we even made it back to the hostel. I vaguely remember getting in a taxi cab. At least we were coherent enough to do that, instead of trying to find our way home in a drunken stupor. That was our last night in Scotland, and sadly, we didn't take my camera, one because we had only like 10 pics left on my card, and two because we didn't want to lose it. We probably would have lost it.



The next morning was NOT fun. I wanted to die, and Darko remembered only 4 of the 6 pubs we had gone to. I on the other hand, could remember every single one. We spent, wait for it, 100 pounds. That ladies is 200 DOLLARS!!!! In four hours, for two people. I can't believe it, and Darko was convinced he'd been robbed because he couldn't remember some of the pubs we went to. 100 pounds. The ONLY time I've ever spent more than like 40 dollars drinking was at Toni's bachlorette party, and there was five of us drinking for like 8 hours. 100 POUNDS in FOUR HOURS for TWO PEOPLE was ridiculous. We were acting like we were millionaires. I can't say that I regret it though. I had the time of my life. I was not looking forward to getting on a plane though. We left Edinburgh at around 10:30 and headed to the airport to go back to Dublin.

This was Saturday March 17th. Who can tell me what day that was? That's right. St. Paddy's Day. Who can tell me what that means? That's right. There wasn't a single bed available in the ENTIRE city of Dublin. Instead of sleeping on the streets, we decided to leave the city and extend our holiday a bit. We went to Navan, a little town about 40 minutes outside of Dublin. We stayed at this place called the Millrace Lodge. It was so nice. Again, we had booked to stay in a dorm style room for like 20 euro a night, but this lodge is family owned and we were picked up in the town by the woman who owns the place, and she said she had worked it out so that we weren't in the dorm rooms. That's right. We stayed in the equivalent of a double room for 40 euro a night. A room like that in Dublin would have run 80-150 Euro, and we stayed there for 40. It was so nice. And because it was family owned and what not, the owner sat and talked with us, and got our opinion of the place, because this is her first season doing the hostel thing, and treated us really well. There was free internet, and a HUGE shower, that Darko and I were quick to take advantage of. We didn't do much while we were at the lodge, because it was snowing and neither one of us wanted to leave, but it was so comfy at the lodge that we just relaxed for the last two days of our holiday.


This morning we jumped on a bus and that is when our holiday officially ended. I am sad, as is he, that we are now back to reality. We both have to work tomorrow morning, and that is not going to be fun considering we haven't gotten up before like 10 for the past week. But it has to be done. We can't be on holiday forever. I can't wait for our next trip. I think it's going to be Rome in May to see the tennis tournament. Scotland was so awesome. I am so glad we went. I really think it was good for our relationship, and I just can't wait to do it again.

In closing, I would like to say that the following picture is the best picture I've ever taken of Darko. I always tell him that he looks so much better when he smiles, and this picture is proof of it. I look disgusting in it, which is why I am cut out, but he just looks stunning. I wish he would show his pearly whites in ever picture. But he won't.