UPDATED: Do Scottish men where anything under those kilts?

UPDATE: The unknown castle has been named, the Inverness Castle, let's all give the man named David a big high-five for his help with that one.

Alas, I have gone and returned from the land of Tartan (plaid) and Haggis (which I did not eat but tried the tiniest bite of Alexis' and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted and if you don't know what Haggis is google it b/c I don't think I can stomach explaining it). Anywho's, Scotland in a nutshell = AMAZING. I fell in love with that place the moment I stepped off the train. It is so beautiful, especially the Highlands. Beautiful as in "No words can describe the breathtaking amazingness of it so beautiful must suffice" kind of beauty. All of the Lochs (lakes) are gorgeous and I had no idea Loch Ness was so HUGE! Really ginormous.

So I ran around the city, around some castle ruins, around an intact castle, visited a pub, listened to a Scottish rock band at said pub and had a great time! A good time in fact, that I almost missed out on.

Witness this photo below:

This is Alexis and I on our train that departed from Kings Cross at 6:15 AM! Yup, so we had to be there at 5:45 AM! No biggie, eh? Wrong. Worst. Morning. Ever. I set my alarm the night before but this genius forgot to turn the damn thing on! So I roll over in the morning, stretch, and glance at the clock to see how much longer I can snooze and just about have a coronary when the clock flashes all evil-like at me that it's 4:55 am. Yeah, awesome. So I shoot out of bed, throw on some clothes, shove the last minute things in my bag, swallow a bowl of cereal and am out of the door by 5:20 to make my hike up to the tube station. I'm huffin' and puffin' and get to the tube station only to realize my station doesn't open until just before 6. Well crap, so then I had to run down the road to Kings Cross, and at this point it was just after 5:30 and I was going to be so pissed if I missed my train. Needless to say, I arrived at Kings Cross in time, sweaty as a mo' fo' and seriously cranky. But it was all worth it b/c it was awesome. So much so I'm planning to go back at the end of March w/ some friends!

I took a ton of photos, but here are a smattering of them below:

English Countryside out the train window.

Our tour guide on our initial bus tour of the city. Awesome.

Inside a beautiful old cathedral that is in the process of being restored.

Edingburgh

The band we saw. I could have listened to the chatter on the mic all night!

The next batch are from my tour of the highlands. Gorgeous, breathtaking, and really windy! We saw like 3 different rainbows!

Told you it was windy!

This my friends, is a free shot of Whiskey at a tourist stop along our tour. How cool is that!?

A fairy bridge! No joke, that's what it is.

Loch Ness! Can you see nessie?

The ruins of Urquhart Castle.

Loch Ness from the ruins. Did you spot nessie yet??

Here she is!

yet another scottish castle, no idea what one.

Us being sad that our bus was broken. We lost all gumption and were going up hills at like 10 mph. No bueno. Needless to say we met up w/ another coach and switched.

These photos are from the Edinburgh Castle!

View of Edinburgh from the Castle on the Rock.

Now just imagine you're a gunman defending the castle!

Trapped in the prisoners barracks in the castle!

View down The Royal Mile, with Edinburgh Castle on one end and Holyrood Palace on the other.

Holyrood Palace

And that's all folks! Hope you enjoyed the ol' photos. I'm off to pass out because after 3 days of running around the Scottish countryside followed by 2 days chalk full of mind-numbing classes... I'm freaking pooped.

Plus I'm going shopping tomorrow and really we all know I need to preserve my energy for the elbowing and shoving that comes w/ bargain buys. :)