I Went to Scotland!

I got to go to Scotland! One of my all-time dreams came true! Steve started a new job in January with Baker Hughes and his boss is in Scotland, so Steve had to go for a week for work and I tagged along. I wanted to see the country, not just the tourist sites, so we rented a car and drove all around the country - we put almost 800 miles on the rental car. It was amazing!

We flew from Houston to Amsterdam and then to Aberdeen. We landed in Aberdeen about 10 am and spent the day driving to Inverness, in the Highlands.

 

One of the first things I noticed was that there were windmills all over the country. Apparently farmers put them up on land that isn't being used or can't be used for much else.

And the second thing I noticed was that there were sheep everywhere! It's hard to see them, but they are up on the hill in the pasture. 

And it had recently snowed! I mentioned the snow to the owner of the bed and breakfast we stayed at the first night and he said it was the "lambing snow." They often get snow in the spring during lambing season.

There were stone walls everywhere - both on the sides of the roads and separating pastures. I loved them! The country lanes are fairly narrow and there isn't much of a shoulder on the sides of the roads. Very scary, especially when you're driving on the wrong side of the road, in a car with manual transmission that you have to shift with your left hand! I'm so glad I didn't have to do any of the driving! We weren't able to stop and take photos like I wanted because there wasn't anywhere to stop other than right in the road. I'm actually surprised that I got as many decent photos as I did while we were driving.

This road had a bit more shoulder but still not enough to stop for a photo.

These are some typical homes in small towns we drove through. This is in Huntly. Notice that they park on the side of the road taking up one of the lanes. And they park facing both directions! Whatever is convenient I guess!

This is part of the Gordon School in Huntly.

We drove by this church, the Church of Scotland - Kirk of Keith, St. Rufus.

This was the first castle we saw - Brodie Castle. We actually stopped to take this photo :)

We made it to the Highlands of Scotland!

We found a place to stop to take this photo too. I loved the stone walls separating the pastures and flocks of sheep!

We stopped for lunch at this pub and had the very typical fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce. The tartar sauce was really good.

Apparently it is tradition to serve fish and chips with peas. Every time we saw anyone eating fish and chips throughout our trip, they always had peas :)

Scottish Gorse was in bloom EVERYWHERE! It's a large spiny, evergreen shrub. I was sad that heather doesn't bloom until late summer so I didn't get to see it.

We made it to Inverness, home of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster!

Our bed and breakfast was in Dores, across the street from the shores of Loch Ness.

This is the view of Loch Ness from our bedroom window.

We drove back to Inverness for dinner. We chose a restaurant at a hotel because it had a place to park!

I had cream of root vegetable soup with brown bread. It was delicious!

It was just getting dark when we got back to the bed and breakfast, so we took a quick walk down to the Loch for a few photos.

This sign was near the entrance to our bed and breakfast. I thought the day care center sign was cute.

We saw lots of funny signs around Scotland including this one. This is a common sign without the little alien! Not sure if someone added it or what :)

This is the sign for the bed and breakfast we stayed at - our first night in Scotland!