Ok, so today I promised pictures!

I woke up early and was taken to the railroad station to hop on the first train from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The train was a mere hour and in no time I was there where I was met with my friend Chris. He and I go waaaaaaaaaaay back. He went to IU while I was there (I’ve known him since I was a freshman). He’s currently in Scotland with his girlfriend, Emma, waiting for classes to start in his PhD program at St. Andrews (where Prince William studied and this university will be celebrating it’s six hundredth anniversary).

Before we hopped back on the train to meet with Emma, he took me outside of the train station to show me this:

It’s a square in Glasgow made to look like a part of Philadelphia. Why? This is the set of a new Brad Pitt movie. I know! How exciting! Sadly that hawt hawt actor wasn’t there, but I thought I’d share that along.

Anyway, we got back on the train and headed to Emma’s place. I have to add a little note here saying that I immediately liked her. This trip was to be the first time we were to meet. Chris had been talking about her incessantly for months now (even while he was still in Indiana). So obviously, I had a lot of expectations of her. So yeah…I really liked her. The two of us hit it off immediately which gave me a great sense of relief. This gave me a good idea of how our trip together was going to be.

So we hopped in Emma’s MINI (another reason why she’s awesome) and made the 2.5 hour drive (not along this time!!!!) from Glasgow to Appin. Here are some pictures I took of the Scottish Highlands:

Chris and Emma in the front.

Eventually we made to Appin. Why did we go? I wanted to see the castle that resided there: Castle Stalker. Why? Well, you have to have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail to understand it. If you have not: Watch the first few minutes of this video…

Our end goal was Oban and I was pleased to find out that this castle was a mere 30 minutes outside of the city. So we took a quick detour:

This is about as close as we could get. The castle is privately owned and is only opened to the public a few times a year….this was not one of those times 😦 Honestly, I didn’t care, I just wanted to see it.

Once we finished, we headed straight for Oban:

The three of us climbed the valley where Oban sits in order to take these last two photos. At the top was a coliseum type building that we wanted to investigate. We took pictures inside:

By the way, this is Chris and Emma.

Chris decided to be photographer for the day (concerning the photo of Emma and I).

We looked around the city, visited a couple pubs and got our tickets set up for our big tour tomorrow (the main reason why we are in Oban).

We decided to turn in early because Chris wasn’t feeling too good and I haven’t been sleeping much the last few nights. But I wanted to catch up on my blogs so I was glad for the early night.

There will be more tomorrow on our three island tour!!

besos,

MLT

Location:Cameron Guest House, Oban, Scotland