First Trip to the Highlands

For Katie's birthday on September 26th, we decided to do a day trip to the highlands with one of the many tour groups in Edinburgh. The tour took us to a few different places including Glencoe, Fort William, Fort Augustus and Loch Ness. It gave us a nice taste of the highlands, but it made us realize that renting a car and doing our own tour is a much better option. The tour lasted 12 hours but covered a lot of miles and was mostly spent in the van, with a few short breaks for food and picture opportunities.

The first stop was to meet Hamish the highland 'coo'. Hamish has in interesting history. Back during the days of Mad Cow Disease, the government decided that the best way to deal with it was to kill all cows under the age of two. Hamish was under two, but as he was already a famous tourist attraction, the workers of the coffee shop next to his home petitioned for the government to spare Hamish. They did, as long as he never came into contact with other cows, and now 12 or so years later Hamish is still a lonely tourist attraction.

While we drove to our next destination, Glencoe, our tour guide told us about something called Make Tracks Scotland. It is a company that offers independent walking holidays throughout the highlands and other parts of Scotland. Some of the tours take 8 or 9 days, walking anywhere from 12-20 miles a day. It is a great way to see parts of Scotland that you can only see by foot. There are no wolves or other predators in Scotland, which makes walking through the highlands a relatively safe thing. On our drive we saw three people who were making the journey from Glasgow to Inverness.


Glencoe was beautiful, but has a rather bloody past. We won't go into great detail, you can look it up if you want, but the basis of the story is that in 1692 the highland chiefs were ordered to sign an oath to King William...or else. Because of bad weather, among other things, the chief of clan MacDonald of Glencoe was late in signing the oath. Captain Campbell and his men were ordered to go live with the MacDonald clan, where they were at first told to collect taxes. The Campbells lived with the families for two weeks before they recieved word from the King that they were to slaughter the clan for being late in signing the oath. In all, 38 men were killed in their homes or as they were trying to flee and 40 women and children died of exposure. It is now nicknamed the Weeping Glen.
The next major stop was Fort Augustus, home of the famous Loch Ness. It's amazing to be able to visit places you've heard about your entire life. Loch Ness is probably one of the most famous places in all of Scotland. Fort Augustus is rather small, definitaly a tourist town. Part of the bus tour was a boat ride on the famous loch. Before we got on the boat we bought fish and chips and ate them overlooking the loch. Neither of us are huge fans of fish, but this was amazing! And not just because it was covered in batter, the fish actually tasted good by itself. The chips were also amazing. The best chips we have ever had, and after trying a few fish and chip shops in Edinburgh, they are still the best chips. We can't even describe why, they were just amazing! The boat tour was about an hour long. Loch Ness is actually a HUGE loch. It is more than 700 ft deep and 23 miles long. Lots of room for Nessie to hide in. Unfortunately, we didn't have any sightings of the legendary monster.
After a few more stops for photos, we were on our way back to Edinburgh. It was a long day and at times it was difficult to stay awake on the bus but we had a great time and were happy to be able to see the mountains we have read and dreamed about for years. It was definitaly a birthday to remember!

Settling In

We are now two months and two days into our yearlong adventure. Time has flown by! We will quickly fill you in on some details of the first two months.

When we arrived in Edinburgh we went straight to our hostel, which was downtown, right beside the main shopping area called Princes St. We each had two big suitcases, a carry-on, and a purse. The bus dropped us off around the corner from our hostel and we had to practically drag our bags to the front door and up two flights of stairs. It was then that we realized we brought way too much stuff! This was our first experience with a hostel and we were a little apprehensive about it. The thought of sharing a room with 6 other females did not sound like a lot of fun, but we actually had a really good time. There were four other girls in our room who were from Italy, France and a mother and daughter from Spokane, Washington. We all got along really well and we had a good time getting to know them.

Before we left Canada we had set up an appointment to view a flat at 6:30 the day we arrived. It ended up being the flat that we chose and now happily live in. We stayed at the hostel for five days before we moved into the flat. Those first five days we acted like tourists and walked around different parts of the city, taking pictures of the amazing old buildings.

The first few days were the hardest emotionally. We were in this strange new country, on our own, with no idea what we were doing or where we were going to live. The excitement of being in Scotland was overshadowed by the huge tasks of finding a flat, handing out CVs (resumes) and opening up a bank account. On the third day here, while taking the bus back to our hostel, Katie saw a sign at The Playhouse, which is a live theatre, for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. This was one of our favourite movies as kids so we knew we had to go see a live production of it. It was amazing and incredibly funny and brought a little bit of home to Scotland.
After setting up our bank account, the next step was to start looking for a job. We started handing our CVs out on Tuesday September 23 and neither of us got a phone call for an interview until October 23. A month of looking for a job with no positive feedback is very stressful! Amy got the first phone call and was offered the job at the interview. She is waitressing at a restuarant in one of the malls. Katie got a call the next day and is working in retail. Payment for both jobs is done monthly, so we will have gone almost three months without a paycheck. We don't advise anyone trying this! Soon, though, we will be able to jet off to London, Paris or Rome for the weekend and get some more stamps on our passports.