Highlands

First of all, we yanks say Edinburrow, and the Scots say Eninburra. No hard Gs.

I really loved the highlands. The Glencoe mountain area is one of the most beautiful places I've even been to. It's so vast and empty and pristine. It's one of those places that taking pictures just seems silly because nothing is ever going to be as good.

Highland cows are awesome--they're furry.

Our driver, Jerry, talked about William Wallace and all the historical inaccuracies of Braveheart. The bigs ones are that he wouldn't have worn a kilt and tartan because he was a lowlander and only the highlanders wore that "traditional" stuff. And only the Picts ever painted their faces blue, and by then they were long gone. The Picts were the ancient celtic tribes of Scotland. Jerry still liked the movie though.

He also talked about Rob Roy. I really had no idea that he was a real person. He was a minor clan chief way back when and that meant that he was responsible for taking care of his whole village, but up in the highlands there aren't really any jobs, and there weren't then either. So he would rob the cattle drivers that went through the area. But then he would have his peeps protect then on the rest of their journey so that the would only get robbed once per trip.

We passed the town where Ewen McGreggor was born.

There was a massacre up there somewhere in 1692. The Campbells killed 70 of the McDonalds and I guess to this day there are some McDonalds in the service industries that will not serve a Campbell no matter where they are from.

There is more water in Loch Ness than all the rivers and lakes of all of England combined. The first time anybody reported to have seen Nesse was in 565AD. It was St. Columba who said he say a man getting pulled into the lake by a monster so he said some prayer and signed a cross so she got scared and swam away.

Apparently the real King Macbeth was actually a very kind, fair, and gentle man.

They speak the best English in the country in Inverness.

I think that the city of Perth is really cool. It's only had the title of city for three weeks now. It's the ancient capital of Scotland though, and it's where the kings were all crowned. They didn't sit on thrown, they had the Stone of Destiny. The damned English took it when they took over Scotland and the Scots only got it back a few years ago, but instead of taking it back to Perth where they got it, the English took it to Edinburgh--the modern capital--and the stone is now in with a crown and some other things in the crown jewel tank at the castle.

Barnton is an area in Edinburgh where the rich people live. We drove through it on the way back into the city and Jerry told us that the most recent newcomer is JK Rowling who spent 3 million pounds on a house to live in, and 1 million pounds on the house next door which she demolished in order to plant a bigger garden for herself. She is richer than and queen of England now.