Scotland and Ireland (so far)

Scotland was beautiful. We woke up Tuesday morning (the 19th) at 3:00am in order to catch a ferry to the Isle of Islay (pronounced eye-luh). Once on Islay we drove the length of the island (a good 45 minutes) to the Laphroaig distillery. David was pretty much about to pee his pants he was so excited. We toured the distillery, which actually wasn't running. Apparently they take a month off every year to clean and reorganize but this enabled us to see things and go in places we would not have been able to had they been running. One amazing thing (apparently) is that we were able to go in the storehouse. We saw all of the barrels of aging whiskey, and even HRH The Prince of Wales' (Charles') barrel of Laphroaig. Interestingly enough (to us and maybe Steven and Justin but probably no one else) it was Charles who started the friend of Laphroaig (FOL) program. We also pulled on some bogs and wandered out to David's plot of land that acquired through the FOL program. Check out the smile on this kid's face.

After we left Islay we drove a good three and a half hours north to Loch Ness and the city of Inverness. Sadly (and much to David's dismay) we did not see Nessie. The loch is extremely long and quite and interesting and curvy drive. Sometimes you are 80 feet above the water and sometimes the water is almost level with the road.

We spent one night in Inverness and then drove back down Scotland to St. Andrews. The town is much more touristy than we expected (though in hindsight we should have expected it). There are cathedral and castle ruins as well as the famous "Old Course" golf course.

From St. Andrews we drove to Stirling to see the Wallace Monument. It's tall. We walked to the top of the mountain (hill) that the monument is on but did not pay the euros to climb the tower (and see his sword... we almost paid just to see his sword).

After Stirling we drove to Edinburgh where we ate at the Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote the first few Harry Potter books!! The bathrooms were graffitied with numerous notes to Rowling, quotes from the books, and professions of love for the characters and actors. Besides totally geeking out all throughout dinner, Edinburgh was a delightfully beautifully city. 

We rose early again to catch our plane to Ireland. We landed in Dublin and promptly found our way to the Guinness factory for David's second favorite part of the trip. We spent a whopping four hours wandering the Guinness Storehouse, learning to pour our own Guinness, and drinking Guinness. 

We left Guinness to meet up with my family members (one aunt, a cousin/aunt, and a cousin) who were in Ballyvaughan, County Clare. We had a slow, easy night with them and ate at a local pub. The next morning we woke up and drove to the Cliffs of Moher. Talk about tall. And steep. And deadly. We saw many a foolish tourist wandering close to the edge, sitting with their legs dangling off, and laying on their stomaches to look over. At 702 feet tall, I don't need to be even close to the edge. They were quite stunning, however.

Our next stop was to be County Kerry but we stopped in Ennis for lunch in honor of the Kevorkians. It was quite a nice town and happened to be where we made our official keepsake purchase. A new paperback set of Harry Potter illustrated by a famous Scottish artist! (If you would like to see pictures of the artwork, all you need to do is ask. We have, of course, taken pictures of the fronts and backs of the books! And if you're thinking to yourself, "Don't they already have a hardback set and a paperback set of these crazy books?" don't be ridiculous.)

Next we drove to Killarney, County Kerry where we are currently. We had a slow day yesterday after we arrived and woke this morning ready to see more of Ireland. We drove about four hours around the Ring of Kerry (impressive in some places, boring in others) this morning. We stopped at an old fort along the way and encountered our first group of sheep in the middle of the road. Once we circled back into Killarney we did some shopping, ate dinner, and are now about to fall into bed.

We have three more days in Ireland (one more day in Kerry, one day in Cork/Waterford, and one more day in Dublin) and one more day in London left before we come home (and get to see our darling puppy we miss ever so much).