"If Scotland separated from England, would they use the Euro?" (and #24: the Loch Ness monster)

Alrighty. Sorry, it's been a little while.

Yesterday I went on a tourist venture to Loch Ness! We had two busses made up almost entirely of international students. There were about four locals. The man who gave us the tour was a loyal Scot, though he had an English accent.

(Warning: tour re-cap below. If skimming, just skip.)

It was quite an interesting tour. I don't doubt the guide's knowledge at all! He was quite informed. His humor, however, was either lacking the correct crowd or the correct lines.

In the tour we went to Inverness, Loch Ness, a castle called Uruquoy (or something like that), and a battle field, where the last battle on British soil was fought.

I won't ruin anyone's imagination with our enlightenment of Nessie. We took a ferry across Loch Ness and it was a lake. Pretty deep though! The guide said it was just a little less deep than the hills beside it were tall. I was impressed and felt even less like falling in than I had before. The guide also told us about a man who swam the length of the Loch. The first time he did it, it took him 12 hours. He tried again and it took him 10.

The castle had an 8 minute informative film... but all I remember is 1) St. Columba was there at some time and 2) the original owners of the home (castle) were left handed.

The battle field was awesome! The story: Not-Quite-Prince Charles (the son of James, who never inherited the English thrown because he was Catholic) tried to re-claim the English thrown and the Scottish supported him. So he sailed up to Scotland, gathered troops, and worked his way down the country, capturing Edinburgh, York, and many English towns till he got to London. Right before he got to London there was a spy who had turned on him, so he was misinformed of the forces in London and he retreated to the highlands of Scotland. William (something), a duke of England, then met Charles's forces and they battled on the sight, just outside of Inverness. The English won and the country remained Protestant.

In conclusion, if any of you would like to follow our tour guide, you can follow his link on Facebook. Or, wait for it... Second Life. That's right. They're on second life. You can play a Nessie Hunt game on there too (great, right?) He said we may even get the chance to see him on there! (yay)
I don't know much about second life, but for those who don't know anything: Second Life is a virtual reality game thing where you create a character and literally have a second life. (I have enough trouble with my first life, but to each his own). You can travel all around the world on the game, meet all kinds of people... I actually once met a woman on an airplane who was into Second Life. On the game she had met a man and she was on the flight I was on in order to go meet this guy (for the first time face to face).

Ok, that's my re-cap of the tour (plus some). What else.

Food commentary: (I promise my whole blog won't be about food, but I have to get over the initial shock.) So I'm sure everyone has heard the saying, "You can't mess up bread." Well... Yes, yes you can. And they did.  Now, in defense of the Scottish, they do make scones (a kind of bread, thing) quite well. So they do not, by any means, mess up ALL bread. BUT, the dining service (catered food on meal plan), they mess up bread quite skillfully.  The first morning I walked down for breakfast, I was SO excited. I LOVE breakfast. Then I got to breakfast.

For breakfast, on one table, they serve a variety of cereals, which includes corn flakes, rice crispies, wheatabix (a brick of various grains somehow stuck together), and a common english cereal (oats full of raisins). You then walk inside to the buffet-style area and there is an arrangement of toast under heat lamps. But the heat lamps are actually quite cold, or somehow do not do their job properly.  Past that there is yogurt, then fruit (YAY), then individual tubs full of jelly (much too much for one person to consume).

So, the first morning I decided to go for the bread-- good solid choice, right? No. I went for a piece of toast, which I think had been toasted the night before. I couldn't bite into the crust area so I attempted to peel that off. This turned into crumbling it off, but all the same it came off-- eventually. The center was then a bit chewy, but, it was food. The next day, I decided to go for a roll.. Maybe these would be heated, or soft, or something. No. The outside was much like the crust of the toast and there was very little inside to be spoken for. Finally, I decided to try this little trifle that was wrapped in plastic. Each was individually wrapped ant it looked like a flat biscuit- can't go wrong with a biscuit of any type, right? No. They had somehow doused the food item in salt. Now I like salt, but I don't know how you put that much salt into something. It was like what I imagine eating a soy sauce biscuit would taste like. So, that said, I've steered clear of the bread items (probably for the best all around).

There's also dinner (we are not served lunch) but I will save dinner for another blog. I'm sure this one is getting lengthy enough.

Now, quickly, back to the quote above.

As I said, our tour guide was quite the proud Scotsman.  Throughout the tour he made jabs at the English. He mentioned with pride that Scotland was the oldest existing kingdom in the world. He also corrected many common misconceptions (or misinformation). For example, there is a flower called "Sweet William," which actually, should correctly be called "Stinking William." (For you plant people out there, now you know.)

So, at the end of the tour, I went to ask the guide a question because I needed to clear something up. I didn't expect him to talk as much as he did (though I should have expected this). And before I knew it, he and I were having a hypothetical discussion of what an independent Scotland would look like. He said all they wanted was to be a Parliamentary Monarchy, like Canada, because Elizabeth could actually trace her roots back to Scottish rule, so they had no problem with her authority as head of state. But they want their own head of government. He also mentioned many times that the leading party of Scotland is the Scottish Nationalist Party. We then moved on to economic measures, discussing whether they would choose the euro or not. And he said with joy and a chuckle, "I would love to make the English change their money when they crossed the border." He smiled to himself at the thought. I nodded my head. I felt like I was in the U.S. standing with an old southern rebel, who was just waiting for the south to finally secede. He told me, "You've been warned. Don't be surprised if you hear about it."

So, you've now been warned too. Don't be surprised :)

I like to think it looks more like this

Bog