Castle Trip

Wow! might have been the best weekend of my life. People kept asking me if I was going to go on the castle trip. I finally realized that I might like to go...unfortunately I decided this just over a week before the actually trip was going to occur. I got really lucky and when I covertly asked Jim if there were any more tickets available he said he did have one cancellation and that If I swung by his office the next morning he would let my buy the ticket. So I got up early and got the ticket.
thus after my Treasury Management test Friday morning (which I just learned I apparently failed miserably...I need a 50% to pass the class by Clemson Standards and I got a 37% on the test....it counts for 20% of the class grade...I'm a little worried about it) said test ended around 11:15 so I ran back to my room and "man packed" which involved grabbing cloths and stuffing them into my backpacking backpack in a hurried unfolded way. The cloths felt very unloved by this, but it allowed me to sprint down the street to George Square in time to gather with the rest of the internationals by noon.
There were almost 150 of us which required three buses. Having left Mike and Scott behind at the Uni. (that's what they call it here...For example Uni work = school work) I was quick to fall in with flat 4D a group of mostly American girls who dwell above Scott. I took to joining Christy and Colleen in singing (I later learned that they successfully annoyed some American Midwesterners sitting in front of them) and talking with Lori (Kristen myself and Lori pictured). Kristen had a really cool electronic book which held 53 different books (no back light so its easy on the eyes) so she seemed content to stay out of the general going ons of the bus. A side note about her...we had a group project and she pretty much did the entire thing before we met to do it, she said she did it to avoid doing other homework...I personally think she could use a lesson in proper procrastination...but then I'll bet really successful people are more like that...she'll probably never get a 37% on a test...and I swear I put in several hours of quality studying (end side note). I also got to know Federica an Italian girl who ended up sitting next to me. She just got here 3 weeks ago and is doing rather well with her English. I made fun of her talking with her hands as much as she did...I'm not sure if its the Italian or just trying to express what she means...or both.
The trip through the highlands was beautiful. Jim told us some history about ruins we passed, and we saw some oil rigs that were under construction. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks and to stock up on extra snack food. 8 hours after we left George Square we arrived at the Carbisdale Castle. It really didn't seem like that long of a trip thanks to all the interesting conversation and singing.
The Carbisdale Castle is now owned by the youth hostel association. Jim gave us a brief history of the castle before leading those of us who wanted to on a walk out a half mile to see the castle floodlit and look at the stars. It was a cloudless night and there is almost no light pollution up in highlands, the moon was also not around to outshine the stars so the number of stars out was totally breath taking. Oh and the castle was pretty...but the stars were fabulous.
The Castle History: Apparently lady Cabisdale managed to marry into nobility by marrying the duke of Sutherland. He died of a shooting accident (as did her previous husband) and left everything in his will to her, Well his family was not pleased by this so they hired good lawyers and worked out a deal where they got their land and castle back if in exchange they built her a place that was up to her standard of living, hence the Carbisdale Castle. The side of the clock tower that faces the Sutherland castle has no clock on it because "she wouldn't give them the time off day". Anyway she sold it shortly after it was built (because she married some other guy to run off too new york with) to a famous whaling family and they in turn donated it years later to the youth hostel association. The castle came complete with a secret door that opened with you tipped a certain statue...it unfortunately broke (the door that is) about five years ago. There is also rumored a resident lady ghost, a carpet has been seen wrinkling towards guests and there have been reports of strange rocking sounds coming from the room that once was the nursery. unfortunate none of these events happened (to my knowledge) while we stayed there.
Anyway I slept well in our room with 12 guys with the exception of having to get up early to grab breakfast before heading off to do the days events.
We started off with breakfast and then a nature hike around the castle and through the forest and pasture lands that surround it. It was here that I played "Hey Cow" scoring only 2 points (you get a point for every cow that looks at you). I met Yuri (cool Asian girl) because of this, she still thinks that I made up the game to explain my insanity of screaming "hey cow" really loudly. She now calls me "Cow" and if she's feeling nice "Cow Boy" so I have taken to calling her "cow girl. " Anyway, we were all given a packed lunch before departing for the Duke of Sutherland's Castle. The Duke of Sutherland really knows how to keep a garden and he placed his castle right on the coast so the combination of highland and sea air was just perfect (well I enjoyed it I'm not sure if he cared). We didn't get to tour the inside of the castle because the current duke and family still live there. We stopped in a little village on the way back to get more snackage and use the restrooms. Plus one kid needed medical attention from the morning nature walk...he had a puffy eye from an allergic reaction with nature.
That evening we played lots of cards and had a fantastic dinner...I mostly remember the Mandarin orange cheese cake and waiting patiently to eat it because the Germans think its rude to eat dessert before everyone is finished with their main meal. I ended up hanging out with one of the truely diverse groups there. We had two germans, an american, a french girl or two, a canadian, an austrian and others. Jim also had each nationality get up and sing something from that country. This was really enjoyable up until we went and Christy convinced everyone to sing a journey song...this went horribly, but everyone clapped politely anyway. Jim also constructed a treasure hunt(more like 20 questions found around the castle) which I am convinced we (Me Mackenzie and Colleen) won, but he never announced the winner so I'm going to go by his office and find out. I also taught lots of people how to play some card games like mysterious four, nertz and spades. At one point Lena and I took to Beauty and the Beast style dancing in the upper hall...I failed to figure out the proper waltz motion to spin like they do in the movie, but it was still fun. We also realized that we could slide across the floor in our socks so we tried to do a grab and spin...it kinda worked. What really worked was my white socks cleaning the dirty floor, they were almost black on the bottom when I looked at them later.
The next morning we packed up and hit the road. We stopped by Loch Ness and ran away from the monster. A short time after leaving the nessy visitor center Bus one broke down...I had decided to ride bus 3 that day for the first time ...every other ride I had been on bus one. So buses 2+3 traveled a half mile up the road from the breakdown point and let us out to take pictures and take in some fresh air. I single handedly convinced a whole herd of people to stand on the wall and get a jump picture. I was proud of this...until we all hit the ground rolling. Luckily no one got hurt. About five minutes after the jump photo it was noticed that bus one was coming our way...walking up the road. for some reason this was hilarious and I got a picture. We all had to wait around for an hour before they got an extra bus to pick up everyone in bus 1.
The journey home was mostly uneventful. Andee (from Austria and part of the mountaineering club) and I finally got the bus driver to turn off the radio (its not like it comes in strong in the highland mountains anyway) and enjoyed some conversations with people around us. And that was one of the greatest weekends I've ever had.