Day 11 // June showers

We received a proper Scottish welcome today: rain, rain and more rain! Oh and some fog mixed in.

Our day began with a driving tour of Edinburgh. Our tour guide was lovely with a very soothing voice. (Maybe too soothing of a voice as I may or may not have accidentally dozed off a couple of times...) We learned a lot about the city's history, various landmarks and some very interesting facts!

We actually drove by The Elephant House, which is a cafe where JK Rowling wrote a lot of the Harry Potter books. I am definitely planning to stop by when we have some free time!

When we completed our driving tour we drove to Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Explorers Garden.

This is where we ate lunch in a little cafe before going on a walking tour of the garden.

The goals of the garden are: "to provide a unique garden and a centre of excellence celebrating the Scottish Plant Hunters; to offer an educational resource for schools and adults; to cultivate and conserve rare and endangered plants; and to promote visual arts, crafts and performance in an inspirational outdoor setting."

The garden was beautiful and quite interesting as it featured different countries and their plants.

Despite the rainfall (which only increased as time went by), I was able to take some really cool pictures!

And managed to keep my camera dry while I was at it!

After walking around and learning from Julia the garden manager, we loaded back up onto the coach bus and drove back to Edinburgh.

We arrived back at the hotel with about an hour to spare to change and freshen up before going to The World Famous Taste of Scotland Show.

Now this was quite the show. Featuring four courses, one of which was haggis (rather than give you an explanation I'll just direct you to Google), and quite a talented display of both song and dance; this show is actually one of my favorite parts of this trip thus far. If you are ever in Edinburgh, 10/10 recommend getting tickets!

After about three hours of eating, laughing and enjoying the show we got back on the coach and headed back to the hotel.

The entire trip we have talked about having a jam session on the bus and tonight was finally the night it happened. While experiencing the sights and opportunities we have over the last week and a half, nothing will encourage bonding between 20 college students like singing throwback songs together.

Coming into this trip I thought that my long time love for all things English would mean that the first part of this trip would be favorite, but so far I believe that Scotland may be winning me over. I definitely believe another trip to Scotland is in my future!

Tomorrow promises to be busy as we have several places to visit. Actually, the rest of the week will probably be quite busy. Though I am looking forward to the new sights and experiences, I am not looking forward to saying goodbyes as we all head our separate ways.

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Ceud Mìle Fàilte

"A hundred thousand welcomes."