INSIDE THE SHEEP'S STOMACH: Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle

On the one hand I can't believe I have been in Edinburgh only 3 weeks and on the other hand I cannot believe we are about to begin the third week of classes. The fact that essay and assignment due dates are approaching is a very daunting thought! Today I am in the library with Shannon getting caught up on some readings. I am impressed that I made it here but I am writing this blog post instead of doing work so perhaps I need to try harder!

This weekend I went to Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle with the International Student Centre. We met early in the morning (never my favourite thing) which was made even more difficult by the fact that I'd stayed up late the night before. Coffee was the first thing on my mind when we arrived at Linlithgow Palace. The girls from Queen's (Annie, Debra, Emily, Taylor and I) went to Boom Coffee and Sandwich Bar on the high street before perusing the small town's shops and bakeries. There was a farmer's market going on and a local man at a bakery stall bantered with us about why we had not brought him a coffee. That, the man playing piano accordion and the free samples of homemade chutney were the highlights for me.

The palace itself was quite impressive. There were lots of long corridors and spooky rooms and a beautiful fountain with carved figures in the centre of the courtyard. We were able to go all the way to the top of one of the towers. The palace grounds were really beautiful. It looked exactly as one would expect - sweeping lawns, swans and sailboats floating on the water and misty hills in the distance. I could definitely imagine royals walking about the place in their finery. Speaking of which... we saw a man and a woman dressed up very fancily, him in tartan trousers and her in a bright red skirt and blazer. I took a sneaky photo of them while pretending to photograph the church beside the palace and later we ran into them again and we chatted for a bit. He asked where we were from and began to tell us that he had been to Winnipeg when he was younger and in the army and had been refused alcohol because he was underage. He said that old enough to fight and die for his country should have been considered old enough to drink! The couple had apparently arrived early for a wedding (hence the garb) and were walking around the palace grounds while they waited.

Stirling was our next stop where we had lunch first and wandered around the town. I got tablet flavoured ice cream and it was absolutely delicious. There was also Irn Bru flavoured ice cream! Irn Bru is a type of pop here and the Scots are 100% obsessed with it. Debra and I went round some charity shops looking for treasures but were too indecisive to buy anything. We discovered that there was free admission to Argyll's Lodging with our tickets to Stirling Castle. Argyll's Lodging is a 17th century house made in the renaissance style that is now a museum. It's claim to fame is its staircase which is possibly the first ever non-spiral staircase. After, we went on to Stirling Castle which was very good and probably my favourite part of the trip. I was really tired by this point and considered sitting out on the tour but I'm glad that I didn't. The tour guide pointed out to us the most haunted men's bathroom in Scotland. Apparently the modern day castle's plumber came running out of there and never returned, not even for his tools worth 2000 pounds because he was so scared of something he had seen.