General: Scotland

'''My experience with Scotland'''

I've spent two wonderful months in Scotland in summer of 2005, it seems so far away, but when I look at the pictures, I'm right back there...It was a wonderful experience both from the view of a tourist as well as a language student. I did think my English was kind of good even back then, but coming to western Scotland was a bit of a shock as the accent and dialect people speak there was much more ...
...talk in London. Ok, so for the first week or so I had to keep my ears super opened and concentrate on everything they said. That was both frustrating as I had a job there and this was an extra hurdle to cope with, but also great fun as I have learnt (and by now also forgotten most of it, I admit) some dialect and I tried to absorb their accent. I loved the long and opened "a" in words like cab, rag, bag, Jack and wide somewhat muted "i" ... more

My experience with Scotland

I've spent two wonderful months in Scotland in summer of 2005, it seems so far away, but when I look at the pictures, I'm right back there...It was a wonderful experience both from the view of a tourist as well as a language student. I did think my English was kind of good even back then, but coming to western Scotland was a bit of a shock as the accent and dialect people speak there was much more difficult for me to understand than let's say how they talk in London. Ok, so for the first week or so I had to keep my ears super opened and concentrate on everything they said. That was both frustrating as I had a job there and this was an extra hurdle to cope with, but also great fun as I have learnt (and by now also forgotten most of it, I admit) some dialect and I tried to absorb their accent. I loved the long and opened "a" in words like cab, rag, bag, Jack and wide somewhat muted "i" in short words sounding rather as "ae". And be sure the Scottish had fun with my English, too :p

Ayrshire
Ayrshire is located on the west coast of Scotland, Ayr its centre. I've spent most of my time (due to job) in two small towns named Auchinleck and Cumnock. Sadly there wasn't much to do in the area of my residence, nor nature to admire as those towns are basically connected by a busy road surrounded by not much more than impassable fields, so I've made a couple of trips around Ayrshire, the furthest I've gone was Glasgow and Stirling.
Ayr is a beautiful small town with an atmosphere I've never experienced elsewhere before! My most favourite sight of the place was the riverside and Wellington square which offers a lovely view over the Esplanade and the bay, which made me amazed how well-matched the city and coast were!

Kilmarnock
We got to Kilmarnock by car, which was pretty handy as we got around very easily and the only problem was to locate the Dean Castle we wanted to visit in Kilmarnock.
The city itself is a bit grey and apart from a couple of churches (we were lucky to get a guided tour in one of those as the Father found out we were Czech students and took it as his duty to introduce his parish to us, which was very nice of him and I was amazed to see a part of a church could also be a gym!) it wasn't very interesting to me for other reasons but shopping as I needed to buy new shoes, and also got them there.

Dean Castle is a wonderful piece of fortification surrounded by a large park and gardens that are free to enter. We were lucky enough to arrive just on a day when no entrance fee was to be paid to visit the castle. The castle consists of two towers and a castle yard, however, it's not really known when were those built, but it's known that this castle used to be a property to the noble family of Boyd. The castle served as a place of residence, prison where some neat torture instruments can be seen, the main residence chambers and an attic decorated with many signs of power and nobility such as coats of arms and family precious items.
The park is a lovely place for a picnic or just taking a little rest after having toured the castle, I've seen around a lot of families with lil kids who just looked like they came to enjoy an afternoon in this calm and peaceful place, far enough from the city buzz.

Saltcoats
We have visited Saltcoats on the way back from Kilmarnock, just to stop by the sea for the evening. Saltcoats is a place from where ferries take you to islands by Scottish coast, but unluckily I didn't have free time enough to make such a trip. Saltcoats was quiet and amiable, we sat by the beach and then paddled in the sea playing with jellyfish. The only disturbance was from a funfair on the opposite side of the bay where someone was using a loudspeaker loud enough even for us to hear.

Stirling
Stirling is just beautiful and I fell in love with it on the first sight!! We walked up the steep and crooked lanes all the way to the castle only to find it closed...I have taken approximately thousand pictures only in Stirling, the old tiny houses piled up in the narrow streets just fascinated me.
It was where we came across a pub called Pivo (that means beer in Czech) and I was impressed to find its walls covered in quotes from Bohumil Hrabal, one of the most famous Czech writer. The menu was in English and nobody of the staff spoke a word of Czech which was a little disappointment but hey, they had Czech beers on tap!

It was near Stirling that we visited Highland Games, something typical of Scotland I was so fond of seeing! And I gotta tell you I wasn't disappointed in the least! The only thing that seemed awkward to me was a modern kind of funfair attached (and parasiting, in my opinion) on the HG area. We parked on a vast meadow and tried to remember where the car was...Admission was 5 pounds per person which I found ok. It was a great day out at the Highland Games, I think my most favourite discipline to watch was throwing the log, then Scottish dance, wrestling in all age categories and bike race - I admired the competitors to even get on a bike on such muddy surface and riding so fast without breaking their necks!

A chapter of its own were the bagpipers...you probably haven't been to Scotland if you haven't heard a bagpiper's band to play! Well, there there were approximately 12 bands, each neatly organized into a circle and they played nonstop practising their virtues. Don't get me as ironic, I loved to hear them play, the only problem there was too many bands within small area and as we walked around and got out of radius of one, we already heard another and that made me hear the bagpipes nonstop for another day! I admired their uniforms, especially the kilts and during HG it was the only time in Scotland I've also seen girls wearing the kilts, which made me want to get one as well!

Another place of interest near Stirling is the Wallace Monument. Actually you can get a wonderful view of this tower from by the Stirling castle, which is on a hill from where you can observe a wonderful valley and on the other side there's the Wallace Monument.
As you can guess, this monument was erected to the Scottish national hero William Wallace nicknamed The Braveheart who fought against the English king Edward III. to maintain Scotland's independence. We paid another 5 pounds to enter, but I have to say that the best of this monument was its outside and the view you had from its top. Simply beautiful!

Glasgow
Glasgow had too much to see in just one day, so I have made two day-trips there. Already the Glasgow Central was interesting to me so there was something to look at since I got off the train.
I didn't know really anything of the city I should go see in particular, so I just got a small tourist map and wandered around checking out whatever caught my fancy. First place I got to was George Square, I admired the architecture of City Chambers and Walter Scott's column. My favourite part of the city was the Merchant City with Mercat Cross and a clock tower nearby, then the river Clyde's banks. I loved how the modern parts were sometimes funnily fitted into obviously old buildings, some of those left shallow for what seemed like ages telling from the stuff that grew over the facades. Modern places like the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall nearby the Virgin megastore which gave me shelter from rain and Princess Street packed with shops and boutiques only add to Glasgow's fancy face.

What did I enjoy particularly in Glasgow?
First of all, the city itself, I loved to walk around and explore! I didn't use public transport to get around so that I wouldn't 1) get lost and 2) miss anything interesting to see.

The selection of muffins to have with your coffee amazed me and during my time in Scotland and Glasgow particularly I developed a habit of having a coffee with raspberry muffin with my cigarette at least once a day. Now I miss that.

Bookstores. In Waterstones I was like in a paradise. You gotta think of that I'm talking about some 3 years ago and even if that's not SO long, back then there wasn't such a range of English books available in my country, so I was more than happy to scout this bookshop and come back home with a few gems of my library, the Helen Fielding and Stephen King books I've reviewed among them.

Sheep
Could I leave them out speaking about Scotland? No way, especially as I've had a little insight in the sheep breeding at a farm near Muirkirk. I've never been into soil-digging, I don't like gardening or farming and I actually can't really relate to how some people love their gardens, orchards or fields and they can happily spend their lives working hard in the mud every day. On this farm I got the impression the sheep were almost members of the family...sheep pictures all over the house as well as rewards and prizes won on sheep and cow exhibitions, the people lived for those animals which I thought was amazing!
Ah and don't forget the midgies! I thought I was used to mosquitoes but these things are just horrible and nothing (I have tried, at least) will stop them. Welcome to the farmland!

How did I get there and back
I flew with Flyglobespan and I was happy with their service, a return flight Prague-Glasgow cost something around 4500 CZK (3 years ago, again), which was a pretty good low-cost travel! They had a 20kg limit on big bag, which I managed to fit into, but they didn't charge me anything for almost 2kg extra on my hand lugagge, which was nice. There's not much I can really say about the airline now, because times, prices and terms of use have changed, but if I were offered Flyglobespan among companies to fly with and hadn't known the others from personal experience, I would certainly go for Flyglobespan again.

Remarkable moments
A soccer-sized lawn surrounded by trees is called "park" in Scotland.
Soup of haggis and Scotch broth were delicious!!
A groom dressed in a creamy-white kilt suit.
Bagpipers.
Fruit'n'Fibre cornflakes, Irn-Bru and sponge cakes covered in pink glazé with ground coconut.
This is a country of Robert Burns more than of anybody else and be sure you will hear about that! His wife came from Mauchline, which is near CUmnock, so I heard a LOT about them.

Conclusion
I loved my time in Scotland, it was a wonderful experience and traveling fun, I'll try to go back and see other places as well, I'm particularly sorry I didn't manage Edinburgh and the islands, but there has to be something left for the next time. 

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