Happy Valentines Day!!!!

I'm in Dublin, Ireland right now wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day!!
I'll tell yall all about it when I get back...

Miss yall, and love you all!!!!!


-brad the beLOVEd

The Scottish highlands: The Real Deal.

On the Right ----> is some of the Baker ladies with me and Aaron, the wind was outrageous!!
<-----On the left is Aaron and I somewhere near the same place, the sheer size of everything was unreal.


Finally, the good part. I came to England to do a couple main things. I came to see some Greek and Roman history, I came to see the cultures of the European world as we know it, and also, to see the green and awesome landscapes of Scotland and Ireland. The Tour started at 8am Saturday morning and planned to have us back by 7:30 that night. Our tour guide was a well educated Scot who had flown in the Scottish air force as well as toured Europe and climbed many a mountains. He knew everything, or so it seemed. He told us the tales of William Wallace and we got to see the castle and the battlegrounds of some of the places where William Wallace actually was!!!! We all took turns taking pictures and listening to the stories while some slept and some ate what food they brought (me). **Orange Fanta takes like orange juice, but worse over here, by the way. We would stop every 30-45 minutes or so and get out to take pictures of the amazing landscapes. We learned all about the clans of Scotland and some brutal stories to go with them. We had a couple of long stops on the way to eat lunch and such, but we finally made it to Loch Ness, the largest freshwater body of water in the entire UK! We took pictures, trying to spot Nessie so we could collect our 1,000,000 pound paycheck so we all wouldn't have to keep asking money from the generous folks back home, but no such luck. I made a wish into Loch Ness, have you? The trip back seemed shorter but it was still awesome!

The Scottish Highlands are number 1 on my experiences here. The world famous Cadbury world was next...

brad the bird-watcher

Scotland, the fake side

On the Right ---> is the view on our way to our hostel which was app. 8 minutes outside of town.
<----On the Left here, is one of 300 or so pictures of the Scottish Highlands, b.e.a.utiful.


Friday morning, when we got to Edinburgh, we got dropped off about 2 miles away from our hostel (since the road was conveniently shutdown due to construction, hah!) The hostel we stayed at costs around 7.50 pounds a night haha and it was sweet. 4 of us were in one room with a random guy from Malaysia who studies medicine in Moscow who is vacationing in Scotland who has a child in China, ok, the child was false but everything else was real. Eudis was a cool guy and we ended up seeing him around town quite a bit. We all decided a nap was necessary since sleeping like Popsicles doesn't revitalize you. After a good three hour nap, we started our tour of Edinburgh.

People in Scotland, along with the stores they own and well as the restaurants they manage close at 5:30, dumb. We walked around until 8:30 or so, and decided that 7 hours of walking around the town of Edinburgh is enough to know the city and the people that inhibit it. Anyways, after a long shower and a couple of brewkis later, we went to sleep, for tomorrow, we were signed up for the LOCH NESS TOUR of the SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS!!!!!!! FREEEEEEEDOM!!!!!


-brad the bandit (and no.......I didn't steal anything)

It's been so long!

Sorry it has been so long. Scotland however, is where I left off! This is on top of King Arthur's seat, which is a hill we climbed, pretty sweet. The adventures of Scotland were amazing!! Let's start with the amazing overnight trip to Edinburgh.

There was nothing awesome about this trip. We left at 11:30 at night, changed trains about 45 minutes later, and then another 45 minutes after that we were in the forsaken town of Newcastle at approximately 2am, ugh. We heard there was a 24 hour McDonalds right across the street and since we were all starving, the Baker squad and my roommate, we decided to go! Turns out, that across the street meant 2 miles away, awesome -__- . Anyways, we got the McDonalds to go, since there were no chairs in it, and headed back to the train station. Lo and behold!!!!! Lady luck was with us and the train station was closed until 4! awesome! We now had an hour and a half to kill on the streets of Newcastle , yay. Well we ended up walking around, finding at least 5 closed coffee shops and other snack places but ended up in a pizzaria and stayed there for about 45 minutes and talked with a local who was making fun of Newcastle so that was funny. After we got in the train station, after pulling a "huddle in front of the hotel" because the architecture blocked the wind trick, we finally got in the train station. At previous train stations, there was a "waiting room" in which heat was supplied and it was nice and cozy! hah! not us! If I forgot to tell you, it was about 30 degrees! Anyways, the waiting room was a class enclosed room with zero heat and zero coziness. We were absolutely freezing! I got a 20 minute nap in on the cold tile, and woke up with my bone marrow frozen...im not kidding. I got up and walked around but it didn't seem to help. You could relate me to those gummy bears that you accidentily pushed at the bottom of your ice cream and forgot about and go to eat them and break your teeth. Nearing 6:15, our departure time, they finally opened the day bathrooms and I retreated in there to turning on the heaters and scaulding myself, which felt great. That night I wished I was a cold-blooded animal, o well, adapt and overcome.

The train came, and we got to Edinburgh around 8:15, and thats where our Scottish adventure began......



-brad the...well...

-WILLIAM WALLACE