now is the part where i pretend that it hasn't been three months since i posted to this thing and just pick up where i left off.

scotland was absolutely amazing. it really is one of my favorite places i've ever been. when i was looking through the books and researching, i thought of all the photos you see of scotland, with majestic green mountains and windswept plains. "THAT place," i thought. "just show me where THAT place is, i want to go THERE." little did i know that those pictures pretty much illustrate how the entire country looks. unlike every other place i've been (except maybe paris) i think scotland is pretty much exactly what you think it should be - incredible shades of green, craggy mountains, the aforementioned windswept plains, rolling farmland, hillsides dotted with sheep, men in kilts, a pub in every village, and everyone's drunk. some of the few things that surprised me were
1) the weather was actually very pleasant
2) every other house in the country is a bed & breakfast
3) that men really DO wear kilts there
4) exactly HOW drunk everyone gets - men, women, children, senior citizens - EVERYONE

this may sound overly sentimental, but there was really something so comforting about the country, like i was really going back to my homeland. i was practically giddy listening to all of the scottish accents around me (as everyone knows the scottish accent is by far the best accent). of course, who knows when the last nicholson in my family came over here, but still. i felt like it was truly the place of my heritage. i feel that somewhere nelson muntz is giving me a big "HA ha!" right now.

so we went all over the place, and greg did a fabulous job driving (after that first two-hour white-knuckle ride). i was disappointed that we didn't get an automatic, because i feel like he would've had a better time if i could've shared some of the driving responsibility. after all, it's tough to enjoy the amazing scenery when you need 110% of your concentration in order to prevent us from crashing right into a fiery death.

we started out in glasgow, where i decided immediately that i would like to live. we stayed at a hotel right near the school of art, which as we all know is the meeting place of the greatest band in history, belle and sebastian. unfortunately we never ran into any members of the band, and i regretted not having researched all the hip places to go in order to improve our chances of seeing them. not like i would ever know what to say to stuart murdoch if i saw him, except maybe to start furiously making out with him while greg stands idly by. anyway, there's not all that much for tourists in glasgow, but it just seems like a really cool city to live in.

we also hit up fort william, where we stayed in a beautiful guesthouse/art gallery and had the most delicious breakfast ever, loch ness, where we jumped a fence to explore a castle at night, saint andrews, where we played a round of golf but unfortunately didn't run into bill murray, and edinburgh, where we ate delicious indian food, explored the castle and got closed up into a haunted mausoleum.

our favorite place was the isle of skye, which, as it turns out, is the homeland of my clan. definitely not a bad place to call a homeland, i must say. there we did an incredible five-mile hike up to this crazy rock formation, got stuck in a sheep roadblock, stayed in a house made entirely out of a combination of hummels and the color pink, saw an impromptu piper parade, and drank in a crowded local pub where there was a traditional folk band playing and a drunk guy who looked exactly like randy quaid. i was in absolute heaven.

there, i did it. i broke my silence. more later about scotland, perhaps. and christmas, and weddings, and all the other things i haven't blogged about in three months.