From Nessie to Leprachons

Thursday:
Today was my cuddle-up-in-bed-and-watch-a-few-movies-while-drinking-tea day. Dad and stephen had arranged to play a round of golf at a local golf course in the afternoon so Peter, mom, and I were stranded without a car. Their summer weather has felt very much like our winter weather (cold and rainy) so I haven't been motivated to do much outside. There was a short period of time when the sun peaked it's head out so Peter and I ran out to the backyard before it could disappear. Our neighbor had graciously let Peter borrow an old golf club and golf balls so we played around with those briefly until the neighbor also brought out another game for us to play. It reminded me of tether ball except that you batted the ball with paddles. We weren't quite sure what the rules were and there was no rule book so we just made up our own game. Soon it began to rain again so we grabbed tea, hopped into my bed, and watched Narnia 3 on Peter's I-pad. Such a cute movie. When it was over, Peter left to go play somewhere but I didn't feel like getting up yet so I just watched another movie. :) Steve and dad came back just in time for dinner and we heard all about the good times they'd been having. Fortunately, the weather had mostly behaved for them and they'd been paired up with two older Scottish men who were very friendly. It wasn't quite St. Andrews but at least they can say they've golfed in Scotland. :)

Friday:
One place we had to visit before we left was Stirling Castle. Somewhere back in our family history was the Stirling family, so in the hopes of being somehow related to this castle, we had to check it out. This castle has just recently been renovated and we found out that two days prior, the queen herself had "cut the ribbon," taken the first tour, and it was officially open. This castle is different from the others because it has been redesigned to look like it would've looked in the olden days. One of the buildings has been painted a kings gold color (orangish yellow) which is the color that the whole castle would've been painted. This coat of paint was not only for decoration but also protected the stones from weather damages. 
Inside the buildings were colorful and regally decorated with plenty of pictures of unicorns...which were said to have been living in the field outside. I saw plenty of sheep, but no unicorns. Inside the buildings were also people dressed in the costume of that time who would tell us all about who they were and what it was like during that time. 
Another building held displays of old Scottish army memorabilia that explained the gradual progression  of the army to what it is today. In the gift shop is a black and white photo of the front gate of the castle. The photographer had been alone that day, but in the photograph is a ghostly figure in a kilt, guarding the front gate! :)
We also visited a few other random rooms like the kitchens. After seeing the castle, the rain was starting to pick up so we drove back to Edinburgh and parked near the house the Leanne was housesitting at. We arrived earlier than her so we walked to the closest Starbucks to seek shelter and drinks. Once she had texted me saying she was home, we walked over to the cute little house and ordered Chinese take out for dinner. It was delicious! After dinner, the rest of my family watched tv and hung out in the living room while leanne and I sat in the kitchen talking and catching up from the last couple years. I may have convinced her to come visit us in California again which isn't hard after you mention sun! :) 
Knowing we had to get up early in the morning, we said goodbye before it got too late, walked back to the car with Stephen and Peter chasing and hitting each other the whole time, then drove back to finish packing and went to bed.

Saturday:
This morning at the crack of dawn...or what normally is the crack of dawn in California but here it's been light for at least an hour...AKA 5:30am...we all woke up, ate breakfast, and packed all our suitcases/backpacks into the car saying goodbye to our cottage as we drove off to the airport. Now that we're with our parents, traveling is as easy as pie. No stress, no rushing, and we made the gate with time to grab a coffee. The plane ride was probably the shortest I have ever taken. It felt like we just went up, I read a few pages in my kindle, and we were preparing to land in Belfast. After collecting our baggage, we discovered that our rental car wouldn't be ready for awhile so we camped at the nearest cafe (since it had the comfy chairs) and waited for them to call us. Eventually we were given a car and we took off. A few miles down the road, we left the "city" and were driving down country roads with narrow streets that run between vast green fields filled with sheep and cows. Even though we'd been given directions from the airport to our new b&b, the boys decided to use my dad's bike gps which also had a Europe chip in it. We were doing fine until we stopped at a grocery store just a few miles before our destination. With groceries on our laps, we continued our journey and Stephen misread the directions thereby putting us on a highway going back to Belfast! He quickly realized his error but there wasn't an offramp for another 4 miles. When the gps had recalculated it's route and was starting to lead us down a random street, we decided to revert back to the written directions. As we followed the directions we started to see less and less of civilization and more and more of fields. It took us awhile to find the actual house because their driveway wasn't even marked and didn't have their address. We knew we were close so we called them and they quickly explained where they lived and we were only a few yards down the road. Our new b&b is a side apartment off of a family's house. They are really really nice and have two boys who are 11 and 13. The apartment has three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with a huge tv and a pool table! 
We claimed our rooms (poor Pete really wanted his own room, but being the girl of the family, I am guaranteed that privilege), unpacked, ate lunch, then started settling in. Stephen, Pete, and I played outside for awhile: the boys threw a ball at each other, then while Pete jumped on the trampoline, Steve and I took turns making goal kicks and being goalie. Too bad neither of us ever played soccer cuz we had to run after stray balls quite a few times. 
Later that afternoon, I got a call from Andrew asking where our house was! I had thought we wouldn't see him until tomorrow but as I went out to open the gate, he pulled up in his car, ready to hang out. I was very impressed that he'd been so close to finding our house since it was down a random unmarked road! 
We caught up for awhile, then played quite a few rounds of pool...all of which he beat me, but I came very close on several games. Even though he had a sermon to finish preparing for tomorrow, he agreed to stay for dinner since we were eating so early. And dinner was delicious!! Mom was a sport and cooked us salmon with broccoli, potatoes, and Irish bread we'd been given. Even though mom doesn't like fish, the salmon was wonderful! For dessert, Andrew contributed maltesers: a European sweet that are basically malt balls. They are so light that you can keep them up in the air just by blowing...like an air fountain, I suppose. It was fun trying. :)
After dinner we all did our own thing and went to bed early since we were tired from getting up so early.