Clans, Castles, and Whiskey oh my!

It’s been a minute since I last wrote. Scotland is …well, just what you think of when you think of Scotland; wet and cloudy! And a little spooky!
Monday morning we went to breakfast and met our B and B host, Paul. Boy oh boy- once you meet Paul you will not forget him. Gregarious does not begin to describe this guy. I was not quite prepared for his energy so soon after waking! He gave us the whole story- how he, his wife and 2 kids came for a 5 month home exchange. While here, his son was “diagnosed” with being gifted. Apparently Scotland considers being gifted as special needs so he gets a lot of extras paid for by the government. This led to a shopping around of “the asset” (his term, not mine), to private schools, one of the more hoity toity of which provided him a full ride scholarship. So here they stayed, bought the B snd B, and had another kid to cement the deal.
Caught a cab to the train station- what we thought was a straightforward transaction until the cab driver insisted we had the “wrong train station” and we had to show him the email from the tour company to convince him. This all led to our late arrival.
We met our guide, Ray, and our trip mates. One couple, Serena and Roger from Manhattan and the other, Penny and Michael, from Sydney Australia. All very nice. As I asked all the usual “get to know you” questions, it became clear that I was the only non lawyer in the group. I’m not likely to win any arguments with this crowd!
We loaded into the van for an hour drive to Stirling Castle. After recently returning from a “Castles on the Rhine” trip with my granddaughter, I’m sort of castled out, but it was fine. Most interesting factoid was that Mary Queen of Scots was a substantial woman. 5 ft 11. Her mother had been 6 ft 2. Didn’t know they grew them that big back then. All the other history stuff- clans and kings and Jacobites etc, went in one ear and out the other, so if you want to know about the history, ask Cynthia, who true to form, was an overachiever and pre studied up on all of it. And retains everything! Had lunch at the castle and drove down the road a bit for a short but pretty hike.
Lunch followed at a pub called The Glue Pot where I adventurously ordered the Cullen Skink. It’s really like a clam chowder but with a different type of fish and it was delicious!
I now feel the need to talk about…wait for it- HAGGIS! I had read about haggis but was under the impression that it was a dish eaten by ancient Scottish clansmen. I couldn’t believe that modern man would eat such a thing. Here’s the recipe should you want to make it at home.
Haggis is a savory Scottish dish, considered a national symbol, made from sheep's offal (heart, liver, lungs) minced with oatmeal, onions, suet, and spices, then traditionally cooked inside the sheep's own stomach.

Since being here I’ve seen it in some form or other on just about every menu. Needless to say…hard pass.
After lunch we headed to our hotel Monachyme Mohr. I’m pretty sure it was haunted. I’m generally not a fan of “character” in a hotel but this one grew on me. Dinner that night was, as Cynthia put it. “A three hour hundred course affair”. It was delicious but half of us were falling asleep at the table. Finally it (thankfully) ended-(although a couple of people that didn’t beat it out of there as quickly as we said we missed the Coffee and Petit Fours course. I do love me some petit fours but I was practically comatose and sleep mattered more.もっと詳しく