P.S. I Hate Soccer Punks

Our journey begins on board Ryan Air flight 8731 service to Scotland. Ever flown Ryan Air, Europe’s budget airfare? Well allow me to paint a picture for you. Close your eyes (metaphorically… otherwise it would be difficult to read) You’re on a field trip on a high school bus with the entire Dutch Rugby team (in wooden shoes of course) still pumped from last week’s victory over Belgium. Alcohol is prevalent. Every 10 minutes someone erupts in song or a cheer? I never really caught on. Just lots and lots of yelling… that’s all I got. Now throw in mall perfume salesmen coming up and down the aisle coercing you to purchase jewelry, lotto tickets or aftershave. Yes take all of that and put it at 30,000 feet and you’ve got Ryan Air. Welcome aboard.

Scotland was the best though. No joke Scotland could take 4 Irelands, 2 Germany’s and a Czech Republic without even standing up. The land of Scots has the friendliest inhabitants I’ve ever come across. They also had a plethora of plaid. This young man was playing a bag of pipes for our listening pleasure.

Edinburgh was our first destination. We didn’t see a single Scotty dog, but they sure had some castles. For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to hike up a sheer cliff and sneak into one of the castles. Apparently they don’t want people to do that or something? They planted thorn bushes all over the place and my hands were not pleased. Megs got stranded in the middle and a mild panic attack. It was awesome.

While atop Mt. Edinburgh we noticed a friendly little soccer game, or as we say in Europe “football”, going on below in a charming little park. We strolled by noticing the unique scenery. As we stopped to take a self-timered photo a soccer ball came dangerously close to us whizzing by our heads. Oh 15 year old boys! Aren’t they just adorable? We laughed it off and set up for another picture. This time a 15 year old punk set up 10 feet away and kicked it straight at me. As it ricocheted off my back accomplice punk kicked it again even harder hitting Alyssa. We started screaming and ran away. But I will never forget the faces of those Scottish adolescents. I dare them to try and assault me again.

Needless to say, Edinburgh was a little too much fun for us. We jumped on a bus and headed north to St. Andrews. The girl in front of us on the bus went to school there and invited us to her church in the morning. It was the first church we have been to in 2 months so we were pumped. After church they had a cookie and tea reception in the lobby. This elderly woman approached us and when she found out we were from the states her eyes lit up. She pointed to some boys on the other side of the room and said “Oh they’re from America. I’m going to have to introduce you!” She drug this poor guy over to our table and said “James! Look at what I have for you. Four beautiful girls and they’re from America! Sit down.” As James carried on polite conversation an elderly fellow came up to talk to us. The previous old woman came up and shooed him away saying we would prefer to talk to the younger boys. Then she brought over another guy from Ireland to meet us.

We ended up going to lunch with our new friends. James even offered to give us a tour of St. Andrews. There is a castle in St. Andrews that is free to students who wear Harry Potter red capes. James gathered up these St. Andrews robes from his friends and we entered free of charge… not to mention looking extremely attractive.

The next stop on our tour completed my life. It may bring tears to your eyes and put you in a fit of jealousy. Meghan and I ran barefoot through the water of the Chariots of Fire beach. Ironically it was on a Sunday. Don’t tell Eric Liddell. We had a limited amount of time there. Here we are jamming to the theme song which happened to be James’ ring tone.

Then we ran in the frigid frigid water slow motion singing the theme song. Nobody was staring at us or anything… at least Alyssa wasn’t. We had her taking pictures for us too and she might have been a little preoccupied with her crush on James.

James insisted on taking us to this haunted house later that night. It was an abandoned hotel that overlooked the beach and the 18^th hole of St. Andrews golf course. We snuck in a basement window and creeped throughout the debri and dead birds. We ended up on the rooftop overlooking the entire city. Since it wasn’t exactly legal and we were trying not to get arrested in a foreign country I didn’t take a lot of photographs…. Here is the building during daylight though. And if you change your monitor settings you can make it really dark and then pretend like we are on top crawling to that tall white part on the corner cat burglar style!

We ended the night at a bonfire on the beach the St. Andrews boys through together for us. We tried to buy some s’mores but apparently Europe doesn’t believe in mallows or grahams. Travesty.

Then we Ryan Aired on over to Ireland. Dublin itself was not all that exciting. We did go to the P.S. I Love You pub though. That totally redeems Dublin. Being in Ireland really made me want some Lucky Charms. For some reason they don’t carry those here. They also don’t appreciate it if you call them a leprechaun and ask them where their pot of gold is. Just a heads up. We found a giant hand and decided to waste 2 hours taking pictures in it. I could have stayed for a 3^rd hour not gonna lie.

The next day we took a bus to more Irishy looking terrain. As I looked around our tour bus I noticed something. We seemed to stick out a little bit from the group… Apparently there was an age limit of 65 and we did not get the memo. Here is the gang going through an Irish cave. Every single one of them called me Sugar.

This tour took us to the Cliffs of Moher. They were quite large, much bigger than the cliffs we have in Waco.

We finished Ireland off in Wicklow National Park… also the park where they met in P.S. I Love You. It was fantastic. We wandered through the mountains and crossed waterfalls. I fell in twice of course. I don’t understand why I’m so uncoordinated sometimes. There are rocks in a row in front of me. It shouldn’t be that complicated. I take two steps and splash I’m in the water with googly eyed couples laughing at me.

Can we just talk about how beautiful Ireland is? I think I’m going to start making postcards. I have enough material to work with… My computer starts whimpering every time my camera nears it.

Ok sorry for the delay my friends… Spain blog will be headed your way shortly!