Did Mark put on his Speedo and swim with Nessie?????

The answer to the question above is no, but we were traveling around the Scotish Highlands today, which was absolutely amazing. Although it was a tad chilly.......around 50 degrees we were all in awe with the beauty of the highlands. Our tour bus left Edinburgh at 8 am and we made a few quite a few stops along the 375 mile tour. We saw Hemish, the mascot of a tiny village of Glencoe, which is a Highland cow with huge horns and really long hair.

After our visit with the cow we went up into the highlands which is a small mountain range with brilliant green countryside and hundreds of rushing waterfalls. Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Scotland, all of the UK acctually, was clouded over which added to its awe in my opinion. We had some lunch in Fort Williams and headed up to Loch Ness which is the place we have all heard of. It was awesome being there and seeing just how beautiful it is, rather than thinking of Nessies and watching for the monster.

After the Loch, Andrew and Zippy took the boat tour for an hour, and no zippy did not put on the speedo or swim with Nessie. We stopped for dinner in a tiny little city, i can't remember the name at this time but we had some fish and chips which were tasty. We got back to Edinburgh around 8:30 pm our time so 2 :30 back home where we snuck some wine into the hostel.........shhhhh its illegal and would have gotton confiscated. Now we are in the commons area enjoying a Carling beer before we take showers and pack up so we will be ready for our train ride to London in the morning. Hopefully it won't rain, although it has been raining alot down south of us.....we have been as far West (Dingle), and now North (Inverness/Loch Ness) as we will be. That's all from us for now, much love and we'll talk to you as soon as we can.

Pictures!!!

Here's some pics of our travels thus far.......tell us what you think

Edinburgh...yeah

Wow my feet are really tired...we had to have walked like 10 miles today. We just got back from touring the city of Edinburgh, its amazing. The focal point is Edinburgh Castle which has loomed, good word, over the city for nearly 1000 years. While it is not all original it offered the 'fab four', our nickname from our free Ireland tour great views of the city. The tour of the castle took about 2 hours and then we made our way down the Royal Mile. Filled with tourist shops, kilt stores and shops galore it is the center of the Old Town and tourism in Edinburgh. We then made our way tour Hollyrood Park. Now this is no Park like we have in the states. Its the remains of a prehistoric volcano with a peak close to 750 feet tall, with breathtaking views of Edinburgh, its suburbs, the North Sea and the countryside beyond the city. It was kind of a hike to get there, well at least for me, the others seemed to have no problem. But the end was worth all that work and we were treated to the astounding view. We took the normal shots, including the 'cheesy lets all look away from the camera' pose, which I do have to say always look cool. After our descent we were nearly eaten alive by a mob of Swans and Geese but were saved by Adam bravely charging through the middle of them to our rescue. We are now getting ready to enjoy our tasty lasagna from Lidl and relax as it has been a very long day and we have an even longer one tomorrow as we are heading to the home of Nessie and Braveheart, The Highlands. Thanks for all your comments its nice to have a little bit of home. Talk to you all later.

Lidl you ask?

Two posts in one day, whats up with that. Anyway we made it to Edinbugh, which is sweet.....the streets have really tall buildings that are all connected. We will be sightseeing tomorrow. The only bummer is now we're on the flipping (like that mom) pound which sucks. Our hostel is in an old church, with some dry walls thrown up in the middle like little cubicles and we stare up into the top of an old church, pretty wild acctually. We were pretty hungry....imagine that......so we went to this little grocery store called Lidl's.....mom you would have loved it. It was a german Aldi, haha. We made tacos, bought ice cream, and breakfast for tomorrow for £4 a piece which isn't bad.

Its pretty cold around here though, my baldness does not do good in the wind, i may need a stocking cap. It was sad to say goodbye to Ireland which was awesome, thats right brooke i'm Irish :) Hey chad, you'll have to tell the guys at work there were these little concrete trucks everywhere but they were funny looking, i took a picture. Well we are wishing everyone well, there is a USB port on this computer so next time I log in i will post a couple of the pictures we have taken if thats possible. It's like 10 oclock now so i think we're going to run around the city a little bit.........Adios

We Did Start the Fire

So it's been a few days sice we were able to find the internet, but right now adam and i are sitting in the public library in limerick. Let us catch you up to speed a bit.

The first day nothing too exciting happenned, we just kinda spent the evening exploring cork and eating some authentic irish food till the jetlag caught up to us and we crashed. The next morning is when the fun began. We took a bus out to blarney to see the castle and so that adam could accomplish his #1 goal of kissing the stone. Andrew wasn't gonna do it but we talked him into it. Then we were set to take a bus to the dingle penninsula and the randy leprechaun, but before we got on the bus mark had to make a quick pitstop to buy a speedo! Andrew kept complaining that he hated carrying all this change and we found out he had about $40 in coins in his pocket.

Anyways, we had another long bus ride to the small town of annascaul or something like that where we stayed at 'the randy leprechaun' hostel. And yes, like the name implies it was quite the adventure. In our room with us there was some horny, 40 year old french couple. Everytime we came into the room they were pretty much making out. We cooked some pasta then went to the bar attached to the hostel. It was karaoke night!!! It only took andrew 5 pints of guinness to work up the courage to sing 'we didn't start the fire'. Andrew and i sang 'sweet home alabama'. The Flame(mark) was somewhat of a dissapointment, he sat next to some australian girl all night and didnt talk to her, but he says it wont happen again ;)

Andrew's performance led to a conversation with phil, a tour guide who happenned to be stopped there for the night with his travelers. Phil said he had extra room and invited us to come along in the morning. So we hopped on with the random people from, pennsylvania, australia, new zealand, south africa and others and went on an amazing tour of the dingle penninsula, for free! All because of Andrew's bertiful singing.

Then we caught another bus back to limerick where we got some awesome chinese food at 'shamrock chinese restaurant'. Today we were going to try to get to the cliffs of moher, but it just didnt work out with the timing. We fly to edinburgh, scotland in a few hours. Also adam told me to add that we shaved his head bald last night and not to worry brooke cause he's still just as sexy. Mark also shaved his mohawk, but i think im gonna keep mine a few more days. Cheers!

The Eagle has Landed

So 24hrs after leaving madison we have arrived safely in Cork Ireland. It started with a 3 hr bus ride to chicago, sitting at the airport for a few hours, then a 2 hr flight to Newark, followed by a 6 hr flight to dublin and finally a 4 hr bus ride to cork...of which Mark slept for about 20 hrs. It seemed like everytime we turned our back he was out cold. Anyways, it's time for a Guinness!

We're Off!

Hey Everybody, we are sitting in Memorial Union at UW waiting for our bus to pick us up and take us to Chicago O'Hare where we will get on our flight this afternoon at 5pm and head to Newark, New Jersey before we skip over the big puddle and land in Dublin at what will be 3:30 am here. Zippy definitely didn't start packing until 9:45 this morning complete with two pieces of leapord print. It's going to be a long day with about 16 hours of traveling in front of us. We'll keep you all posted! Take care.