The Introverted Traveller: My Week in Scotland.

As some of you may have noticed my blog as been pretty quiet as of late. That is for two main reasons. The first is that throughout August, and some of July as well, I have been working almost non-stop bar weekends. I would go into more detail, but I'm unsure as to how many of you would actually like to hear about that sort of thing.

The second reason is that I have been on holiday. If you didn't read the second half of the title you may be expecting pictures of the beach and cocktail glasses. That's just what usually springs to mind went you think of a holiday I guess. However my holiday wasn't along those lines. I spent a week in Scotland with a group of about 30 people. We stayed in a really remote area in a tucked away house, with two cottages on the grounds, as well as some other nice features (Games room, pool house, barbecue hut etc.).

The majority of the younger adults and teens.

The week was really good and I enjoyed myself all-in-all. Although I came home with less than I expected in terms of gifts for my family. I took around £70 with me in cash, but almost all of that was spent on taxis and trains. I can hardly complain though because I enjoyed going to all of the places we visited.

On the Monday we walked along the canal to see the Falkirk Wheel in action. I wasn't too bothered about going to see it, but felt it would be rude to separate myself from the group so early on. I still wasn't too bothered about it all when we discovered that Freddie Flintoff was also there. He was filming there as part of his new Sky 1 programme that has yet to be named. Although I wasn't particularly bothered by his presence a number of the male members of the group were practically swooning at the sight of him.

Tuesday was much more to my taste. We all headed into Stirling for the day, with plans of walking around the castle. However when we found out there was a £14 admission charge per person we decided to find something else to do. So instead we had a bit of a wander in the neighbouring graveyard. I know graveyards aren't to everyone's taste, but personally I love them. There is hardly anything as peaceful as going for a walk in a graveyard and reading the occasional gravestone, in my opinion. Then we went for lunch and had a look around the shopping centre. This was just as enjoyable as there was a MenKind, LUSH and HMV for me to explore. I treated myself to a couple of bathbombs in LUSH and finally got my hands on the Captain America: The Winter Soldier DVD -I say finally because it felt like an eternity to me, but the DVD had only been released the previous day.

A quick snapshot of the graveyard in Stirling.

On Wednesday the majority of the group planned to stay on the house's grounds. I had other plans for my day though. I'm a huge fan of comedy -who isn't?- and I've wanted to go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival since I found out it existed. So being in Scotland I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to catch at least one show. So that's just what I did. I decided that I wanted to see either Daniel Sloss or Rhys James. I was leaning more towards Rhys James as I've already had the pleasure of seeing Daniel Sloss twice in London; and that is who I booked tickets for in the end. Rhys' set was a great and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. If it weren't for him telling us that this was his first year at the Fringe I would never have guessed it. Then when we returned to the house we were just in time for the barbecue supper.

Thursday involved another day trip out; this time it was to Glasgow. I really, really enjoyed my time in Glasgow, even if it did rain a lot and I missed out on meeting/seeing the YouTuber Jim Chapman, who also happened to be in Glasgow that day. Again I separated from the group, along with Brandon. During our exploration of Glasgow I popped into another LUSH; got a new shirt from New Look; finally found the shade 'Cannes Crush' in the new Revlon lipstain after previously searching four different Boots for it, both in England and Scotland; and -probably my highlight of the day- had some cocktails in the Hard Rock Café before heading to the station to re-group and grab a Starbucks.

A monument to remember this year's Commonwealth Games.

I decided to skip the outing on Friday and remain on the grounds. I stayed in our cottage pretty much the whole day watching TV and beginning to do a bit of packing. I spent Saturday in almost the exact same way, just with a bit more packing and a group meal out in the evening. And on Sunday we headed home; en route I grabbed lunch at the Bagel Factory and felt in love with their 'The Classic' in a sesame bagel.

My lunch courtesy of the Bagel Factory in Edinburgh Waverley Station.

I had a great week and would definitely love to go back to Scotland again. In particular Edinburgh as I didn't get a chance to explore it as much as I would have liked. It would also be nice to see Edinburgh when the Fringe Festival isn't on, as then I could see Edinburgh for Edinburgh as opposed to Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival. I'd also like to visit Glasgow again as I really liked the city.

Are there any places in Scotland you would like to visit, or already have and would recommend going to?
-Hannah. :)

P.S. If you'd like to see a couple more of the I took during my time in Scotland then I suggest you check out my Instagram (Info in my bio).