Day 21

3 weeks. I have been in Scotland for 3 weeks. Wow. If I hadn't been keeping track with this blog, or if calendars had never been invented - I could have been tricked into believing I have been here for 3 months. The things I have done in these 3 weeks. The people I have built relationships with. Everything. It is truly incredible. I feel like some of these people I'm with have been my best best friends for half my life. What's funnier is that I am almost positive everyone feels the same way. What a great experience.

Today I woke up a little late, 1230, and for some reason I couldn't stop eating! Ha, not really blog worthy, but damn I literally ate probably 3 meals before 3pm. Crazy stuff. Anyway, come 5pm Jordan, Marc and I decided to go to "The Scotch Whisky Experience", which is a tourist-aimed educational/fun/eventful kinda dealio. Basically, we sat in a barrel, it went around tracks very slowly... and we went through each stage that the whisky would have gone through... there was a bit of information as we drifted through each part. After the ride section was over, there was some reading to do - then off to the tasting. There are 4 different main whisky regions in Scotland; you have the Lowlands, which has a grainy/cereal/biscutty kind of flavoring, the Highlands, which has a flowery/perfumey kind of flavoring, Speyside, which has a fruit flavoring, and Islay, which has a smokey flavoring. Obviously none of the whiskys actually tasted like their flavorings, except Islay, that definitely tastes like you are drinking bonfire smoke. Nonetheless, it was great learning about all the different types and how it is distilled etc etc... the picture you see is the collection of a Claive Vidiz's whisky bottles, he has hundreds upon hundreds. The collection grew quite famous and makes would send him limited edition bottles, specially made bottles - one in particular that stood out to me was a full chess set, each piece containing some scotch! It was quite impressive... the most expensive bottle he has was bought in I believe 1984 in New York, purchased at the time for $1000, it is said to be worth just over $33000 now! Not a bad investment if you ask me. None of the bottles have ever been opened. It is pretty funny because some of the whisky bottles actual amount of liquid have fallen a bit, they say it's due to small cracks in the corks - letting some of the whisky evaporate into vapor over time. We got to keep our whisky testing glasses, with instructions on how to properly taste the whisky, I feel like an astute whisky connoisseur now (not really).

When I got home I checked my emails and talked to my Dad for a bit about the findings from our family linage! Pretty cool stuff! It dated back to the 1300's and we now have found out that not only is King Edward I of England my 19th grandfather, but King Henry IV of England was my 18th grandfather on the other side! Along with his father, the Duke of Lancaster and so on down the list... not bad! We have been trying to trace it back for years now it seems, finally some answers. Very interesting, probably even more for my aunts and dad, they get to see who their aunts, uncles, and grandfather/mothers were - some they never were able to meet.

To wrap things up tonight I headed over to Benny and Dave's, Amy showed up a bit later and we all hungout for a bit. Then we started up a game of 2vs2 articulate, quite possibly my favorite board game in existence now (sorry pictionary). That was a ton of fun, as always. We were all literally dying of laughter by the end of it. I have yet to have a even remotely boring time playing that game... I highly recommend getting it.

Welp, looks like I am going to call it a night, disco iceskating is on the agenda tomorrow night... bahaha... hopefully I'll be able to pick up a golf club or two to pitch around the "golf course" outside of my flat as well! Until next time...