UK 2013 - day 13: Castles and the Discovery of Captain Scott

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Today all my dreams of becoming a princess were definitely shattered ... well, not that Princess Kate hadn't already done it when she married Will. But today I learned why Will chose her and not me.

We visited Glamis Castle - the childhood home of Queen Mother Elizabeth (wife of King George), and birthplace of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Just by looking at their possessions, and learning about their lifestyle and their history of generations after generations of life in that castle, I understood that this thing called aristocracy is not about how much money you have. I could probably work hard and get rich someday... but you can not buy finesse and class. This is something you learn from birth... I guess I will just keep working my butt off, try to make good money to live comfortably, but forget these silly princess dream... I mean, look at their wardrobe and look at mine.

Glamis Castle is very organized and it takes credit card.

Before Glamis we visited Castle Fraser - which no longer belongs to the Fraser family. It was sold in 1921, then restored and given to the National Trust of Scotland by a certain Mrs. Smiley - I forgot her first name.

Now at castle Fraser I found out that Brazilians are some sort of plague that haunts the world.
The Castle has so many guides, that just stay located on each floor to help you with questions or information.
Suddenly something about the 2nd floor guide sounded awfully familiar.
"Where is your accent from?" I asked.
"Brazil."
"Ai, meu pai! Brasileira!"
Castle Fraser doesn't take credit cards - bring cash.

This day had forecast of rain. As i've said before, we've been lucky. But today it rained for the first part of the day. This would have been a problem if we had not planned on spending the day inside castles. The only real problem was to get from the car park to castle Fraser - our first stop. It was raining.

I wonder if you ask a child here in Scotland what color the sky is, is he going to say gray?

But at the end of the day, when we drove to Dundee to meet Dean's shaving group friend Scott, the rain held up.

Scott met us at his favorite shaving store, where zdesn, of course, bought something. Then, he took us for dinner, took us tom the EE store, took us to see the Discovery, which is actually docked in Dundee permanently, then he took my book with him as well.

So I have learned today that Scottish people are pretty nationalistic, to the point that they will soon be voting on a referendum to separate from England.

On the ride to the castles we saw some enchanted forests.
We also saw an interesting fixer-upper. A house with only one wall left standing. We should buy that.

We have noticed that some of the pavement here is red, and some is yellow. we don't know why. We also don't know why some card have L or R stickers on them.









Today's expenses
castle Fraser souvenirs - £2.00(cash)
shore terrace car park - £1.70(cash) Dundee
EE - £5.00
Glamis castle - £19.00(credit)
castle Fraser - £20.00(cash)
castle Fraser park - £2.00(cash)
The Gentleman's Groom Room - £10.95(credit)