Going to Scotland 2023

Marieke, Maël & Nava. As the day began, we slowly realised that our journey was coming to an end. Our bags were packed once again and although it was our leaving day, we still had a full program. With our bags left behind at the Youth Hostel we headed to Fossil Grove in Victoria Park. You might probably wonder what Fossil Grove is. Well, in that park there is a rather small house in which you can find 330-million-year-old trees fossilised from the carboniferous period. Now would you believe that these trees are even older than the dinosaurs? The first dinosaurs started to walk the earth only 250 million years ago. We almost couldn’t believe it either. When those trees were still living organisms, they sucked in a huge amount of carbon dioxide, causing an ice age. Equally fascinating was the fact that insects would grow much bigger during these times. Centipedes, for example reached a size of up to 2 metres. Dragon flies could have a wing span up to 70 centimetres.  This can be expl

Meret, Alessandra & Viktorija. Today we met in the hostel lobby at 9:00 am. Although some of us thought that we meet only at 9.15 so we had to hurry a little. We walked together as a class for about half an hour through the city of Glasgow to our meeting point next to the lighthouse, where we met our tour guide Caron for our Street Art Tour. During a short introduction, Caron informed us that street art has actually existed for a long time, although not as we know it today. The Egyptians already painted the walls with hyroglyphs, followed by the Greeks and Romans. What was new to us is that stickers can be street art, too. Our tour guide explained that they are a form of peaceful and safe protest.  At the moment, the protest in Glasgow is mainly for the lgbtq+ community in Scotland, because they want to fight against transphobia. During Brexit, there was also a lot of protesting, with stickers to be found in random places around the city. We then found out that there is a differenc

Isabella and Robin Today was a really relaxing day, since we got to sleep in. People spent their morning exploring the city of Glasgow. Some of us got their nails done (the nail people were kinda rude ngl) while others went for a coffee or visited second-hand shops. At 1 o‘clock we met in our cosy hostel, where we had to discuss some interrail issues. But soon we made our way to the enchanting University of Glasgow, where we had the pleasure to listen to Lia’s and Nava‘s interesting presentation including some special effects. Among many facts, we learned that the first woman to graduate with a doctor‘s title at the University of Glasgow graduated in 1894. Then we were given time to explore the university ourselves.  15 minutes later we met to catch a bus to the Merchant ‘s City, where Sophie, Nina and Elsa were entertaining us with a presentation - or should we say theatre performance. We learned that the tobacco lords in Glasgow were a main component of industrialization, but as soon

  Sara, Delia & Lia. Today was a very exciting day. After we had packed up we left our youth hostel in Oban and were picked up by two private busses to go to our last but not least destination —> Glasgow!!! Our friendly Scottish guides and drivers, Dave and Michael, welcomed us in their kilts, and the tour began.  This part of our journey was quite special. We stopped at different beautiful places and hot spots where our guides gave us some interesting facts.   Our first stop was at a beach close to our hostel where we enjoyed our last ocean breeze.  After two more stops to admire the beautiful Scottish landscape we arrived at the Glencoe visitor centre where we learned about the massacre of Glencoe where one Scottish clan wanted to exterminate the other and that resulted in a bloody massacre. It was so strange to think about such cruelty while looking at  this stunning volcanic landscape. The word glen means valley and coe is the name of the river that runs through the area.  O

Miro, Yuki and Mia. After a stormy night, the day started very laid back. We had breakfast quite late, at around half past 9. We had to cancel our Plan A & B because of severe weather which was caused by a former hurricane, the hurricane Nigel, which was traveling over the Atlantic to north east Scotland. Our teachers still wanted to provide us with an interesting programme, so they spontaneously developed a Plan C. We were told that we would meet at the station at one o' clock. So we met at the bus station near the train station and were waiting for the bus to arrive, when it started to rain again. We then visited Dunstaffnage Castle, which was really beautiful and from the top we had a nice view. Dunstaffnage Castle was important in the times of Robert the Bruce, who reigned Scotland from 1306 to 1329.  It was built by the MacDougall Clan and was the residence of Duncan Mac Dougall. It was taken away from the Mac Dougall Clan because they sided a little too much with the Engl

Sylvia & Katia After many days of getting up early we finally had the chance to sleep in. But at same time most of us didn’t want to waste our time in Oban so we (Katia, Alessandra, Meret, Delia, Sara, Miro and Sylvia) went to have brunch together in a small café with a great sea view and considered ourselves to be pretty lucky to have this experience and make these amazing memories. The atmosphere was really relaxing. The waiter was friendly enough and gave us free toast. Then we went for a walk since the weather wasn’t that cold, for some souvenir shopping for friends and family at home. After a successful shopping trip our class split up into two groups for our tour in Oban’s whisky distillery. Sadly, no taste testing for us :(. Thanks to our tour guides we had a very fun and educational experience. Oban Whisky Distillery produces a renowned single malt Scotch whisky. We were told that single malt means that only three ingredients, barley, yeast and water are being used to make