Coos, Coos Everywhere

Hello everyone! I am exhausted.  Today was an awesome day, but seriously I am about to collapse.  But before the fun stuff, I had my stupid library seminar this morning.  It was kind of pointless.  It taught me how to search for a book in the library catalogue (I know, this is advanced stuff), but it only lasted an hour so it was ok.  It was held in this huge computer lab.  I have never seen a computer lab so big.  It probably had about 50 computers in it.  I guess this is also where Stirling's money goes instead of to the dorms.  They can afford huge computer labs, but not larger rooms.

After my seminar was over, my friends and I went on a walk (it was actually more like a hike, but I'll get to that later).  I got to wear my new snazzy walking/hiking shoes.  I bought them at a legit outdoorsy store in the Thistle Center (it's a mall) in Stirling yesterday (I got them on sale.) because of the intensive walking that is suppose to be happening on this trip this weekend.  Anyways, we started out walking towards the castle on campus, and ended up at a church and then a main road (our goal was to get to the hills around campus).  On our way we found coos.  (Yes, coos!) I'm sure we made a real spectacle of ourselves (we were standing on a pretty main thoroughfare after all) .  We have been wanting to see coos (highland cattle for those who forgot) ever since we've been in Scotland.  We were pretty sure that we would have to wait and see them in the highlands, but little did we know there are some (a lot actually) right here in Stirling.

This is coo spotting number 1.  They are off in the distance, but don't worry, there are more coo pictures to come. 

After we recovered from our coo-coma, we kept on trekking towards the hills.  We came across this tiny town (and I mean really tiny, I Wikipedia-ed it and it's actually a village it's so tiny) called Blairlogie.  It was adorable. We walked through the town (which wasn't hard to do) and were directed by a very nice British man to the paths that lead up towards the hills.  

Here's Blairlogie.  It was such a cute town.

Once we found our path, we started walking in the general direction of the huge hill that overlooks the University.  On the way, we saw lots of sheep.  The sheep pretty much just roam around on the hills.  If you see any white dots on the pictures that I'll be posting later in this blog, they're probably sheep.  I don't know how, but they get up on the cliff faces and everything.  We kept following the path and ended up passing by some farmland that had sheep...and more coos!

But first, this is the scenery on the path that we were taking.  By the little white house at the top is where we found the coos.

Here are the ones that I could get close to (unfortunately there was no touching involved, but not for lack of trying).  There were also some out in a field, but they were kind of far away.

So by this point, you may be wondering if we were lost or on somebody's property.  Here is something else that I learned on my homestay (from Andy, who is from Glasgow so this is a real source) there are no (as in none) trespassing laws in Scotland.  Also, we were on the trail and there were signs telling us we were on a path.  

After our next coo encounter, we headed in the hills properly.  This next part was a hike, but it was well worth it.  The view was beautiful.  On one side all we could see were hills, on the other we could see down into another town (not Blairlogie, we weren't quite sure what it was). 

This was the view of the town. We decided that the river off in the distance was the Firth of Forth, which flows into the Northern Sea.  

We continued our walk and the scenery kept getting better and better. 

Here were some of the hills that we were walking through.

After a while, we decided that we should head back down.  But first, we decided to climb a little peak to get a good view from the area that we were in.  Once we got up to the top we found...more coos!  You know, when you know where to look, these guys are everywhere.

They were just kind of hanging out up in the hills.  (side not: They really are as awesome as I imagined them to be.)

I had to pose with the coos.

After we were throughly satisfied with all of our coo pictures, we started to head back down. On our way down, we found this rock in a very photogenic area just begging for us to take pictures by.

Here I am with my cool hiking shoes by the rock.  (These are things that will not be coming back to the US with me, no matter how comfortable they may be.)

Then, we finally made it on flat land and walked back to campus.  I made chili and garlic cheddar biscuits for dinner.  It was really satisfying after our outdoor expedition today. Tomorrow I have classes pretty much all day. (Which is kind of disappointing after the fun today.)  

Ok, I couldn't resists putting up one more coo shot.  On our way back to campus, the coos that were really far out in the field were closer and I got a good picture of them.  I hope that everyone is enjoying the coos as much as I am.