June 23-Raquel Rodriguez

I woke up with the sound of my alarm clock at 6:00 am but I was so tired that I decided to sleep for five more minutes and they turned into 2.5 hours! I jumped out of bed and hurried to my nine o’clock class. This is our 6th day in Scotland and I can tell that everyone in the group is so tired but still excited for being here.
We reviewed our time line and had a little exam review, which by the way the story of the royalty of Scotland would make a good Jerry Springer show. We talked about the differences of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches. The Episcopal is comparable with the Catholic Church however is not in line with the Pope. The monarchy elected the ministers, whereas the Presbyterian Church was elected by the people and for the people.
We also talked about Henry, James I son whom died young, just because he wanted to take a swim in the Thames River. Sad he lost the chance to be King L Instead his brother Charles I whom was not raised to be a King was crowned, becoming King of Scotland and England, like his father. Ironically, he only visited Scotland one time, since he lived in England.
On our visit to St. Giles church we learned about Geddes, the lady whom throw a chair protesting because Charles I wanted the Scots to once again read the Bible in Latin. The reformation kicked in, Oliver Cronwell became Lord Protector aka wanna be king, and got in 1651 Charles I beheaded. Charles II was then secretly crowned secretly by Scotland (they regretted turning Charles I to England to be killed, to late to take it back).
In class we also got to apply personality theory for some of the people we have read about like William Wallace, that matches the Adler perspective, and the one I got with Kat, David Hume, that is a mix between Adler’s and Jung theories.
After class my girls and I decided to hit the road and do some shopping, if there is one thing I love in this world other then God and my son/family it is shoes. We entered this store and automatically I felt in shoe heaven, but of course brought right down when I saw the prices. Anyway we needed to hurry the class trip of the day was going to be in the second most visited place in Scotland, the Edinburgh Castle.
When I entered this castle my mouth dropped, the view and just the grandeur of the place was breathtaking. I decided to take the audio tour rather than the group tour with our group. I have been reading about Scottish history for the past 5 days but the audio tour gave me a different insight, of course there was all I have read but I want to share with you guys some of the info that was not on the text books like:
Castle Rock was formed by volcanic explosions
The castle has the only pet cemetery (for only police dogs) in Scotland
People believe that there was people in that castle since the late Bronze Age (900 BC)
Of course Romance, that love story that we imagine when we think about castles with the exception that in real life they actually die. This was the home of Malcolm III known as Big Head. He married Princess Margaret whom was hiding in Scotland with her brother. She falls in love so much with her husband that when he was killed she died three days later in so much pain for the lost of the loved one.
There were so many more cool things to learn like about the stone of destiny (Scotland’s coronation stone) and that here is where MQOS (Dr. Long lets us abbreviate Mary, Queen of Scots for our exams) gave birth to James VI. (In the royal palace within the castle) that I can’t write all (even when I am dying to ;) it is an interesting place to visit.