Today was my first holiday since I arrived here. I took part in a trip and went to isle of arran, which is the seventh largest Scottish island. It had a resident population of 4,629. It is said that the name of Arran possibly came from Brythonic for "high place". The bus drove us to a port(I think it's called Brodick) and then we got on board a ship and went to isle. In my opinion, it did not took more than 50 minutes. The view from ship was really beautiful, and I've never knew that there is such a cute isle in the Scotland. There seemed like popular tourist spot and I could see many families, backpackers, or cyclists in a ship. Our trip members were about 15 students (6 from China, 2 from Spain, 1 from Germany and Taiwan, and me). Among them, I got one friend. His name is Allen from Taiwan. He was nice guy and spend a nice time together. In the arran, we visited L-plan tower house called Lochranza castle. I read that in 1614 it was occupied by James VI and in the 1650s it was used by Cromwell. It was nice because I could feel the history of Scotland just by watching and walking through it. Afterwards, we visited Isle of Arran Distillers(which mean a factory whisky is produced). It is one of major sightseeing spot in this isle. I could learn how whisky was made, but actually it was really hard to understand their explains because of their Scottish accent. Also I could taste some whiskey. They are quite stronger than Japanese ones. I wished I could have more friends, but I think it was permissible range because it was first experience to go to journey with foreign guys. I tried hard.
