Casey Deller at the original cottage of the Davidson Family, the co-founders of Harley Davidson Motorcycles, near Brechin.

The GSE Team at Loch Leven Castle

The team on the Maid of the Forth Bridge, with the Scotland Flag 

and the Forth Rail Bridge in the background.

Dr. Bob overlooking the plaque at St. Anthony's Chapel

The cathedral at Edinburgh Castle, the oldest ruins in Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle from the west

What a crazy idea it was to go fishing, pouring rain and limited time frame meant that we had to get up early, don major rain gear, rent boat and rods, motor out into the lake (and you must note that I am not a nautical person, so I had no idea what I was doing) where we unsuccessfully attempted to fly fish for the lake's trout. In any event, the rain DID stop very shortly after we began fishing, so there was that small comfort, and no one was injured or drowned. I envied our sleeping Emily and Jim. Admittedly, Jim probably could not have gotten out of bed after his evening with Barry studying the finer points of Scotch Whiskey (or so i suspect).
Upon our return to our home families, we collected our belongings and sadly parted company. In all sincerity, we all felt we had met some of the finest people possible and will miss them greatly. Alistair, Neil and Ken were our drivers for the Dundee area, where we exchanged to our new drivers from the Banchory-Ternan Rotary Club, John and Andrew. We had a sort of gradual changeover because Alistair remained with us to visit the Discovery Point exhibits. This is an anchored wodden ship thet took one of the first trips to the Antarctic and included Shackleton in its crew.
John and Andrew did a great job of leading us over the Cairn o' Mount (probably misspelled). We had lunch on the way. Casey had dicovered that Netherton (read Harley Davidson roots) was practically on the way. After a brief search, we found the original house of the Davidson family and saw that it was being renovated. What a great point for our presentation (which includes Harley Davidson as a main topic).
Upon entering Banchory, we stopped for a quick visit to the Feugh Creek, to look for jumping salmon, and the Dee River. At our presentations that night, at the Club meeting, only the team leader messed up again, missing the same point in his presentation. I guess he will have to "work on it" a little more. The team did great again. Tomorrow is another vocational day....let's see if the team can get their first vocational day reported here before I move on with the blog.

Well, sorry to all, my team seems to be too busy to file their reports. I guess that is how it should be, perhaps. Please keep your eyes peeled for future posts that are out of order and go back to that first vocational day.
Moving on to the next full day of team activities which finds us at Dumfermline-Carnegie's breakfast meeting to give our presentation. Everything went well with the notable exception that the team leader messed up his talk and skipped one slide. It was not a crisis, but my team noticed the defect and called me on it later. Youth these days have no respect. Well, in truth, they only teased me a little.
Immediately after the presentation we all jumped on a nearby train to ride across the old 1890's rail bridge, both architecturally and historically significant, across the Firth of Firth. A quick walk, quite difficult for Emily in her 12 inch stilletto heels, down to the Firth. OK, maybe they were 4 inch, but, still a challenging hike down a slippery or muddy trail. Everyone made it safely down and there were no complaints at all, it just required some caution and patience. After a quick coffee (read "hot chocolate" for me) at Hawes Tavern, we hopped onto the Maid of the Forth, a ferry boat, to view Inchcolm Island and to get the view from the Firth. It was interesting to see Edinburgh from this vantage point in the distance.
Lunch was at the home of Neil Maclure, and his wife, who really did an amazing job for us. Delicious sandwiches (including vegetarian soups and sandwiches for Emily that were too good for me to pass up), shortbread, oatcakes and the aforementioned soups were provided in plentiful amounts. It was also wonderful fellowship. Sadly, a you will soon read, Casey began to drop hints about fishing in the area.
We darted off to the local library where David Munro (a geologist and local historian) shared some history of the Kinross area and lead us over to Loch Leven for a short boat ride over to Loch Leven castle, perhaps first constructed as early as 1257 or so, where Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned once for 11 months. It was a very simple castle, I think Mot and Bailey would be a fair description, with its one main 5 storey tower, a surrounding wall, maybe 120 to 150 yards to a side, and a smaller tower (Glassin tower) where she was held.
Dinner was in the home of Club President Sandy and his wife, and included the other host families and many Rotarians involved in our experience. The food was excellent (thanks, Trevor, though I'll never forgive you for withholding the vegetarian dish recipe....just kidding) and the company even better. It was the culmination of an amazing few days in Kinross. Our hosts could not have been more welcoming or more supportive. Unfortunately, Casey strongarmed Neil Maclure into a fishing trip the next morning, with Ben and I agreeing to go. Silly us.

I think at this point each of the team members should put in a description of their "vocational day". Mine, however was the easiest to describe and was amazing. Rain cancelled my scheduled golf match (so I saved myself all the embarassment) and, instead, was taken by Malcolm and Eddie to the Royal and Ancient Club at St. Andrews. We dined in Malcolm's club there (the "New Club") which overlooks the 18th fairway of the old course, and visited the golf museum nearby. A great day for anyone with an interest in golf and golf history. I especially enjoyed watching the waterlogged die-hard golfers slogging through the very deep casual water of the course while we enjoyed our snacks. We toured the town of St. Andrews, as well, seeing the remains of the St. Andrews cathedral and some of the remaining walls for the city nearby. I will pause here to allow the others to add their vocational day information (and will pick up soon whether they enter data or not!).

Sunday the 26th OUR FIRST DAY OF GSE- we were picked up by several drivers immediately after a breakfast in the Edinburgh campus cafeteria. and drove the 30 or 40 minutes to Kinross, across the Firth of Forth Bridge. Another newer bridge is being built to replace this bridge due to aging of the suspension cables. I was able to enjoy a pleasant walk with my very excellent hosts, Malcolm and Fiona Mapp, before we all had to return to Kinross for a little luncheon meeting with the district governor Cath and other Rotarians involved in our exchange. This was followed by a photo op in the hotel courtyard.
Our afternoon trip took us to the Falkland Palace, where Mary Queen of Scotts spent a lot of time. There were beautiful gardens and (perhaps) the oldest tennis court in the world. We had a nice dinner in a different hotel with many of the host families and Rotarians involved in the exchange.

Saturday morning (25th) we were off to Edinburgh town. Rain was fairly persistent and a bit uncomfortable this morning but a quick bus ride brought us to the Waverly train station near Princes Street where we ducked into a shop for coffee and hot chocolate. By the time we departed the shop, perhaps an hour later or so, no more rain! We chose to climb the 387 steps of the Scott tower (in honor of Sir Walter Scott), or maybe it was 378 steps. It was a little tight near the top but it provided us a great view of the city and the castle thorough the light mist that intermittently fell. Lunch was in a pub and we then returned to the castle for a more detailed visit, which included viewing the crown and scepter, the WWI memorial hall, the Argyll Tower and the prisons.
Dinner was in the Kalpna Restaurant. The vegetarian food was amazingly good. We meet Kate Yoder, an Ambassadorial Scholar from District 7390 and who is attending University here in Edinburgh, for that dinner. She was thouroughly enjoyable company, and a huge credit to our District. We then went to the Greenmantle pub for a drink after dinner.

Casey Deller:  Our flight from Newark to Edinburgh went well, outside of a Travelex debacle for one of our team members and some crying children on the flight.  The plane had some nice technology to keep us entertained, each seat had an entertainment monitor with 70 movies, plus tv shows, games etc for each person to choose from. We arrived here around 7 a.m. local time (2 am ome - time) and got rides from local rotary 'chaps' to the university, which is very nice. Edinburgh is a pretty neat City.  It has very old historic sections mixed with new architecture and modern technology. We got had access to only 2 of the 5 rooms when we arrived, so we dumped all our gear and hiked to Aurthur's Seat, a mountain for hiking overlooking the city. We hiked up to the top and the views were pretty magnificent.  We hiked down, past a church ruin site built in the 1100's. We walked through the city, past the parliament, the royal palace in Scotland and down the Royal Mile, a street which leads to the Edinburgh Castle on another hill. Great sites and architecture.  Plus the Edinburgh Fringe is going on, with most of that street closed with live theatre and other activities going on. We then toured the castle, which was very cool.  Records for numbers of photos on a trip are bound to be broken  Now we are back at the university, resting, napping (fighting off the jet lag)and getting ready for the evening. We are going to the dinner and then to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a bagpipe and traditional Scottish music competition; think 'marching band with bag pipes. 

Above is the team photo! Our excitement builds as we completed our final meeeting prior to departure last night. It is beginning to seem REAL at this point. We'll keep you posted.