I recently returned from a 9-day vacation in Scotland and England. These are some pictures from Scotland that made me smile, but don’t really fit anywhere else.

Obviously no visit to Scotland would be complete without a visit to Loch Ness to try and spot Nessie. Unfortunately, I was only able to spot this giant stuffed Nessie in the gift shop adjacent to the Loch.

I was told I needed to try Irn Bru, which is a popular soft drink in Scotland. Very popular–I saw people drinking it everywhere.

It was…interesting. It had a very strong artificial orange and vanilla flavors, kind of like a carbonated, caffeinated creamsicle. Actually, I didn’t really like it, and didn’t finish the bottle.

Here’s a chain of discount stores in the UK, sort of like all the dollar stores in the US:

Of course I went in. They seemed to have slightly better merchandise than their US counterparts. I was especially happy to find boxes of Happy Hippo cookies for only 1 pound per box (you can get them in the US, but they’re hard to find and ridiculously overpriced).

I really like James McAvoy, and posters for his new movie were absolutely everywhere in Scotland:

For any Americans who might be feeling homesick, there were quite a few familiar chain stores around:

(All located in Buchanan Galleries, Glasgow).

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but look at this cute purple car I saw while I was there:

🙂