Crathes Castle part 2 and a little more downtown

The first week I was here I signed up for something called Friendship Link. They pair students up with a local family. Last weekend, I finally got to meet the family (at least the husband and wife). Anthony also got paired with the same family. They took us to this waterfall/rapids which were going faster than normal because of all the melting snow. Usually, you can watch salmon jumping up the falls/rapids, but I think the extra water scared them off for the day because we didn't see any. Either way, they were fun to watch. Next, we went to Crathes Castle. This time, however, we actually got to go on a tour of the inside. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures inside the castle. Although the inside of this castle really didn't look much different than any other house. It had been used as a personal home until the 1950's or 60's, but the owners donated it to the National Trust of Scotland. I did learn a couple of interesting things about the structure of a caslte while on the tour. One of the cooler things, the spiral staircases always spiral clockwise, except for a couple castles. The reason is for better defence. If you are defending the castle and someone runs up the stairs, their sword is blocked by the center post of the stairs. The person coming down the stairs has an open right side to freely strike with their sword. The couple castles that have stairs going the opposite way were left handed families. Another fun fact. One of the stairs in the stairway is a little larger than the others. If you were just walking up them you couldn't tell, but if you are running you trip on it. Finally, I had to duck to make it through every doorway, and none of them were the same hieght. This is to keep people from running through the castle. After the castle, Joy and Rob were nice enough to take us to dinner. It was delicious. It was a good way to finish off a good day.
After they dropped us off, Anthony and I decided to go pub hopping downtown. We ended up stopping at Fitzpatrick's, Prince of Wales Pub, The Illicit Still, and Blackfriar's. Fitzpatrick's was alright, I tried Fitzpatrick's Ale but I think that's the last time I'll drink it. Anthony forgot his ID and of course this was the first time they asked for it. So, while he went back to get it. I watched the rugby while he was gone and decided I had no idea what was going on. Prince of Wales pub is definitely my favorite place. They didn't have a single TV or even any music playing in the background, but the feel of the place was much better than any other place. They had really intricate wood work behind the bar and the rest of the place was pretty much hard wood as well. It was actually somewhat fancy looking inside. I tried another ale called Old Perculiar and enjoyed this one much better. I'm not exactly sure but I think it was a local brew. Both of us wanted to try a malt whisky but didn't really know what we should start with. There were a couple elderly gentlemen sitting next to us with whisky, so we were about to ask them but after a little eavesdropping decided we wouldn't be able to understand their accent even if we asked. Next, we headed over to the Illict Still. It was crowded with no place to sit and didn't end up staying, but it did look neat inside. After the quick look, we ended up at Blackfriar's. We ended up blindly choosing a malt whisky called Glenfiddich. It was quite good. I would definitley order it again. By the end of the night, I think the general conclusion was to definitly keep Prince of Wales and Blackfriar's on the list of places to go and maybe try the Illict Still again.