Inverness Weekend - Day 2

Greetings all!

On Day 2 of our Inverness trip, we started by visiting the Cairngorm mountains, which are awesome. Unfortunately, it was too windy for us to ride a little rail carriage through the mountains, but we got to see them and we also attended an educational presentation about flora and fauna in the Cairngorms, which are radically different than flora and fauna in the rest of Scotland because the tips of the Cairngorms are actually above the clouds...Or something like that.

Here's a picture of Sarah and a 5,000 tree trunk.

And here's a picture of the general beauty of the Cairngorms:
Sarah: I promise I didn't up the saturation on that photo.


One of the coolest things about going to the Cairngorms was learning about a new eco-friendly initiative for all hikers/campers who visit the area. It's called the Cairngorm Poo Project. Instead of letting the visitors use the Earth as a toilet -- and instead of providing them with toilets that would send the waste into the local streams or lochs (lakes) -- everyone bags their own waste and disposes it at a poo disposal point. The waste then travels to a special water treatment facility.
After the Cairngorms we went to another distillery. This time it was the Glenlivet Distillery. It was pretty cool, but just not as cool as the Glenfiddich Distillery that we already visited.
Sarah: Ya, that's basically all we do in Scotland. Another day, another distillery.

After the distillery we went on a cruise! Okay, it wasn't a cruise that we are familiar with; instead of the gorgeous, bright, warm Caribbean, we saw the dark, cold, mysterious Loch Ness. We searched for Nessy intently but she eluded us this time.

The cruise took us to the Urquhart Castle. It was mostly ruins but there were still a few awesome structures, such as a stairwell in which I performed a reenactment of a hostile invader preparing to put an end to the unjust oppression of the local dictatorial royalty:
Of course, due to my inexperience with hostile takeovers, I had to hold onto the roped guardrail and my most formidable weapon besides my limbs was my glasses.


This is Sarah's William Wallace impression (with more cuteness and less sword):
Finally, we stopped at Glencoe, where are more stunningly massive mountains. I believe it was Sir Walter Scott (or some other famous Scots literary figure) who said Glencoe was a "burial ground for giants." It made me feel like I was in the Lord of the Rings. I searched for hobbit-sized beings but only found sheep.
Sarah: The name of this formation is 'The Three Sisters'. There's a third peak outside the frame of this pic. Anyway, we thought that was interesting because there's a bar right next to our apartment block called the Three Sisters, and on Wednesdays we can hear their sound system all night long. Kind of like a lullaby.

Zach: Not really....especially when they play such a weird playlist as Johnny Cash, Alanis Morrisette, and Nickelback at 2am.

Cheers!
Zach and Sarah

Inverness Weekend - Day 1

Happy Sunday!

Sorry for a bit of blogging delay; our school work has been rather intense lately but I'm finally able to catch up with our beautiful adventures.

The weekend directly following the Isle of Skye, we went on a trip to Inverness (a mid-sized city in northern Scotland), as well as other places in between. It was arranged by our orientation organization, IFSA-Butler, so we didn't have to worry about transportation or where we were going to sleep, which was fantastic. We had to leave our flats at the wonderful hour of 7:00 AM (or so). We had to walk to another dorm building in order to get to the buses, which is relevant because it was rainy and there were (approximately) 30 MPH winds. We stopped to get coffee/breakfast at Starbucks (a silly American moment) and then realized we were running late. Sarah was... stressed. We spilled lots of coffee, but we made it!

Sarah: I burnt my fingers, but I was glad for caffeine. Isn't it funny that sometimes I freak about about being late and Zach is the optimistic one, and sometimes Zach freaks out really bad and I couldn't be bothered? I guess its good that usually one of us cares, or we'd never get anywhere.

Our first stop was the Scone Palace (pronounced Skoon.. I was repeatedly corrected for calling it the equivalent of a Pastry Palace). It's an important Scottish place because for a while it housed the Stone of Destiny (a large sandstone brick), which is what the Kings of the Scots sat on during coronation. I actually encourage some further reading about the Stone of Destiny; it has an interesting history (e.g., the English took it and put it in the throne in Westminster Abbey to be used in English kings' coronation ceremonies, to symbolise the fact that England is "Lord Paramount" of Scotland with right to oversee Scotland's king.)

Sarah: Gives another meaning to the phrase, "I'm gonna sit on you!"

Enough history, here are two pics outside the Palace, which is made of red sandstone.


One of the coolest things we did at the palace was watch a falconry display. Falconry is a Scots tradition; men would take their birds of prey hunting to help catch food to eat. Basically, a guy showed us three sweet-looking birds. This next pic is an owl.


Sarah: HEDWIG!


After the Scone Palace we made a pit stop for lunch in Pitlochry, a small town. Sarah and I actually had Indian food, which we've discovered to be a pretty Scottish thing to do. Following the lunch break, we arrived at an incredible sheepdog farm. It was one of the coolest places I have ever been. (I'm quite the sucker for smelly animals.) The first thing I noticed at the farm were the uncountable sheepdogs. I estimate that there were fifteen, not including puppies (which were adorable and still blind). The next thing I noticed were SHEEP, the most under-appreciated of all farm animals. Everyone in the group wanted to pet the dogs but no one wanted to see the sheep, so I gave them some attention. They might not be smart (well, they actually aren't smart at all, in any way), but I think they're cute.

Then we got to see the farmer shear a sheep! I was worried that the poor animal would get hurt, but it doesn't hurt at all. For those who want a visual exercise, try to count all the dogs in the picture.



Sarah: Okay, really look at the above picture. The sheep is UPSIDE DOWN. When sheep get freaked out, they just go kind of limp. The farmer was holding the sheep's head up by one of it's horns, and when he let go, the sheep just kind of toppled over (like it was dead or something). It was fine, just ridiculous looking.


We also got to see the dogs herd the sheep! It was amazing. The farmer had over 20 commands for each dog, which were combinations of musical whistles and Gaelic commands.


Then, we got to feed the sheep! The farmers gave us little milk bottles, and the sheep frantically demolished them. They also tried to steal the bottles.

Meanwhile, the farmers brought out all the puppies. Many of the females in our group rushed to pick them up as if they were going to steal them. We actually had to queue to get one. (Queue = British talk for wait in line. It also takes on a noun form.)

After the farm, we drove to Inverness. It's a nice city, and it's somewhat new (it was given city-status in 2000). We had dinner and went to a couple pubs. The most memorable moment of the night was a near-fight between two drunken locals and a guy in our group. We were standing on a bridge, taking pictures, being Americans, and two guys walked by us. One of them drunkenly said, "Ohhh, Americans! Cowabunga, dude!" Then one of the guys in our group walked up and said, "You like Ninja Turtles, too!" To put it briefly, our fellow American had an alcoholic drink in his hand and the local... wanted the drink. I backed away slowly... thankfully the locals kept walking after seeing that they were not going to get the drink.

Well, that's about all of day 1. The day 2 post should be finished soon!

From the land of the Scots,
Zach

Isle of Skye - Part II

After breakfast, we hopped on a bus to take us around Trotternish, the north-western peninsula of the Isle of Skye. The bus driver was extremely cool; he stopped the bus twice just to let me take pictures. The first time we stopped I took a picture of the Old Man of Storr, an oddly shaped rock pinnacle made of volcanic plugs. This is the picture I took:

The second time, there were two highland cows on the side of the road. I would have gotten closer but highland cows are said to be quite aggressive, plus they have massive horns.

So the plan was to get off at the northern-most tip of Trotternish, in a town named Duntulm, to see the Duntulm Castle. We didn't know really know anything about this castle, other than the fact that it was a castle. But when we got off the bus, we saw that the “castle” was actually more like a small, ruined structure pile of stones that may or may not have ever housed people. But it didn't bother us that it wasn't massive.

If you squint a little, you can almost see the castle up at the top.

Sarah: Let me interject, it kinda bothered me that it wasn’t that massive. I thought we were going this other place, Dunvegan castle, but I guess we got the names mixed up. Instead, we were in this remote area, that took us over an hour to get to by bus. There were absolutely no people in sight. Just farmland and sheep. And the “bus stop”, or place where we exited to our doom, wasn’t even marked. I really tried not to be a whiner. At least it was pretty....

Zach: I thought it was gorgeous, and I love sheep...

So, good adventurers that we are, we made the best of it and climbed up a very treacherous path up to the “castle”. We basically scrambled up a steep, 4-inch wide mud-trench with nothing to hold on to but barbed wire.

It’s amazing we made it really, carrying our packs. But so then, when we eventually made it to the top, what did we see but a sign that said: “Access Prohibited”.

So good adventurers that we are, we hopped the fence and took some sweet pictures.


So after the “castle”, we thought we’d warm up by hiking it to the closest form of civilization – a small B&B on the side of the one-lane road called the Duntulm Castle Hotel. We knocked on the door, rang the doorbell, but no one came. We hoped they’d be back soon.

Anyway, a we passed a few hours soaking up the bit of sunshine there was, and made our way back to the “bus stop”, hoping to say goodbye to the Duntulm Castle.

But the bus -- which was supposed to take us to another cool town called Uig –- completely PASSED us. Even though we were waiting on the side of the road, even though we waved at the driver, even though we quite obviously were the only two people in that remote, unpopulated spot in Northern Scotland. At first we thought, “That wasn’t our bus”…but none came after it.

It wouldn't have been bad at all if it weren't painfully windy, which left us freezing even though we put on as many layers as possible.

Sarah: We looked like hobos.

Zach: I was starting to think about where I would go to the bathroom, but since we were walking on deserted farmland, I wasn't concerned at all.

We figured we’d try again at Duntulm Castle Hotel, but no one answered. And so, we had nowhere to go while we waited, hoping another bus for would show up about in about 3 hours.

Stupid "semi-closed" hotel.

After more shivering, a swift demolishing of all our trail-mix, and many attempts of mine to converse with the local sheep, we heard some movement in the hotel. A woman opened a door and said, "Hello...” We said hi, and I desperately tried to explain why the two of us were sitting by the hotel, looking like hobos, for about 5 hours. Sarah, understandably confused, asked if the hotel was closed for the season. The lady cryptically replied, "Well... we're semi-closed." Still confused, we couldn't think of any response other than a delayed "Oh, okay...” And then she just left.

Sarah: Okay what? We’d been basically camping outside that dumb hotel all day. We were obviously freezing – I think I had 5 coats on. And maybe we did look a little shifty - but she didn't offer to let us come in?... and what in the world does “semi-closed” mean? The whole thing was just so comical. We couldn’t stop laughing...

Zach: ...to keep from crying.
Anyway the next bus finally came. This time I walked into the middle of the road to make sure the driver stopped for us, and to prevent our being stranded there for a whole night. We didn't get to stop in Uig like we wanted, because we were on the last of the night. That was okay with us though; we were just happy to be in a heated, windless space.

Once we got to Portree we checked into our second-ever hostel, called the Portree Independent Hostel. It was certainly more colorful than our youth hostel in Broadford. Unfortunately, we had to stay in a mixed dorm this time around. I started to get concerned when we walked into our room to discover we would be sharing with 3 other Italian guys. Sarah was the only female, and she was sleeping on the top bunk of a bunkbed, whereas I was sleeping on a non-bunked bed a meter away, and I (of course) didn't know these mysterious men.

Sarah: Zach was really worried. I mean really.

My worry was delayed since we immediately went out for dinner. We had delicious food -- I had pizza and Sarah had a meat pie. Afterwards we went to a pub next door, which was great fun. A guy with a saxophone and a couple guitars played live music for an hour or two, and an athletic team came in for a bit. We couldn't figure out whether they were a football team or a rugby team, but it was fun to watch them.

After the pub, I had to face my fears of staying in hostel with 3 other dudes who were sleeping in the same room as Sarah. To put it briefly, I didn't sleep much. Once we got in bed, two of the three guys were sleeping, and the third guy was still gone somewhere, and I didn't want to be asleep for when he came back, so I wasn't in the mood for sleeping. As I watched Sarah sleep on the bunk bed above random-guy's bed, I was like Chuck Norris: I didn't sleep, I waited. I stayed up for probably an hour or so until the suspicious target arrived. He went right to sleep, but I still waited and watched in the darkness, like a hunter, like a sniper, like a lion... or one of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. I was analyzing the room for weapons; I was arranging my sheets for an easy, swift flight from the bed into battle. I was mentally preparing my battle roar and physically preparing my arms, which would no longer be mere limbs. They would be deliverers of incapacitation.

Of course, the guy just slept all the way through the night and didn't seem to move at all. I fell asleep a few times but always tried to wake myself up to be the watchman. Nevertheless, it was totally uneventful.

The next morning we had enough time to eat at a really sweet cafe and hop on the bus back to Edinburgh.

Until next time,
Zach

The Isle of Skye

Greetings!

The photo of a highland cow from a couple posts ago was taken on the Isle of Skye, which is off the north-western coast of Scotland.

Sarah: I named the cow, or "coo" as they say in Scotland, Hamish. Just in case you were wondering.....

Our trip to Skye was our first independent journey, so we were excited (and somewhat nervous). We left Edinburgh at the buttcrack of dawn - 5 am. We stopped in Glasgow, changed buses, and then went onwards to Ft. William. We passed through Glencoe on the way.
In Ft. William we had just enough time to grab some food and before boarding the Jacobite Steam Train. (aka the Hogwarts Express)

Yes! It is the same train featured in multiple Harry Potter films. It was beautiful, and it was the longest train trip that I have ever taken. The trip took us to Mallaig, on the north-western coast of mainland Scotland.
From what we had time to see, Mallaig is a smallish town with just a few shops and a dock. We thought we had a lot of time before our ferry left for Skye, but we dilly-dallied and as we were getting coffee we realized it was time to board. So we ran to the ferry, even with our sizeable travel backpacks.

Sarah: ahem...we were late because Zach need to buy gloves.

So after we boarded the ferry, we had time to drink the coffee that almost made us miss the boat. It was terrible, probably the worst coffee we've ever had. We have since learned that unless you're at Starbucks or Costa, Scotland is not the place to get excellent coffee.
Here's the ferry:


Once we got to Skye, I rejoiced. I was so nervous that we wouldn't be able to catch all of our various buses/trains/ferries, but we did. It was relieving to just walk for a while, so we walked... and walked... and walked. We hiked it through the castle and castle-gardens in Armadale, which were gorgeous. Here's Armadale castle, featuring Britain at its best: a red mini parked next to a castle.

After the castle, we walked/hiked along the shore of southern Skye for... a long time. We were trying to catch a bus to Broadford -- where our hostel was. I was happy to trek. But the bus never came, so we kept walking, and walking, and walking. We finally found a real bus stop, and we decided to hedge our bets and hope a bus came soon. It did, thankfully. Later, we looked on a map and figured out that we trekked HALFWAY to Broadford, which would have been a thirty minute drive, so the walk took us multiple hours. It would have been perfect except Sarah was sick. I'll let her say more about that.

Sarah: I'll let this picture speak for itself. Regardless, it was beautiful. We saw several massive mountains, that we named Narnia, and we also met a large, outgoing pig.

We finally made it to the Broadford Youth Hostel around dinner time. The town was pretty small, but quite scenic. We could see the sea from our window. The hostel was actually excellent; it was clean and safe and the staff was friendly. The next morning, we ran through wind, rain and sickness to catch the bus to Portree. The bus stop wasn't as close as I had thought.
We made it on the bus, though, which took us to Portree, the mini-capital of Skye. We had time to explore the town centre and eat a true Scottish meal. I had haggis, neaps, and tatties, and Sarah had a true Scottish breakfast -- black pudding, tomato, beans, fried egg, toast, sausage, mushrooms, and bacon.

Sarah: I ate it all too. All of it.

I'll let you digest that for now,

Zach

Yum.

Today I had chocolate soup for lunch. And it made my day.
Love, Sarah

Conquering Arthur's Seat and Exploring Aberdeenshire

Hey chaps,

Today marks the end of our third week of classes. School is great, but not nearly as interesting as a couple of adventures that still need to be blogged. First, on the Saturday just before classes started, Sarah and I trekked all the way to the top of Arthur's Seat, a giant hill on the east side of Edinburgh. We didn't really know what we were in for; we thought it would just be a nice, long walk - but we nearly had to crawl to the top because of how tiring it was (well, at least for me). The weather was beautiful, so it provided for some of our best pictures yet. They're in the picasa thing on the right side of this blog thing. Then later that week, Sarah and I went for a run around Holyrood Park (the park in which Arthur's Seat lies). We thought we knew where we were going, but I guess we took a wrong turn. And so -- it was one of the longest runs of my life... We mapped it out and it was about 5 miles. It was pretty exhilarating because we had no idea where we were going; we just ran. But it was a good way to see the city at least; we even ran so far as to see the sea!

Sarah: Haha, and in the middle of our run, at a stoplight I think, we met this kid Lennon (after John Lennon he told us.) He was about 7, and super rad. He is missing his front teeth and he supports the Rangers football club. He goes to school every other day and he just really wanted us to stop running and play football with him. So we did, until the light turned green.




One of our biggest adventures so far was to the Aberdeenshire area in Northeast Scotland. It was our homestay visit, organized by IFSA-Butler (our study abroad program). Both of us stayed with families in an area around the small town of Insch. We left on Friday, September 26th, via bus with the other 10 or so people who were staying with families around Insch. To start off the trip, we got really lost on the way, which was amusing. Our bus driver just had a post-it note on his dashboard that said "Insch" on it, and that was all the information he had in order to get us there. I thought it was fun, but once we got to our families, the true fun started.

Sarah: Ya – Plus we couldn’t really understand anything the bus driver was saying, except for when he was cursing at the cars passing us … anddddd he had a curly mullet Anyway, we stopped for directions about 14 times and in the end, the families actually had to send out a search party (my super-awesome-dad-Norm-who-was-way-better-than-Hugh) to find us. We had a good laugh about it anyway…


I stayed with the Sutherland's, an amazing family. Hugh (the father) is an aircraft engineer and his wife (Ann) is a school teacher. Though it's not as relevant, I can't resist pointing out that they have a horse! I stayed there with two other guys in the IFSA-Butler program, Tim from Silicon Valley, California, and Sam from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Immediately after we settled in, Hugh and Ann gave us three whole pizzas and... beer. All three of us felt like it would be rude to say 'no' to anything, and we ended up stuffing ourselves, which pretty much happened all weekend. Sarah stayed with a couple who live on a farm; Norman grows barley, and his wife Allison is a social worker.

Sarah: Just to reiterate Norm’s general awesomeness – He is a 6th generation farmer on the same plot of land. He grows barely, that he sometimes sells to whiskey distilleries, and he raises cattle. He has a stone circle in his backyard. He speaks Doric and Scots (whole different Scots-Gaelic languages), and he knows everything there is to know about everything - except American football. And - we ate potatoes from his farm for lunch. The end.

The weekend was packed with a lot of fantastic memories. On Saturday, we went to the Glenfiddich distillery nearby, which has been owned by William Grant & sons since 1876! It's supposed to be the number 1 whiskey in the world. It's also perhaps the number 1 stinkiest place we've been to so far... all that yeast and stuff was RANK.

Copper stills at Glenfiddich

Whiskey tasting, cheers!

After Glenfiddich we went to a small castle that was pretty cool. After the Edinburgh Castle, though, we have pretty high standards for castles.

After the castle we went to an old stone circle, which was neat but it started to rain and we were looking forward to being indoors.

Another amazing thing about Saturday involved food. For breakfast, Ann & Hugh made us a true Scottish breakfast, involving fried eggs, sausage logs, baked beans, tomato, a bread roll, mushrooms, and black pudding. Black pudding is made with various fillers, but it usually includes some kind of meat, bread, barley, oatmeal, and blood (usually pig's blood). I loved it! (You can't taste the blood, of course.) The other American kids were less thrilled. Then, I had a true Scottish meal for dinner, as well! We had a sausage, leek, and potato casserole as the main course, and our sides were salad, beets, and haggis! Haggis is also fantastic, which includes a lot of stuff that I still don't really know, but it varies from chef to chef. The traditional recipe is "sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours" (Wikipedia). After dinner we hung out with other families and study-abrod kids who came over to Hugh's and Ann's house; we watched the Bourne Ultimatum, which made it seem less like a Scottish experience and more like my home.

On Sunday, we drove to a seaside-town and walked along the shore of the North Sea. A pic from Norm's car.

We saw some old fishing communities on the coast, collected some interesting rocks, and had a picnic.
NORM!

We had one last meal before we went back to Edinburgh (this time it was lasagna). And I saw my first furry animal on the trip too! (I like furry animals.) Which leads me to a sneak preview of our next adventure (and our next blog post):

I know the many questions that are quickly piling in your head like moldy trash piling in my 12-person flat: What is that beast? What does it do? Do people ride it? Do people actually eat it? Is it dangerous? What the heck are you doing so close to it? Wait, where the heck are you? Is that even real? And is that another one in the background? ...TO BE CONTINUED...

Until next time,
Zach

Salve

Or greetings, in Latin.

It's the second day of classes. Not too bad. It's a bit funny though to start using your brain after 5 months of summer. I mean, our last class in Vandy was back in April....

Okay, but listen to this: We're here in Scotland, studying Latin, from a Canadian professor, sitting in front of a German classmate, and using an American textbook. Blows your mind almost.

And here's another difference we're gong to have to get used to: Scottish kids do there studying - or "revisions" -- during the day. So after dinner, they go out. Like last night, Zach and I and some flatmates went to a Pub Quiz, which is like a trivia game night at one of the Student Union bars. And it was packed! We got there quite early and we barely got a table.

Alas, we were quite useless as team-mates because we don't know much about Scottish sweets (candy), women's rugby equipment, Formula 1 racing, or which two alcoholic beverage company's sponsor the Irish football clubs....

If you're wondering, its Guinness and Magners. Magners, by the way, is apple cider, and its brilliant.

Love, Sarah