Scottish Tour

Sheww! Ryan just left after a whirlwind tour of Scotland, and I am exhausted! Here is a very long post that does a poor job of summarizing the last week. I tried hard to include some pictures and links to make it a little more interesting but it may just be overwhelming:

Ryan came in last Wednesday and I met him in Edinburgh. He was supposed to have come into town a couple hours before I got there, and we were going to meet at Scott Monument. I walked over from the bus station, looked around, and saw him there - just getting off the bus! Crazy timing. Turns out that his plane had been delayed in Germany because of a "sticky substance."

That night we got to eat at a nice, but very expensive, indian/thai restaurant. The menu itself was like 8 pages and the front page had a description along the lines of: "Have you ever wanted Thai food, but had to settle for Indian? Not here!" Truly they had just about every dish you could imagine. Also we were served water in a wine bottle and it cost about 3 pounds. After that we went to a pub were there were a bunch of locals. We thought it might be a busy night because it was St. Patrick's day, but we were wrong. Just a lot of old men with very strong accents.

The next day I headed back here for class, and he spent the day looking around Edinburgh. He got to climb up Arthur's Seat which I was really jealous about. It is part of an old volcano and offers a cool view of the city. After looking around for a couple hours he met a nice old man in a graveyard, who drove him all around and gave him a tour of town. He also told Ryan a compact history of the world through the eyes of a Scotsman. I wish I could tell you some of the stories but I don't think that I could do them justice! Anyway, it sounded like he had a great day. When he came into town I made some curry and we got everything together for the weekend. Eric was nice enough to bring over a bottle of French wine, and we celebrated with Jamee because we just finalized booking our apartment in France for spring break!

On Friday I went to class and then Ryan and I picked up our car. I will not lie to you, the first 20 minutes were pretty terrifying. Ryan did a good job though!! We just went really slowly and I kept saying things like: "Now make a right hand turn into the left lane." After a little while he had mastered the round-a-bouts and turns and tiny roads. The hard thing for him was remembering to shift with this left hand, but eventually he got that down too. I was the trip navigator - we made a pretty good team. I think that one might draw parallels between the team and an efficiently run company, of which I was the head and Ryan was the labor force. Or perhaps Ryan was an old lady and I was a hearing aid. Ryan was a herd of sheep and I was a shepherd. Something like that.

(Just joking, Ryan.) He did a great job and got us all the way to Fort William safe and sound. Fort William is known as the "outdoor capital of the UK" and is located right at the foothills of Britain's tallest mountian, Ben Nevis. We spent the evening looking around town, exploring a local castle, and visiting "neptune's staircase," which is a series of locks. Here are some pictures from the evening [Ryan driving on the opposite side, me & some cows, some ships at neptune's staircase]:

That night we stayed at a b&b called TreeTops - it was awesome! It was nestled in a bunch of trees and had a beautiful view of the Nevis mountain range. That morning we woke up early and the owner made us an awesome breakfast: yogurt, fresh fruit, OJ, sausage, ham, eggs, toast. We got on the road at about 9 and headed towards the Isle of Skye! (Note: We were traveling from "Fife". Fort William was in the Highalnds) Everyone had been telling us to go there and so we were pretty pumped about it. The road to Skye itself was gorgeous, and we stopped a lot along the way. Here are a few pictures - Ryan infront of one of the many lochs; Eilean Donan castle; and a cool woodlands garden we stopped at (mom, you would have loved it!):

Right after passing into Skye we knew we had made it to a really special place! We headed up the coast, stopping at a bunch of awesome places. The weather turned out to be really nice as well. Big white clouds, blue skies, sun! It was perfect weather for getting out and exploring. These pictures don't do justice to how sweet it was.

1)The first is from the main road up the coast - we had to stop a lot because they were doing a ton of construction. The island was full of big dramatic mountains and cliffs along the coast.

2) Next pic is a herd of sheep friends that I made while Ryan was taking pics of a waterfall nearby. They pretty much roam everywhere and it was not uncommon to see a bunch walking across the road.

3) This was one of my favorite places that we stopped. There was a big waterfall, the cliff was full of sheep, the sun was shining and we just sat for a while taking in the blue water.

4) Kilt Rock - a big waterfall coming out of a cliff!

5) Funny sign warning about the cliffs.

6) Ryan and I exploring another (somewhat unsafe) castle.

7-8-9-10) One of the most incredible hikes I've ever been on - up to Old Man of Storr, an awesome rock formation. Check out the picture of Ryan doing tree pose!!

After a long day we went to an nice indian restaurant (just about the only thing open on the island). The hostel we stayed at was a little sketchy, but we had a nice shower and were exhausted so we didn't really care that much. On Sunday we decided to head back towards Fort William and check out the hiking there. Before leaving we looked at some ruins near our hostel. The weather was nice for us again, and we had a good time walking around. Here is a picture from the top of the ruins, looking back on the Skye bridge:

When we got back to town we got to meet some highland cows! Then we walked around Glen Nevis, the valley below the Nevis Mountain Range. The scenery was gorgeous again. That night we went to a sweet local restaurant in a barn. The walls were full of instruments, and they said anyone who was so inclined could play them! Ryan and I saw a banjo and both thought that it would have been nice if Claire was there to play us a little song!! (Miss you claire!) Here are some cow pictures and a picture from our hike...

On Monday we headed back to St. Andrews and spent the day exploring the town a little. We went up on the tower in the old Cathedral ruins and got to see a cool view of town. That night Eric, Ana, Clara, Ryan and I went to the pub quiz in town and made an embarrassment of ourselves. (Trivia is not our strong suit, particularly British trivia, or trivia that has to first be translated because the announcer has such a strong accent.) It was fun anyway, though!

Yesterday Ryan and I tried again on our eternal struggle to find seals by traveling to the nearby Tentsmuir forest, but to no avail. It was cool to see the forest anyway, though. We came back and ate a nice dinner and then Ryan packed up and headed back to Edinburgh to catch his flight :( It was a great week, though! I wish I could have a few days to recuperate because I feel a little exhausted, but I have tons of work to do after avoiding it for the past week.

Okay, this is a huge post! I am tired of writing and I'm sure you guys are getting tired of reading by this point. I can't help but feel guilty that I have been able to do so many amazing things. When I was in the grocery store today, agonizing over which brand of dark chocolate to get, I heard a little girl complaining to her mom about how hungry she was for dinner. I was thinking the same thing to myself. And then I heard her mom say: "Sophia - stop suffering. You live a good and satisfying life."

She is so right! Me and Sophia, we are seriously lucky. And the worst part is, I have Spring Break the next two weeks. This weekend I am going back to Skye with the breakaway (hiking) club, and then right when I get back I am heading to Southern France for 10 days with Jamee, her friend Angie, and Eric! Good lord!! Seriously I am so lucky that it makes me a little sick and it doesn't seem fair. But, now I am looking back on something I wrote to Eric earlier this semester..

"it is our duty as study abroad students, at this juncture in our lives, while we are here so close to europe, young and capable of seeing the world, even despite the fact that you are sickly, and knowledgeable of the fact that we have little money, to get out there and give continental europe a definitive american stomp."

I think that was some time when Eric had a cold. Anyway, even though I feel guilty I think it is important to make the best of every second I get over here (and just in life in general)! I hope that every thing is going well with everyone at home. I know that Virginia has been getting some beautiful weather, and I wish that I could be up in the Appalachians with you guys (and beans) soaking in the sun and going to the farmers market and riding my bike.

Happy Wednesday!!!