I'll be in Scotland afore ye

This weekend, I got to go to the Highlands with the International Student Society. On the way, we stopped in Luss, a small town that sits on the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond! It was quite cold, but really beautiful. This photo shows a view from said bonnie bonnie banks. The snow capped monstrosity in the background is Ben Lomond. And that tugboat is precious, no?


After spending some time on the banks, we headed around to see what Luss had to offer. The answer is not much. The houses are all tiny and made of stone. Very cute. There was a stream and the water was so clear. It was insane. Most of the water in the Highlands comes from streams like this, I've heard. I felt a lot better drinking from the tap once I saw that clear stream (though I suppose the water in Glasgow is probably really really nasty because it's such an industrial city. Don't burst my bubble!). Anyway, there was a bridge over the stream, which lead us into a large field. There was pretty much nothing in the field except an enormous celtic cross covered in various symbols for peace...


...and a large petrified tree. I really liked the cross. It had all these pieces of colored glass in it that caught the sunlight just right.

From Loch Lomond, we got back on the bus and traveled to the infamous Loch Ness, specifically a town called Fort Augustus. Here's a view of Loch Ness (sans Nessie, unfortunately):


And another:


Loch Ness is 22 miles long and only about a mile wide at its largest, so it's no surprise that they dropped us off where Nessie vacations in the summer, rather than where she lives for the rest of the year. Oh well, means I'll have to go back someday. Preferably at dusk, because that seems conducive to seeing water monsters.

A view of the Loch from a bridge in Fort Augustus:


Anyway, Fort Augustus was cute, but not in the same way as Luss. It was a little more touristy, and a lot colder and snowier. We were getting higher into the Highlands, so I suppose that was to be expected. But I felt like I was in Okemo or some other skiing town in Vermont rather than truly at THE Loch Ness. I think I prefered Loch Lomond. It was great fun teaching my Australian friend the Loch Lomond song on the bus. People kept debating what the true words were. That song is one of the only things I can say with a Scottish (man) accent. No clue why.

But all that aside, we climbed back onto the bus and drove for a bazillion hours up into the Highlands. We stayed at a youth hostel in Carbisdale castle. They had promised us a 3 course gourmet dinner and a ceilidh, so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, aforementioned dinner was more like a cafeteria-style meal (I had mac & cheese--at least they had a veggie option!) and the ceilidh band was super late because they got stuck in bad weather on the way up, and then had to leave in less than an hour because they were all SO YOUNG. We're talking fetuses here, people. Very strange.

We lucked out in rooms, because we had a group of 10 and there was one room for 10 people. So we had a room all to ourselves, in a beautiful castle, and very little else mattered. Since it was all international students, I knew a lot of people on the trip already and got to meet more. It's nice to be in a group of people who are all kind of feeling the same excitement about being in Scotland and doing things like visiting Lochs and castles.

The next morning we got up and took some photos of the castle, then ate a HUGE breakfast (mostly because we kept going back for more, not because it was all that delicious) and then packed back into the bus for a VERY VERY long busride home.



They promised us a lunchtime stop in Inverness, the biggest city in the Highlands. I was really looking forward to having an hour or so to explore, but they only gave us 45 minutes and dropped us off in the parking lot of a supermarket. Excellent. Guess Inverness is still on my list of places to visit. By the time we got back to Glasgow, it was very snowy, so I suppose they were smart to beat the weather. All in all it was a good couple of days and I feel like I've seen a ton of the countryside now. It's funny to drive through Scotland, because it's such a small country but it has a LOT of different types of landscape. We honestly drove through about four different climates on our way up there. Parts of it look just like Vermont in the winter, except bigger (which is funny, because I doubt Scotland is bigger than many things OTHER than Vermont!), and parts looked like some springtime lakeside place in Pennsylvania or something. Very strange.

Tomorrow I will be 5 weeks in to my stay in Glasgow, leaving only 15 weeks left. I can't believe the time is going so quickly! There's a lot left for me to do, and I've got to start thinking about my classwork, too. I've got an essay due every week from now until mid March, it appears. Oh well. I just hope I can remember to spell things correctly (i.e. labour; industrialisation; centre)!

Also, a very happy birthday to my lovely mother. Hope everyone back home made it great!