The Highlands

Since I had to be at the Castle by 8am to leave on the Timberbush Highlands tour, Jimmy and Fiona prepared my french toast a bit early and I was out the door into the cold, but sunny, morning with three layers, a fleece and a shell, two pairs of socks, hat and mittens. There were about 25 other people on this tour -- an armful of Spaniards who spoke little to no English and jabbered in Spanish the ENTIRE time, a handful of Americans, a few Indians, and a couple of Irish. We made our way up north, little by little, watching the scenery change. It's hard to describe the change without photographs which I am dying to share with you all! Eventually we made it to Glen Coe and then Loch Ness. Since I didn't have a map with me, I'm going to have to ask Camille for some assistance in placing names with my pictures. Unfortunately, the driver, although good intentioned, would NOT shut up. It would have been fine if he were talking about things relevant to our tour but he told us about how he needs to lose weight, about his black leather pants he wears on his motorbike, about his Jack Russell, and how he's wanted to be a coach driver all his life, etc etc. It got irritating by about the 8th hour of nonstop chatter in a heavy Scottish accent! There was the threat of not being able to make it all the way north because of heavy snow - the most I ever saw was about 3 inches so I'm not sure if that's a lot or if we just didn't see the portions of the north where the most snow fell. I was a bit disappointed; the way the driver was talking I was expecting to be trapped in a blizzard!

Loch is the Gaelic word meaning 'lake'. (Road signs start reading in both English and Gaelic as you get further up into the Highlands; the Scottish pronounce Gaelic "Gah-lic" which to me, sounded a bit like how people from Boston say garlic.) We drove past all sorts of lochs including the creatively named Loch Lochy. At the famous Loch Ness, we went out on the water in a little boat searching for the mythical creature "Nessie", past Urquart Castle and admiring the surrounding hills. There was a sort of mist over the water with sun off in the distance - the result was this interesting effect of layers and layers of light and dark. We also saw Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Great Britain at 4,406 feet. I'm so anxious to see how my photographs turned out. After skirting around Inverness (which I would like to spend some more time in) we arrived back in Edinburgh around 9:30pm. I am so glad that I went out and found the Forth Bridge yesterday - I thought we might see it on the tour today but it was only at night on our way back while driving across the Forth Road Bridge.

On the trip, I met three girls from Boston who are teaching English to high school students in the south of France and it worked out well for us to sit together on the bus and eat together when we stopped. They gave me some tips on being smart in France and I offered advice on London since they'll be there next week. It's comforting to find people from home, especially when traveling alone. Although I don't like eating in restaurants by myself, I find traveling single to be quite enjoyable.

In unrelated news, my iPod has finally recovered from whatever illness it got while coming up from London on Sunday. I was about ready to take it to the Apple store - one of the Boston girls said when problems occur, Apple replaces malfunctioning devices with new models - but there's no evidence than anything was wrong. Technology, I tell ya...

I am off to Glasgow this afternoon and it is another gloriously sunny day here. I have seen more sunshine in Scotland this week than in London in the last month! More from Glasgow, where I will meet up with a few of our group who are coming to Glasgow from Dublin.