Military Tattoo

What's that? Taiwanese girls in gogo boots standing next to American colonialists...standing next to the only steel drum military band in the world?

If that doesn't sound like fun, I don't know what does. Oh, wait. I forgot:

How could I forget playing trombone while riding a horse?!

Needless to say, I just returned from a very awesome (and very half price) Military Tattoo "Preview". By "Preview" it means we get to see all the media photographers get trampled by a Russian military band doing seemingly random marching sets. It was so great.

International Students Trip

Who says Thursday can't be a little fun?

I ended up in Dunkeld again. So I crossed the bridge over the River Tay and ended up in Birnam (as in Beatrix Potter's childhood vacation home...or "Birnam Woods" from Macbeth). I had to cover my ears as Fiona revealed the plot to Macbeth. I really should become literate again. Anyways. Photos.


Blair Castle with a wee piper.

Blair Castle without the piper (and generally a fuller view).

The Falls of Bruar. Slowly becoming commercialized...the ice cream is okay.

And last, Edradour Distillery. The smallest whisky distillery in Scotland.

Isle of Skye Trip

Friday

I knew the trip was starting off well, when I saw a rainbow on my way down the hallway on my flat (photo is darkened so that maybe you can actually see the rainbow):

From here on, I'll just list photos/things we saw.


A monument to William Wallace, built sometime in the late 1800s. The guides spent a fair amount of time dispelling lies from "Braveheart".


The view from atop the Wallace monument, supposedly you can see seven battle grounds. We had only 15 minutes here, but Thomas and I decided to climb the 67m up anyways


Next up was Hamish, the highlander cow (or "hairy coo"). Apparently voted sexiest animal of 2007 (some ingredient from the cow's horn is used in Viagra...)


Next up was Glencoe (Gaelic for "Valley of Tears" due to the numerous waterfalls)


Glencoe is the site where the Campbell Clan broke the Highlander hospitality rules, and killed the MacDonalds who were their hosts on February 13, 1692. Campbells are still generally disliked in this region.


We stayed at Fort Augustus on the shores of Loch Ness both nights. This photo is of the ferry that gives one hour tours of Loch Ness, along with sonar images taken from the bottom.


The boat departs at 8pm...


But tonight happened to be the date of the monthly Loch Ness "Booze Cruise". 4 hours of live music and ferrying around Loch Ness. Once you get on...you can't get off the boat. Our guides noted how dressed up the locals weree; this monthly booze cruise appears to be the event of the month.


The turn around point was Urquhart Castle (above).

Saturday

Saturday started off with another rainbow, seen here over a loch.




We even got to see the end of the rainbow! It was the brightest rainbow I've ever seen.


Next was Eilean Donan Castle, rebuilt in 1932.


"The money shot" of Eilean Donan Castle. It appeared in a James Bond film, and was the scene of the "Highlander" movie.




Then we stopped by a stream that supposedly makes you beautiful, so half the bus stuck their face into it. There was a story associated with it, how a beautiful young Highlander clan princess was to marry a clan prince. When she was rushing to her wedding her horse slipped and she slammed her face into some rocks, losing her eye. When the prince saw how ugly she had become, he determined it was some sort of treason, and he killed her attendants. Somehow everything became right when she put her face into the water.


We stopped for lunch in the fishing village of Portree.


Then we walked up Fairy Falls, which is called Fairy Falls because anyone who does not believe in fairies falls on their way down. It was very slippery (all grass and water).


The Old Man of Storr once was an old giant and his wife. The old woman became too old to climb to the top of the mountain and gossip with her husband. When the fairies found out, they turned them both to stone. The Old Woman (which fell a few years ago) had a weak hip, which lead to her crumbling. Now all that's left is the Old Man.


Kilt Rock (the formation in the back) is so named because it looks like a kilt. An Irish giant tried to woo a Scottish giant-ess, but when he found out that she had a husband, he decided to fight the husband. The giant-ess had her husband take the place of a giant baby, and hung a giant kilt up to dry so as to make the Irish giant think her husband was much larger than he. It worked, and the Irish giant tore up the bridge he had built and never came back.


We stopped at a Dynamite mine, which was very pretty.




Sheep scaling the edges of the cliff at the Dynamite mine.


The way back. Straight up.


Pretty scenery on the way back to the hostel.


A shot of one of the locks on the Caledonian Canal back at Fort Augustus.


The canal at Fort Augustus links Loch Ness with Loch Oich.

Sunday

Another view of Urquhart Castle.


The moors at Culloden where Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Highlander troops were massacred by British troops.


4,000 year old Burial Cairns made of rocks from 25 miles away.


The last stop was at the Cathedral at Dunkeld where I bought myself some honeycomb ice cream and butter tablet (which is like butter flavored fudge. Sort of.)




The Cathedral is on the banks of the River Tay, pictured above.

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All in all a good but exhausting trip...and despite spending two nights right next to it, I know absolutely nothing about Loch Ness, lol.

That Weekend

I think this quote from my Haggis Adventures tour guides pretty much sums up my weekend:
R: "Well, you know. Eilean Donan Castle. It's on that Times' list: 'Top 50 things to do before you die.' It's like for-ee three or some'in'. "
G: "Number one is of course to 'Visit Scotland'. And number twen-ee is 'Go on a 4 hour booze cruise on Loch Ness'."

Or another good one:
R: "Now look at that loch to the left. Sometimes you'll see...pigeons...Pigeons?! I meant dolphins. Yeah. I guess there's pigeons, too."

"Backpacker tours" niche marketing yields interesting results.

Hairspray

So, I went to see Hairspray with some of the international students. Without giving too much of the "plot" away, let's just say that the movie is in typical Broadway-musical style in that it takes a serious topic and makes it all butterflies and sunshine; in this particular case, it's the topic of segregation.

After the movie, I had to explain that segregation was not all butterflies and sunshine to my fellow movie-goers. They seemed to think that the film was based on truth, but instead Broadway musicals gloss over reality. I spend a fair amount of time dispelling the myths about America and Americans. I'm beginning to need some back up.

This Weekend

"My Heart is My Own"

Yesterday I bought the largest book I've ever owned and have proceeded to read it. All 515 glorious pages of My Heart is My Own a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. I get lost half the time because all the dukes and kings keep changing names. So far it's not so much about Mary, but all the political intrigue around her.

100 pages down, 415 to go...

Don't be too jealous

Don't be too jealous. Because. I lost my keys. Either Tuesday or Wednesday of last week. In the past two days I have asked at 4 grocery stores, the bus company, two pubs, a yarn store, the university's lost property office, the manufacturing engineering office, my flat's front desk, and the university's RBS branch. No luck. Today, I'm going to scour the office and tonight I'm going to thoroughly search my flat (although I just cleaned it on Thursday, so nothing should turn up).

It's not really a big deal. Sort of. I may be able to copy my flatmate's mailbox key, and that will save me £20. Yes, charges, that's right:

1. 1 Mailbox key..........£20
2. 1 Office Key..........£10 deposit
3. 1 Bike lock key..........Priceless

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to tell Harris that his bike is permanently chained to the bike garage. *sigh*

[edit] Now it seems I've also lost my size 10 circular knitting needles, in their packaging. I'm not so much distraught by all this losing of items as I am disappointed in myself. Where did my memory go? I don't usually lose anything, much less keys and everything else! [/edit]

Missed Meeting

Somehow missed meeting up with Kyle in Edinburgh. My guess is he didn't realize his cell phone won't work in Europe. I knew I should've made alternate meet-up plans. *sigh*

On the bright side, my plans for this weekend have already been confirmed. I'm going on Haggis Adventures' 3-day "Skye-High" tour to the Isle of Skye.

I've also bought tickets for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo preview on Thursday, August 2nd...which should be exactly two hours after I return from the International Students trip to Blair Castle, Edradour distillery, etc.

Isle of May

So, Friday (i.e. yesterday) I got up at some horrible hour in the morning, and walked to Waverley train station to meet up with Thomas at 6:45am. We were on a tight schedule:

7:06-8:09	Scotrail train, Edinburgh -> Leuchars
8:34-8:45	Stagecoach bus #99, Leuchars -> St. Andrews
8:55-9:16	Stagecoach bus #X26, St. Andrews -> Anstruther
10:00	Isle of May Ferry to The May, weather permitting

Of course, I got so absorbed in my knitting (and Thomas was asleep) that I missed our train stop at Leuchars and we ended up in Dundee. Somehow, we made it back to Leuchars in enough time to catch the #99, miss the X26 (and take #95 instead) and board the ferry, which amazingly took off, and even landed at the Isle of May. They cancel some trips due to inclement weather.

More or less, despite my complete airheaded-ness, Thomas and I really lucked out.

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The Isle of May has been a National Nature Reserve since 1956, and during the month of July is home to about a quarter million sea birds...even though it's only 1.5 kilometres long. I really just wanted to go for the puffins, but it ended up being a gorgeous day on the beautiful island which had lots of paths and all sorts of birds. We ended up seeing: arctic terns, shags, puffins, different sorts of gulls, kittiwakes, gannets, gray seals, and one razorbill.

Gray seals hanging around the South Horn. The May is also a breeding ground for seals.

Made curious by the ferry landing, a seal pokes his head above the water and watches us.

The white specks are all terns. I have never seen so many birds in my entire life.

Puffins!!








I think they're awesome.

This cave was full of baby gulls...and parent gulls flying to and from the feeding grounds.

Nestled amongst the cliffside of the cave of baby gulls were these three shags. I think they're shags, anyways.

After the sun showed up, the Isle of May was quite beautiful




Modern castle-style lighthouse

Note the baby gulls in the lower-right corner. They didn't like us standing so close.

That's me standing on a path that goes over/near an undercut cliff. The fabulous silly purple hat I'm wearing is what I was making on the train...it made an appearance in the previous SnB post.

Attacking Terns

By far the best moment of the whole trip was being attacked by nesting Arctic Terns (which is actually why I made/wore a hat). They attack the highest point on your body, so we avoided this by holding rolled up posters in the air, and allowing the terns to attack that. The following photo is Thomas being attacked by two Arctic Terns. They actually pulled some of his hair!!

This scene still makes me laugh hysterically.

After three hours on the isle, we went back to Anstruther. A ranger released a baby puffin onto the water once we were far enough from other birds (that would likely try to eat it). Baby puffins live in burrows in the ground, and when they've had enough, they leave in the middle of the night and go out to sea for three years. Sometimes they get a bit lost and the rangers help them out.


The Isle of May from the Ferry

Anstruther

Anstruther, just another cute fishing village in Fife...with Scottish Tablet ice cream (mmmm...). The weather was nice, so naturally the town was full of old people just off a tour bus.

We returned to St. Andrews and walked along the Old Course for a bit, and then back along the shore. The International Students trip went to St. Andrews last weekend, so I'm not going to put up too many photos of there. Next weekend, the Women's British Open is in St. Andrews Old Course. This weekend the Carnoustie Open was up in...Carnoustie.


St. Andrews Old Course

My hostel was like, half a mile away from town which is somewhat annoying, but I only had to walk there and back twice, so I'm not too upset. £25 did get me my own room though, which is nice.

St. Andrews

After breakfast Thomas and I couldn't resist a chance to play on St. Andrews Women's Course (don't worry, I'm fluent in pompous-ass-ish; "women's course" translates to "miniature golf").




Action shot!


Once I got accustomed to the natural greens, I stopped sucking so much and ended up beating Thomas. It was an easy course.

I find it kinda amusing, the way all golfers' wives dress identically.

We eventually did make it back to Edinburgh, and now I am exhausted. Good night.