Eilean Donan

I knew this picture would come in handy.

Actually, I just thought it looked cool.

If you click on the picture of the map, you can find 'Eilean Donan Castle' in blue just beside Dornie, east of Kyle of Lochalsh.

Meet Eilean Donan, the prettiest castle in Scotland.

Rainy or not, this was a fantastic day. Beautiful, beautiful castle. They have weddings there, although apparently they don't close to the tourists for them, and I'm told part of a James Bond film (don't ask me which one -- The World Is Not Enough?) was shot here.

Eilean Donan is a small island -- the castle pretty much fills it up -- on Loch Duich.

Unfortunately, photography was prohibited indoors. Got a few pictures from the windows, though.

Indoors was rich and beautiful and frankly amazing. Lots of displays, lots of pictures -- lived up to the outside very well.

Clouds. :D

Raindrops.

Incidentally, the orange-ish stuff on the loch is some kind of algae. Thereon my knowledge fails. But although it should have looked sludgy and gross, it was in reality very, very cool.

This is the bridge from the island to the mainland.

More loch. Beautiful, beautiful loch. I can't stress that enough.

More of the walls and things. Quite a lot of people were wandering through. There were a lot of rooms inside, nearly all of them with interesdting displays.

Again, if you click on the picture, it will get bigger.

This is magic.

If you do so, you'll see... two raindrops. But also the Scottish flag. Pretty sludge.

I know it's redundant to put this final picture. My excuse is that it's pretty.

The last installment of the sixteenth of September will have to wait for another day, because I'm getting tired of this.

...Pretty castle!

Carbisdale->

Instead of actually working on my (other) essay, I decided to spam photos. It's only been, what, a month and a half since the last instillation of this ten-day journey.

I'm actually going to split this one up quite a bit, 'cause when I say 'spam photos,' I really mean that I liked them all too much -- or rather, was too lazy to discriminate -- to leave any out, and it's a pain to do posts with more than a dozen and a half or so pictures.

'T any rate, last time, we concluded the Highlands, ending technically on Shin Falls, although the day ended with Carbisdale. Well, this is Carbisdale. They have a youth hostel in a castle. Can you get more awesome?

Inside was pretty neat. Obviously a pretty worn place -- it was, in case you were wondered, thoroughly painted, papered, and carpeted, so no bare stone walls or floors -- but quite lovely. Lots of plaster nudity, some cracked paintings. The library was fantastic: glorious, big room, warmly furnished, with two great bookcases (must've been easily ten feet long?). I prevented Mom from going to bed on time because I sat and read Kidnapped all that evening. It seemed appropriate.

So yes, lots of castle-y pictures here. It was really a grand old place. The morning was drizzly and wet, but I couldn't help taking a few commemorative pictures. Mostly because Mom wouldn't let us leave until I did.

I admit to a great fondness for scenes framed by walls and thingies. Is it obvious?

Also, the grey, rainy light of the Scottish morning may not be classic picture-taking light, but it gets some really gorgeous (if painfully amateur) glow-y-y effects.




I should intersperse comments about my general life here, if only to break up the great white spaces.

Well, I won't.

So there.




Wall. Pretty wall.

I tried to take a picture of a spiderweb, but it was quite beyond my poor camera's capabilities. Alas.

Yes, as it happens, the view was lovely. That sort of goes without saying in Scotland.

No, it doesn't, necessarily. I was employing artistic hyperbole.

Well, not necessarily artistic.

Just kind of smug, really.

These were the outer gates, some space down from the actual castle. This place was somewhat out in the middle of nowhere -- I think it was only about four or six miles from the nearest town, but it was a windy, lonely little path and the signs were easy to miss.

Onward and upward, in theory. Westward and southward, actually. From Carbisdale, we headed towards Skye. I think most of these pictures really go without saying.

If you look really hard, you can see a bridge in the background.

No, I don't remember which one it is. Why?





The houses across the loch. Often pretty little white things, strung together by long and winding roads.

Wouldn't you like to live there? I'd have no objections, me.

Redundant images? Just possibly.

Darned pretty, though.

Just so you know, there are about a zillion lochs in Scotland. They're often hard to find on the map, and it's even harder to remember all their names, so I hope you'll forgive my memory on this count.

Despite the camera's complete failure to capture the epic scenery, this is probably among my favourite pictures.

Flower!

Probably two more posts to conclude this day -- I can't remember how many pictures I took of Eilean Donan. Prettiest castle ever.

Anyway, more forthcoming. Possibly even soon.

So, St. Andrew's Night was great. Cock-and-leekie soup, haggis and neeps and tatties, braised steak Nevis, trifles and tea. Alistair has a fantastic voice -- sang us some traditional Scots music. Jaimie Stuart, author of A Glasgow Bible, read some of his 'translations' to us -- very energetic man.

I got to talk to Adam and Simon for a while, too, which was really great. I don't see them often, since they're in second year, and they were really fun to talk to.

Oh, and I learned I can talk to two people at once. Isn't that neat?

52 miles in the past two weeks.

P.S.

I may be a brilliant, witty, and eloquent blogger, as my readership will attest (you may laugh, but it's true: much of it is related to me), but an orator I am not.

Lead fellowship group yesterday; the activity went much better than I expected, but I'm absolute rubbish at explaining things.

The last four times I've gone to college, I've walked both ways -- hoping, perhaps, that by saving bus money, I'll somehow feel less guilty for spending £8 on two pieces of sheet music -- two-thirds of one I already have, on the wrong continent. And less guilty about those chocolate bars...

Incidentally, for those I haven't bragged to yet, I walk to college in the mornings, four times a week, and take the bus home. Said walk is about four miles, approximating by my pace: it takes me an hour and ten minutes to walk it, but 6-10 minutes of that is waiting for traffic lights (10.5 by my watch today).

Most people I talk to are suitably impressed at that.

This entry occurs because I'm too lazy to, you know, edit the previous post instead of going to the trouble of writing a new one.

Consistency has never been my strong point.

I am astonished at the effects postmodernism -- particularly deconstructionism -- has had on my own thought. I never realized how much it has influenced me.

'Course, I'll have forgotten all the specifics by tomorrow, notes or no.

Note to self: pursue further studies when time is less limited.

Hm. Updates are becoming few and far between. If I finish my essay by next week (hahahahaha, no, really), I will treat myself (or not) to more picturing on mein blog.

Haha. Finish. Ha.

From Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell:

"The light was watery, dim, and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant.

'This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?' he said.

'My kingdoms?' exclaimed the gentleman in surprise. 'Oh, no! This is Scotland!'"

You know you're a college student when you find 18p on the ground and your first thought is: "Great! I'm halfway to a cup of tea!"

And your second thought is: "Who'd throw away this much money?"

And your third thought is: "You know you're a college student..."

(I feel sorry for the poor ladies at the college cafe; to be fair, I haven't paid for my tea in only pennies and tuppence. Yet.)

Miora, Sarah, Sara, Kate, Aileen, and Grace were going to the cinema and invited me along. We watched Quantum of Solace. Not too shabby -- although the bit with the parachute kind of broke my willing suspension of disbelief, even for a Bond film. Was fun to actually go out with the girls.

So, yesterday. We studied the development of doctrine. Our lecturer brought in a keyboard. Every time we finished a major point -- for instance, Monarchianism or Arianism -- he'd stop to sing us a song to help us remember the doctrine. And then he'd make us sing along. Twice.

It was awesome.

Helped that he was good at both the keyboard and singing. Paraphrase of the only lyrics I can really remember:

Nestorius, Nestorius!
What a catchy jingle.
Christ was God and Christ was man
And the two shall never mingle.

Yeah. Most memorable lecture ever.

I Kid You Not (Freaking Awesome)

From the lecturer who brought us "Isn't heresy fun?":

The Development of Doctrine.

The Musical.

(Inverness)-Ullapool-Carbisdale

See? I told you I'd get back to this eventually.

It's only been two and a half weeks since my last trip pictures; that's not long at all, right?

Yeah. Eventually.







So, this is the conclusion of the Inverness day started... what, twenty days ago?

The above pictures were a random rest stop; I believe it was at Blackwater. Very pretty.


So, after we went to Loch Ness and Urquhart, we swung north. Since we weren't all that far from where we intended to stay (Carbisdale), we decided to follow the road up past Ullapool. We didn't go quite all the way to the northern coast, but we weren't that far off, and wandered along the west coast a fair while.







There were some of the most beautiful pictures you've ever seen, wandering lonely roads through the Highlands. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't take them. It doesn't always see eye to eye with me. But I did the best I could.





I have a Scottish joke now. It's my only joke.

What's the difference between A roads and B roads in Scotland?

Yeah, I can't tell you either.

Honestly, the same "A road" went from a dual carriageway to a single-lane pull-over-or-get-run-over avenue. And stayed that way for hundreds of miles. It was awesome, but a little harrowing sometimes.
Actually, this was arguably my favourite part of the whole trip. I loved exploring castles, and the lochs were just lovely, but that drive was wonderful. If I go nowhere else in my time here, I will go to the Highlands. The little lochs in the valleys were fantastically beautiful. Sometimes, we saw rolling hills on either side, but between them was a very wide, flat plain that could've been stolen from the prairies.



More than that, the hills just go on. It's beautifully bleak, and you can't imagine how such a tiny country could enclose such vastness. The heather doesn't seem to end. It's a glorious kind of loneliness. Not the sort of place I could stay forever -- I need trees now and again -- but it's a kind of solitude that I crave.



This was a random ruin. I can't remember the name of it, but it was sitting pretty in the middle of one of the aforementioned valleys, so we stopped to take a walk.

If I recall correctly, there was a sign warning us to stay on the path, because to either side was unpredictably marshy ground.

We didn't actually go right up to the ruin -- just close enough to take a few really good pictures. It was pretty.

Also if-I-recall-correctly, this picture below was from one of the lochs that was a loch, somehow, but reached in from the sea. Prettiful indeed.

Also if-I-recall-correctly, this picture below was from one of the lochs that was a loch, somehow, but reached in from the sea. Prettiful indeed. There were a number of places like this, where we were almost but not quite looking at the sea.


And I can't remember what bridge this is.

Yes, I know I should have labelled my pictures better -- or, do I hear it? done this sooner -- but I didn't. So there.

Ask Mom.

Do you want to know the real reason I add little comments like this all through? Because it makes it look like I knew what I was doing when I formatted these.

So if it starts to sound like I'm making stuff up, I probably am.

But there's nothing you can do about that.

An I recall aright, this is one of those aforementioned lochs/firths -- one of the most interesting ones. I like this picture a lot more than I should.

I took a picture of a Highland Cow around here, too, but you don't get to see it. I mostly took it on principle; just like you can't go to Scotland without tasting haggis, you can't go to the Highlands without taking a picture of a heilan' coo.

As much as I hated the kitsch cow merchandise, that T-shirt was cute.
I say that mostly because I love saying "heilan' coo."

Another fun thing about the compressed geography of Scotland is the coastline. As many people have pointed out, some places you get beaches so white that you'd think you're in the Caribbean (as long as you don't go outside). We didn't quite manage to see one of those, but in some places, the ferns and greenery managed to look just this side of tropical.



The variation you get in this place is awesome. Again to reiterate a fairly common statement, Scotland is like a really, really, really compressed Canada.

Except they don't have real mountains.

And these, to the last, are pictures of Shin Falls. They weren't real waterfalls. This is as high as they got. But although I wasn't able to get a picture, you could see the salmon jumping upriver over this last spot, which was neat.

And this concludes our tour for today. After Shin Falls, by which time I'd dozed off several times, we went to Carbisdale. More on that next post, because I'll ramble a bit and heaven forbid that I should ramble in an already long post.

Right.

You know, one day, I'll actually get back to putting pictures on here.

The other day, I spent money. I bought a KitKat McFlurry, because there are no Blizzards here. I'll tell you this: Mickey D's i'n't a patch on DQ. And a thirty pence more than the regular -- for a cup that tiny -- is robbery. But I got my fix.

I walked home in the wet today, and enjoyed it very much; going out again twenty minutes later, I had the chance to change my clothes and not spend the evening soaking wet. Do you think I did? Somehow, I got the idea that doing so would be admitting weakness. My feud with the rain is ongoing.

Commissioning service tonight. Welshman spoke -- Andrew Owen. He was terribly fun.

The most awesome lecturer ever (not one of mine, actually) has invited Amy, the other Canadian girl, and me to (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner this Sunday. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Speaking of warm and fuzzy, it's a little surreal to go into a daily social situation that isn't paralyzingly terrifying.

I'm hungry.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvQFxhhMEsw

Ted Herbert, vice president of the college for ten years (if I recall aright), recorded and played for the students approximately five days before he died.

I can't really say anymore than that.

I'm not sure whether I like umbrellas or not. I hate carrying them. On the one hand, it's entertaining to be warmer and drier because of a spindly thing of cloth and metal, and it amuses me to hear the rain splattering to a halt just above my head -- like I've outwitted it, or something -- but on the other hand... I'm not getting wet.

Relevance? Why, none at all. Is it required?

Inverness -> (Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle)

My constant complaint on Xanga, as some will recall, was that I had no idea how many people - if indeed any - read what I wrote. You'll note I've said nothing of the kind here.

I will, however, point out that the handy little "comment" button doesn't care if you have a Blogger account or not.

Know what's fun? Walking in the rain until your hair is so wet you have to wring it out before you go inside, and the water rolls over your scalp and down your forehead.

(With all due respect to Sam Vimes, my hair's too long for rain to trickle down the back of my neck.)



Without further ado, part one of Inverness travels.

(Did you notice I'm getting further and further behind? At this rate, it'll take me two months to detail a ten-day trip.)
So, the day we drove down to Loch Ness, it was really, really foggy, which was unfortunate. Still pretty, but it didn't make for awfully good photos. More fun was the subject of the ruins of Urquhart Castle.

Why, yes, I did go camera-happy. Why do you ask?

I love all these pictures.

I should just put a standard warning on these things now. Photo overload, hurray.
Once again, my factual knowledge of my subject matter is severely lacking. Here's what I can tell you:

Urquhart Castle is a ruin.

Urquhart Castle is on the shore of Loch Ness.

Don't you feel all warm and informed now?



Some of the angles I had a chance to attempt were really fun. There was limitless potential for good shots; the fog was a bit in the way, as much as I like fog. Castle Urquhart is pretty.
Obviously, these are all pictures of and from the castle. I found so many of them that I liked that I chose to stick them all in one post and leave the rest (actually, it's been so long since I started this post that I can't remember if I have other pictures) for another.

I think the one above is my favourite. Except for all of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Loch Ness.
It was prettier when I saw it, so nyeh.

I still love my pictures.

Too bad I forgot my camera for every major event over the weekend.

Lectures start tomorrow.

Ted Herbert, the vice-principal of the college, died last night just before midnight after a two-month bout with cancer. The only contact I had with him was a voice clip played for the students last Thursday.

A lot of people are grieving right now; I am myself quieted, even without knowing him. But I wish I could play that voice clip for you, because it was one of the most inspiring things I have heard.