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.

From now on, when I have difficult days, I'm going to rate them according to how many times I have to hug this unreasonably cute bear:
The count for today is, alas, lost.

Yes, he's unreasonably cute. Admit it.

More Delays

So, there's the Symphony tonight, exploring and Ceilidh tomorrow, tours and supper on Saturday, day-trip on Monday, last day of orientation on Tuesday, and lectures begin on Wednesday.

The picture should be resolving itself right about... now.

Might be able to blog Sunday, but Mom's leaving on Saturday, so I might not feel much like embarking on the strikingly witty epistle which composes--

No, I can't finish that with a straight face or a good conscience.

Anyway. It's in the title.

Blogging in Brief

"As though such a fool as I could ever be brief."

So, first day of orientation week. Surprisingly, it wasn't too scary. The staff were quite casual and everyone was very warm and friendly. I even talked -- at length, once or twice. I met another Canadian girl and spent an hour or so with her, which was rather nice.

But I started falling asleep during the library introduction lecture, so I went against myself and bought a cup of tea at the canteen. Only 40p though.

Unfortunately, the end result of an eight-or-so-hour day is that I really don't want to tackle picturing, so that will have to wait another day.

Maybe many another days.

But maybe not.

Oh, right. One more thing: for those who are looking askance at the double pictoor links, there's a reason. I've just forgotten what it is.

No. Each album is limited to five hundred photos, so I have to put up multiple albums to contain all the pictures.

Ta.

(Incidentally, "looking askance" doesn't mean you're looking questioningly. Look it up; that's my word of the day for you.)

Aberdeen to Inverness (Elgin)

Part two ensues.

Well, more or less. I have fewer comments on this one.

This would be Elgin Cathedral, found in... Elgin. (Didn't see that coming, did you?) It is a gorgeous ruin of a cathedral originally built in the thirteenth century.

(Extreme photo overload ahoy)

Above, hiding in the corner, is an octagonal chapter house, apparently unique among Scottish churches.

The picture on the left comes from a platform built at the top of the towers -- I think it was the east one. The stairs were frighteningly narrow and uneven, and the platform was high.

Very, very high.

I have to put text in here, now, otherwise it looks like I didn't know what I was doing.

Oh, wait.

This is a view from about a third of the way up, I think, on a walkway between the two towers flanking the front gates.

One comment I do have to make is that the stonework was absolutely wonderful. The intricacies lining the arches, the effigies, the pillars -- really, everywhere conceivable -- was stunning.

Also, note the size. In the overhead view up top, I couldn't fit the whole thing in one picture.

Above on the left is the inside of the chapter house, which had been kept up. It sounds so snooty, but allow me to direct your attention to the upper part of the window. Each of the windows had similar working, and each was unique. The ceiling was spectacular, and fascinating. I could only catch a little bit of it without my photos looking like an Escher painting.

A graveyard surrounded the cathedral ruins, which made for some fun pictures.

I reiterate my words on the stonework. It was gorgeous.

And that'd be the end of it. Interesting about Inverness, though. We got to the hostel and sat in our rooms, and were eventually joined by an Australian woman named Liz. She was almost aggressively friendly, and got everyone -- by the end of the night, there were six people in our room -- introduced and talking. We discovered that Mom and I had been in the same hostel as her in Aberdeen -- in fact, we shared a room, only Liz was in so late and up so early that we never met her.

That was actually the best of the hostel experiences. Liz was, as I said, very friendly and talkative, and managed to make all of us comfortable with each other. She had loads of stories to tell, too, particularly about the drama that ensued in the Aberdeen hostel before our arrival

Choir tonight, and school tomorrow, so again, I'm not sure when I'll next continue this virtual epistle. No worries, though. I'll get to it eventually.

Extremely eventually, maybe, but eventually.

Aberdeen to Inverness (Huntly)

I'm going to separate this into two posts. This is partially because there were two major stops, and it's easier to divide the photos.

Mostly, though, it's because I'm lazy.

This would be the ruins of Huntly Castle. Wiki can give you a better history of it than I can, but I will note that, like most of the castles we saw, it was occupied both by private residents and by armies between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries.

One fact thing we learned was that the castle is a ruin not because it was destroyed during hostilities, but because of the roof and window tax. The owners of the castle were had long been living elsewhere when the tax was implemented; in order to avoid paying taxes on a castle they didn't use, they stripped the roof and windows, subjecting the building to decay for the next hundred years or so. If I recall correctly, the date was 1799. But I may be wrong.

I often may be wrong. It's just that I so rarely often am.

Incidentally, the castle wasn't the original reason I wanted to stop in Huntly. George MacDonald (if you haven't heard me mention him by now, you haven't been listening) was born and raised in Huntly. The castle was a really lovely ruin, though, and I saw a lot more of it than I saw of the town. Actually, I think it was one of the most interesting castles we saw, alongside Menzies, Urquhart, and Eilean Donan.

Overload of pictures yet? Just for fun, I'm adding a big block of them at the end of this.

Speaking of photos, I promise it's the last time I'll point it out: the pictoors link leads to my online photo album, which includes all the pictures I omitted, whether for reasons of quality or space. There are a lot. For some reason, though, all the ones with me in them have mysteriously disappeared.

Fancy that.

(Incidentally, I'm aware of the disparity in my grammar which doubtless caught your trained eyes. I assure you, it was deliberate.)

(Hey, I know what I'm doing, so I'm allowed.)

Perth to Aberdeen

I'd remember a lot more of this trip if I looked at the map. Fortunately, this is one of the days that I took 70 pictures instead of the obligatory 150, so picking pictures was a touch easier. In fact, I feel guilty about the general lack of difficulty -- almost sufficient to convince me to try two posts today.

Ahahaha.

Actually, there were a surprising number of photos that I liked from this section. The road we took -- one of the tourist ones, I believe -- was a very pretty one.

That is a river. This is a hill.

Allow me here to say that I adore Scotland to no end. In the Lowlands/Borders, it was like driving through B.C.'s greenery. As we neared the Highlands, we started getting into the heather-hills and bleaker landscapes that somehow manage to be unspeakably attractive.

Allow me also to say that the Rockies pwn their mountains to bits. Except for possibly two.

And one was on Skye.
This, also, portrays a hill. And, conveniently, a river as well.

Allow me here to say more about the Lowlands, which I failed to do in the Selkirk region posts.

For that matter, about the Highlands.

It concerns sheep.

There are a lot of them.

That is all.

This, for a nice change of pace, is a castle. I hope you didn't need me to tell you that. This is Braemar Castle, actually; not entirely unique in its star-shaped wall, but the only one of its kind that we visited. Also unique was the fact that it was guided tour only, and thus the only guided tour we went on. This one was occupied in the... fifties, I believe? The current clan chief, who had lived here for the duration of his first marriage, is now seventy-nine, if I recall correctly. And said first marriage was to an American woman who, the guide was fond of telling us, was rather larger-than-life: a very bold and flamboyant individual. This was evinced by the fact that she'd painted several rooms, in this lovely old castle, a very striking, bold, flamboyant, and utterly tasteless pink.

To be fair, I did lie a little. It wasn't a very striking, bold, flamboyant, utterly tasteless pink. It was several shades of it.

The bathroom. I'm not talking about the bathroom.

But the tour was fun. We got a lot more detailed history than we otherwise would have received. Very interesting.

No, I don't intend to share. Mostly because I've forgotten, or else absorbed the information in that osmosis-like process which, defying memory, nonetheless produces relevant information at the most unlikely times, accompanied by a general reaction of "Where on Earth did I learn that?"

We ended up at Aberdeen, which was our first night in a youth hostel. I did have my moment of inevitable panic, yes, but it didn't last awfully long. At any rate, we survived.

I'm going to join the New Scottish Choir. Prestigious, no? Actually, it's just a choir my landlord is helping to manage for a big event in about a month. Stuart Townend will be there.

More updates when I have time, which may not be for a while.

Tuesday. Eep.

Edinburgh to Perth

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a clear case of Too Many Photos, with a sub-case of I Have No Idea What I'm Doing.

Above and below (and all around, really) are pictures of Stirling Castle. It was interesting, but unfortunately not quite as fun as Edinburgh Castle (or some of the subsequent ones). Nonetheless, memorable.

These are random photographs I thought were pretty. The road we took to Perth was really very nice. Very lush: it was very much like driving in B.C.


Nooo idea what I'm doing. Anyway, here's Castle Menzies. That's the clan seat of my other ancestors. It was fascinating to track some of the Menzies who may or may not be distantly related to us.

From here on, I gave up on format experimentations, in case you couldn't tell. At any rate, Menzies. I can't remember how old the piano was, unfortunately. As with several castles we visited, a "Victorian wing" had been erected in the aforementioned era, but had to be torn down. The reason for this one wasn't stated, but with the other, the wing was demolished because the damp had been sealed in and was causing structural problems. There were several staircases that had either been sealed off or led nowhere.

Because the castle was a residence until the early twentieth century, and was in various hands until 1957, there were quite a few "updated" (or not so much) portions: several rooms had been plastered poorly, some quite a bit better. One hall was painted an admittedly awful shade of pink, but it made up for it by having numerous remarkable paintings of Menzies through the ages. (I refrain from including that picture, you'll note: my excuse is that it was the devil to format.) Another had a beautiful plaster ceiling - my terminology is vastly incorrect, but there were panels all across the room, each with its own design. Apparently, said ceiling was restored from the older design: in another room, we discovered fragments of the older ceiling as well as casts from the original molds.

One of the things that sticks out is that in one display, there was a corroded old claidh morh believed to have been used in 1314. It was literally as tall as I was. Literally as in, the length of the sword was noted in the front of the display and it was as tall as I was. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures because of the glare, but I got a picture of the card. How did you think I remembered these things? By writing them down?




And finally, we have a picture of Perth. That's about as much as we saw of it, actually. We arrived at our hotel, expecting it to be cheap, and found it was actually the old hotel - across from the train station - which had been really grand in its day. It was still lovely. We wandered down the street for quite a while to find something to eat, but didn't otherwise explore much of Perth.

Hey, with the way this formatted, it almost looks like I knew what I was doing.

Almost.

Apologies to anyone who read this before 6:30 here-time: the preview option tends to mess with my photos, so I have to publish to see what I'm doing. At least, until I figure this out, which may take a while.

So, Edinburgh-Stirling Castle-Castle Menzies-Perth. Given the overload of pictures/information (and the time-consuming process), further sojourns will await another day.

Oh, but one interesting thing from Edinburgh: a lot of the shops were the tacky tartan standard, although some were better than others, and many had bagpipe or otherwise Celtic music in the background. At one point I burst out laughing to hear Clocks - yes, the one by Coldplay - played with bagpipes. Actually, it was a remarkable arrangement, and my laughter was inspired as much by delight as astonishment. But it was fun.

Ta.