Skye (Dunvegan)

I think I said some time back that, at this rate, a ten-day trip will take me several months to chronicle.

I have no further comment on that point, actually.

Right, no pictures of the Skye hostel, I'm afraid. Shame. Here's a compensation pic of the view from the front door, though. As I said before, it was in a valley. Rather bleak area, really: no view of the sea, very little green, all giant hills. The one you can see in the upper right was, I believe, one of the two such geographical features I deigned to designate a "real mountain" in Scotland.

You didn't know I was geographically biased, did you?

Obligatory shot of coastline from the road. We stopped a lot.

Also, the clouds you see? Those were there the whole time we were on Skye. Still a pretty place, but the sun shone more in Wales.

Admittedly, that was a fourteen-day sample, not a three-day one, but I digress.

If you haven't figured out by now that digression is half the point of this blog, I'm not sure why you're still reading. After all, this wouldn't be half so funny without it, right?

Right?

So this is Dunvegan Castle. Not a particularly interesting castle in comparison with, say, Eilean Donan, but rather nice. As I recall, it was similarly furnished and refurbished -- not to that quality, but certainly better than, say, Castle Menzies with the Ghastly Pink Drawing Room.

It was a hall, and not that ghastly, but I never pass up an opportunity for an obscure reference.

Braemar Castle, on the other hand was Ghastly Pink Full Stop.


Once again, a place where inside photographs were discouraged -- unfortunate, because my memory is already failing on that point: I do recall a rather magnificent series of paintings. The front room was pretty impressive in its own right; quite a grand staircase, a couple of inaccessable lofts with well-placed paintings and mirrors, et cetera.

Aside: one of my lecturers -- the only American one this semester -- has a terrible habit of saying "ekcetra". I'm fighting the urge to correct him.

Lots of views from the outdoorsy bits, though, because everything's prettier with castles.


Or possibly from?








Unfortuntately, I don't actually have that many pictures of the castle's exterior, either. I think I was being lazy on Skye, I think. Only seventy-seven pictures that day.

Still, have some clouds.









The lighting may be poor, but you have to admit that's a pretty impressive entrance.

As an incidental, my vocabulary and syntax will probably deteriorate in this particular entry. I started this hours ago and at this point, my thinking is tea-fueled. As certain friends will quickly point out, it's a very enjoyable state, but a very, very strange one.

I don't feel particularly inclined to provide evidence for that statement. Although I will give you a word: canasta.

So, Dunvegan may have had an impressive front and good refurbishing, but that could hardly compare to Eilean Donan, yes?

Well, Dunvegan did have one advantage: extensive grounds.

We got lost in the gardens several times.











I can't even remember the names of all the gardens. There was a walled garden and water garden, certainly. Here's a picture of the wheel one, which was probably called something else.

It's much cooler from overhead than on the ground.

Also, yes, that is the castle you can see in the background. The grounds are really that big, and nearly all cultured gardens.









Obligatory flower picture. I like flowers. Don't you?













And some out-of-order castle pictures, because I may be lazy at chronicling, but I'm even lazier at formatting.

And because cannons are important.




In a mildly amusing side note, the water garden's waterfall was slightly more substantial than Shin Falls.

Exaggeration, but I was generally unimpressed with Shin Falls insofar as the "falls" part.

Geographically biased, remember?

You may have noticed that, comparatively, this entry isn't obnoxiously long. This is because I'm being lazy again and splitting this into several entries again. The rest of the day may take a few months to get up, given my record.

For those keeping track, this is September 17th.

Meantime, have a cute little bird:

<- Skye (Sleat)

See, I told you I'd get around to this part eventually.

Two months after I started the post is still 'getting around to it.' Very, in fact.

Wait, where is this again?

Emphasis on my laziness aside, two months ago, we started off in Carbisdale (castle youth hostel, fun) and passed through Eilean Donan (prettiest castle in Scotland, far and above). Well, we didn't. In fact, we did all this lovely stuff in September, not December.

At any rate, with the afternoon wearing on (actually, it's nearly evening now), we made our way to Skye.







You may have noticed that Scotland isn't actually very big: we arrived on Skye (there was a bridge) fairly quickly, and since we didn't particularly want to sit around the hostel for five or six hours before going to bed, we decided to wander the island a bit. Particularly, Sleat, a peninsula-ish thingy to the southwest.

Bible school has improved my geographical vocabulary.









Actually, before we got to this pretty stuff, there was quite a bit of boring stuff. There was a long stretch of clear ground with few trees, inland enough that you couldn't see the sea anymore. Red and rocky, and a bit dull on the whole. I saved my camera batteries for the pretty stuff.

Skye is the best example I can think of for the funness of Scottish roads. D'you see how it's a little one-lane thing with no shoulders? That was the condition of the road for 90% of the island, sans exaggeration.







At any rate, the boring stuff didn't last for very long. The road was fun -- we kept having to pull over to the little wobbles in the road to let people pass (everybody on Skye except the tourists waved their thanks). Also ended up pulling over to take pictures a number of times, because the shoreline came into view.

Incidentally, see all those clouds? That was what the weather was like the whole time we were on Skye.

Still pretty, though.

Because of the great entertainment that is editing Blogger posts, I've just lost one of my pictures, and I'm too lazy to put it back up. Don't worry, you're not missing anything, anyway: it was a repeat of the above.

I would tell you again how pretty it is, but do I really need to?












We wandered along this little peninsula-ish thing for, oh, I think an hour or two. Went right to the end of the road -- and when I say end, that's the word I mean. It didn't loop around or anything, just stopped at a house and a shop, and that was the end of it. Had some fun turning around, and then went to do it all over again, up and down and up and down and up and down--

I shouldn't make references most of my readers won't understand. Then again, when has that ever stopped me?






So yes. After Sleat, we went through Broadford -- I believe it's the biggest town on the island apart from Portree, but don't quote me. Before Sleat, we went through Broadford and stopped at Tourist Information and I bought a pretty bracelet of which I have no photographs. (Logical order to a post? Why?)

Then we went on to Glenbrittle. It's a walkers' youth hostel: it's inland, in the middle of a valley with easy access to any number of hills, as valleys often are. We didn't do any of the paths.






I don't think I have any pictures of the hostel -- I'll check later. It was a rattly little thing, but very nice. I believe it was Swiss in design, or possibly Swedish, but neh. We spent quite a bit of time playing Scrabble in the lounge.












This isn't all there is to Skye, by the way. We had a whole free day following, whereupon we got to see the things that will follow in the next post, or possible the next, or maybe the next if I'm being lazy.

(I still haven't done anything about my walk along the canal two weeks ago, or visiting the Falkirk Wheel last week, or seeing Mugdock Castle today.

But that's enough for one day.)

End 16 September '08.

More Weather

Um, have some snow?

Winter

I like a country with distinct seasons. I really do. Britain doesn't have seasons, not really. It doesn't have enough weather to have seasons: cloudy-cloudy-cloudy-rain-rain-cloudy-SUNohwaityoumissedit-rain-cloudy.

One thing I will say for it, however: gotta love a country where the grass doesn't die.

Christmas in Swansea, Wales

And now for something completely different...

I finally realized that my pretty, tidy system of picture-ing was wholly reliant upon having my browser exactly square, and that enlarging to full screen put them all out of order.

So this time, I'm trying on full screen. I'd apologize for the formatting, except -- well, I don't intend to.

Right, so. For those I abjectly failed to inform, I didn't come/go home for Christmas, because it was either spend Christmas in the U.K. or be homeless until the end of school.

Originally, Sarah invited me down to Derbyshire for Christmas, but had to change last minute. But before notifying me, she worked it out with Kate for me to go there, instead. Kate lives in Swansea, Wales -- hence the title.

So, Wales is indeed quite pretty. It is also very, very wet.

Jenny (Kate's sister) and I went for a walk on the beach one day. It was drizzly and grey and we were sopping wet at the end of it, but it was fun. We jabbered away about Doctor Who for most of it.

The weather was not especially conducive to good pictures, but I tried. The funky building was an observatory. Innit just neat?




And this is proof that there are, in fact, sunny days in Wales.

Why, there were as many as three in the two weeks I was down there.

Most of the time, we watched films and knitted (we managed six films in one day, once), but we went shopping a few times, too. I actually bought three things, but one is geeky, one's a present, and one's a surprise. So nyeh.

Another day, Jenny and I went walking up on the moors. That was fun, too, albeit windy and cold.

So we talked about monarchy, anarchy, and the destruction of civilization. It was great.

More pretty pictures, although much of the time I was looking into the sun and couldn't tell what I was taking a picture of, anyway.

Hurray for hills.

Rather high up, but so flat up top. Lots of space to roam.

So, Christmas was actually pretty great. Kate predicted that Jenny and I would get on like a house on fire, and she was right. It was fantastic.

Her family was really fun, on the whole. And her mom was very warm and welcoming; they made me very much at home. For a first Christmas away from family, it was actually very easy and pleasant. Quite quiet, too.

Right, I mentioned I knitted, yes? Well, I made a scarf over the holidays.

No, not a scarf. A Scarf. It deserves a capital letter.

It's twice as long as I am tall, and trails on the floor when it's looped around my neck. The stripes -- dark and light brown, burnt orange, moss green, dark red, and off-white -- are of varying lengths and more or less at random. And it has tassels.

For those few who will have any idea what I'm talking about, think Tom Baker from Doctor Who, only slightly more tasteful.




<-- because no picture of Wales would be complete without a picture of sheep.

So, yes. Spent two weeks in Wales, and enjoyed it very, very much.

And Jenny is still awesome. Our conversations went from Doctor Who to serious politics (for serious!) to... well, everywhere.

Incidentally, I'm doing this instead of finishing that last post from the Scotland tour because if I don't put this in now, it'll never get in.

And I'm lazy.

Instead of being a sensible and responsible college student and writing my essay (due next week) or studying for exams (three, also next week), I'm blogging.

Wait, that's an oxymoron, isn't it?

Happy Christmas, merry New Year, and a belated happy birthday to everyone.

...What?