Spring break in the Scottish Highlands

This is Zoe again, with a report on my recent midterm break in Inverness, Scotland!

My traveling companions and I arrived at our hostel on Saturday night after a long train ride from London. We went out for drinks and some traditional Scottish food at a nearby pub - I got smoked haddock, and one of my friends was brave enough to try haggis - and we were pleasantly surprised when, shortly after we'd arrived, a band started playing American blues tunes (Eric Clapton and the like)! We stuck around a while, and soon we started talking to the two middle-aged couples sitting next to us; only two of them were natives to Inverness, but all of them were Scottish. They were really kind, and in addition to giving us lots of tips about what there was to see in the area and how to order/properly drink scotch, they also bought us multiple rounds of beer (or, if you're me and don't like beer, cider)! A few dances and lots of laughs later, we stumbled back to the hostel and went to bed.

Sunday we were a little groggy, so we got off to a bit of a slow start, but eventually we went outside to explore the town. It's rather small and blessedly walkable, with a river (the River Ness) running through it, several lovely churches, and lots of pubs; it's also within easy bussing distance of many of the highlands' notable landmarks. It's a really wonderful place, I'd recommend it to anyone! Anyway, our first stop was Inverness Castle - which is not an ancient castle, it only dates from 1836 and it's used today as the town courthouse... but it was still very lovely, and it's up on a hill which provides a fantastic view of the town.

I didn't take this picture, it's from wikipedia, but the only shot I got of the whole castle was really blurry and awful; I thought this represented it better...

I did take this one, though, as well as the rest of the photos you see here :)

Then we headed south along the river till we got some little islands - they were laid out just like small-scale public parks, but somehow they were made twice as charming by virtue of being on the water.

The islands from the bank

The three guys I was traveling with; they were a lot of fun :)

We noticed there were Christmas lights strung above the paths, and so made it a goal to return at night in the hopes they'd be lit up. (Oho, but were they?! Stay tuned for the answer!) We went out again that night with some cool Canadian folks we'd met at the hostel, saw some more music, and tossed back more than a few drinks...

... Resulting in another late start on Monday. :P Oh well; we were just trying to honor the Scottish drinking tradition! That afternoon we walked through the town graveyard, in which stood another tall hill. We climbed it, and found several rows of very old graves on the top (the earliest I saw was from around 1810). With big, dramatic clouds rolling by overhead and more striking views of the city, there was quite a gravity to the scene, and I stayed for an hour or so, feeling very serene. I didn't take any pictures; it just wouldn't have felt right.

On Tuesday morning (hangover-free) we decided to go to the Black Isle, a peninsula very close to Inverness where, the people at the hostel had told us, there were hiking opportunities just about everywhere you looked. Sadly, there turned out to be a bit a discrepancy between the kind of hiking we had in mind and the kind of hiking the people who'd given us our information had in mind... we got off the bus expecting to see a trailhead of some kind, but all we saw were a few houses, fields and trees to the right, and the beach to the left. So we followed the beach for some time, then moved to the road which ran alongside it, all the while looking for trails, to no avail (plus we got derailed by a snail; the whole thing was quite a fail... I could keep going, but I won't). After walking aimlessly for at least a couple of miles, we began to feel lost, so I asked a random driver for help locating a bus stop, and he told us to keep going up the road till we reached Cromarty. Two more miles found us within sight of Cromarty, and we stopped to chat with a man walking his dog along the beach, only to find that he was the curator of the town museum; he told us a bit about it, including that it was a Georgian town (meaning it dates from the Georgian era), all the buildings were painted white, and that we could indeed catch a bus back to town from there. He also told us that the fields and woodlands we'd seen as we were walking, though they were privately owned, were open to the public, so they would've been fair game for hiking; we figured this is what the people we'd spoken to at the hostel had meant by "hiking opportunities." Slightly annoyed by the realization that we could've been hiking the whole time we'd been trudging along the road, we finally arrived at Cromarty, where we hung around another cemetery while waiting for the bus. There was, however, a cool, decrepit church there, built in 1783; the roof had caved in, and the inner courtyard was full of trees and vines and fallen bricks. It had a kind of beauty to it, and it almost made the whole ordeal worth while.

In wake of the slight letdown brought by Tuesday, Wednesday was SPECTACULAR! We bussed it to Loch Ness, where we did some actual hiking, starting with an old logger's trail that led into the surrounding hillside.

Got some terrific views

♪ Into the wooooods! ♪

The beautiful countryside from the top of a viewpoint

We also visited Urquhart Castle, a 13th-century fortress on the shores of Loch Ness.

From above the castle...

... and from atop one of its battlements! It's a bit ruinous now, as you can see, but imposing nonetheless

Me, obscuring a really spectacular view of the loch :P

After that, we hopped on a bus back home, but as we were passing the loch, I spied something outside my window...

Could it be?... Nawww...

We stayed close to Inverness again on Thursday, strolling around a local nature reserve (and walking through the projects to get to it!) and then later having a few drinks to celebrate our last night in town. That night, we returned to the islands on the River Ness to see how they looked with all the Christmas lights turned on... maybe it was partially due to the alcohol, but the effect was beyond magical. It was like a little multicolored fairyland. I only wish my camera could've done it any semblance of justice, but here's just one picture:

The blur is definitely not some intentional artistic choice; it just looked awful with the flash on...

It was a wonderful way to end our visit. :) Then, after a rather long train journey on Friday, I went by myself to Aberystwyth, Wales, where a high school buddy of mine is studying abroad this semester! It's another very small town, right on the coast, and it had a whole lot of charm.

It was really neat to get so close to the Atlantic Ocean, having only ever seen the Pacific!

Aberystwyth had a 13th-century castle of its own; that's behind me, on the far left is the Old College, and between them is the local church my friend attends

I'm back in London now, attending classes again (reluctantly), but as I mentioned, Abby's spring break begins next week, and then the weekend after that, the two of us are headed to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! We're BEYOND excited; it promises to be a blast. So check in soon, folks! Lots of love to all of you!

Get ready for a long one... Glasgow/Edinburgh, the Tower of London, and Parliament!

So, as Abby mentioned, I also took a trip to Bath and Stonehenge, but I've been up to LOTS of other antics since then, so I think I'll focus my attention on those other activities, since she covered Bath and Stonehenge so brilliantly. :) (The only thing I did differently than her is that I also went to a mineral spa fed by the hot springs which created the Roman Baths, which was SO good!)

The weekend before that, my group went to Scotland; we spent Friday and Saturday nights in Glasgow, and on Sunday we travelled to Edinburgh. There are two faculty members at the institution where we take classes who are from Glasgow, and they met with us before we left to tell us some things about the city. One of them said that, despite its rough reputation, the people there are incredibly friendly - "obnoxiously friendly," in fact, was I believe her choice of words; she told us chances were good that we'd sit down at a bus stop, and the old woman next to us would turn to us unprovoked and tell us her life story. Which, funnily, was EXACTLY what happened to my travel buddy and I when we reached Glasgow! We had a good talk with said old lady while on the bus, then arrived at our hostel, where we rendez-vous'd with our college tripmates and bunkered down for the night.

The next day, we went on a walking tour of the city, which was made only slightly less enjoyable by the weather gods' decision to bombard us with (blessedly brief) intervals of snow and hail. My favorite part was seeing the Glasgow School of Art, both inside and out: the building was designed by Glaswegian architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and though it dates from the turn of the nineteenth century, it is so innovative and unique that one would guess it was built some time in the last twenty years. I wish pictures had been allowed on the inside, but it was incredible; every room, every stairwell was different, with some that felt like an M. C. Escher painting come to life and others that were reminiscent of a thatched wood Japanese home. The library was the best part, having been designed by Mackintosh to look like a clearing in the woods, an image richly evoked by the dark wood paneling, the light filtering through tall windows, and the densely-spaced pillars which stood around the room. We later had a delicious high tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, another commission of Mackintosh's; the chairs he originally had installed there, also designed by him, had such tall backs that the ladies who sat in them would often topple over backwards! Who can say whether this was a mistake, or a practical joke by a man who, unlike many of these high class tea-taking ladies, had secured his own fortune through hard work...

Front facade of the Glasgow School of Art

After tea, we went to see a play called The Infamous Brothers Davenport at the Citizen's Theatre, which I quite enjoyed; it was based on accounts from the occult-obsessed Victorian Era of a pair of American brothers who made their fortunes touring the world and staging public seances. There were plenty of cool stage effects and magic tricks, and the story was very interesting, too! Then, after the show, all of us headed out to a pub where they were playing live music - a mix of Scottish traditional fare and newer popular tunes - and proceeded to get fairly drunk with bunches of rowdy Scotsmen, resulting in a crazy dance party. It was definitely a night to remember.

The next day we travelled to Edinburgh, which was also wonderful, though it felt a bit more touristy than Glasgow. It was, however, unbelievably gorgeous; the highlight of the day for me was when we climbed to the rooftop terrace of The National Museum of Scotland, which gave us fantastic views of the city in all directions (plus the weather gods had decided to mellow out, so it was sunny as can be). Another neat part of the visit was seeing The Elephant Cafe, where J.K. Rowling first began writing Harry Potter! Sadly, I wasn't feeling terribly well, so I returned to London pretty shortly after arriving there. Abby will in Edinburgh for her upcoming spring break, though, so don't fret, all you anxious readers will hear more about the city soon. :)

The National Museum of Scotland's rooftop terrace

Views of the city - the tall spire on the left is an awesome monument to Sir Walter Scott

Edinburgh Castle!

WHAT WHAT?!

Then, a couple weeks later, my group saw both the Tower of London and took a tour of the Houses of Parliament in one spectacular day. The first thing one does at the Tower of London is, of course, to go see the Crown Jewels, which I did - they were breathtaking, I've never seen anything sparkle so intensely! There were lots of other royal treasures, too; sadly, photography wasn't allowed... but there was plenty more to see. I took a tour from one of the Beefeaters, the official guardsmen of the tower; he was a lot of fun, and very knowledgable. There was also ample signage on the history of the many buildings and such, and the different uses they've been put to through time. Here's just some of what I learned:

The outer wall in the foreground, the Wakefield Tower (I think?) on the left, and the White Tower on the right

The White Tower in full

A memorial to several of the innocent lives that have been brought to an end at the Tower

Traitor's Gate, through which such famous prisoners as Ann Boelyn were brought into the tower

The courtyard and the inner wall

One of the tower's seven resident ravens. They've been under official protection by the tower for centuries; there's a legend that if anything should ever happen to them, bad fortune will befall London!

My favorite part of my visit - inside Beauchamp Tower, where prisoners were kept. The walls were covered with the final marks they were to leave upon the world; some were beautiful engravings, some were bitter epithets, and some were words of wisdom. 

Then, we were off to Parliament!

Interesting side note - they have you walk through a security scanner when you enter, and when I went through with my bag, they stopped me and confiscated my rape whistle... still not quite sure why; maybe they wanted to guarantee I wouldn't blow it just to make a scene? Anyway, we got the tour from a really delightful old Scottish man named Eddie (he got a phonecall from his wife halfway through). We got to see several of the more famous rooms, including the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and learned lots of neat things about the history of the building and the symbolism of some of the art. We also learned that two everyday phrases originated with Parliamentary customs:

1.) "It's in the bag" - there's an actual big, velvet bag in the House of Commons where public petitions are placed, and so when the question is raised of whether there are any matters of public interest to be considered, the reply is "It's in the bag."

2.) "Toe the line" - running parallel to each of the front rows of benches in the House of Commons is a red line, which those seated at the front are not allowed to cross. You can see it here (picture courtesy of the internet; there were no pictures allowed inside, sadly):

There's exactly a sword and a half length's distance between the lines; they were originally painted there to prevent angry MPs on the front benches from running one other through during debate! Thus, to "toe the line" is to respect the "no crossing" rule.

Once the tour was finished and I'd reclaimed my whistle, we were officially on SPRING BREAK!! I had plans to travel to the Scottish highlands for the week with three of the boys in my group, but we weren't departing till the next morning. I have lots of good stories about our trip, but this post is already so crowded, I think it's best to save it for another night, but I promise I won't let so much time go by without writing an update again... (Though I'm sure you're all surviving somehow.)

Until next time, then!