Scotland Part 2 & Goodbyes

Next stop: Bridge of Orchy to begin our hike across the Highlands. Anyone who knows me knows that, as much as I really love train rides, I can never force myself to stay awake on them. So, naturally, I napped on our way to Bridge of Orchy. All of a sudden, my mother shook me awake to inform me we had arrived. So, confused and groggy, I hurried off the train and tried to wake up. My mom took one look at me and said: “WHERE’S YOUR SUITCASE?” …… Yep, it was still on the train. I rushed back but the door had shut. I frantically tried to pull it open and then felt a little silly when my mom pressed the button and it opened for me. I grabbed my suitcase and hurried off again, only to have the doors shut right on me. The train was preparing to leave! Luckily, a random person opened the door for me and I jumped off just in time. Won’t let that happen again.

So, onto the hiking. I should make something clear if I haven’t done so already. This photo pretty much sums up how I feel about hiking and strenuous physical activity in general:

 I mean, in theory I think it’s great. But my body just does not like it. Don’t get me wrong, I can walk on flat ground all day and not get tired. I grew up in the prairies after all. But throw in any kind of incline, be it stairs or a hill (or god forbid: a mountain) and I’m struggling.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be a good idea to hike for seven hours across the Scottish Highlands, covering 19.6 km (12 miles for you non-Canadian types), which may not seem like much, but when you’re on a bumpy path that goes up and down and up again, it’s more than enough.

So, we woke up in Bridge of Orchy to begin our hike. I think my body was more aware of what it was about to experience than my mind was, because during breakfast I was overcome with a bout of extreme nausea and dizziness that, unfortunately, had not completely passed by the time we needed to leave. But, stubborn as usual, I insisted on going anyway. So we started the hike. Very, very slowly. I kept stopping along the way, trying to make my stomach calm down and my head stop spinning, which was difficult considering all the exertion necessary to walk uphill only exacerbated the issue. But I kept going, and eventually that feeling went away. Not to say the rest of the hike wasn’t a struggle. My very capable mother could have done it so much more quickly if it I hadn’t been dragging her down. But even though I had the option to stop in a town along the way and give up on the hike, I decided to push through, and after 7 hours of beautiful landscapes and trying times, we made it to Kingshouse. I could not have been happier. Almost as soon as we arrived I sat down in a comfy chair in the hotel lobby and fell immediately asleep. I was more exhausted than I’d ever been, but I felt like I’d really accomplished something, all the more significant considering how difficult it was for me. Plus, I got to see the gorgeous Scottish highlands. Needless to say I slept well that night.

The next day was devoted to Glencoe, another one of the most beautiful places in Scotland.

We  spent the day walking around and hiking. My legs were more than a little bit sore from the day before so we took it easy. We did some walking and hiking, but not too much. Oh, and I climbed a tree, in a manner of speaking.

Hengen out

Then following day, my mother’s birthday, was put aside for more hiking in the Highlands. My mother, fit as she is, was ready for it. I, on the other hand, realized I might not be up for a repeat of two days ago. So, I elected to sit that one out. I took a bus from Kinlochlevin, the town where we had stayed that night, to our next stop, Fort William, and waited for my mother there. I can’t say I was really disappointed with how the day turned out. I couldn’t check into the bed and breakfast yet when I arrived, so I enjoyed a solitary walk on the shore.

This was across the street from our bed and breakfast

I spent the day wandering around Fort William. I even challenged myself to walk up a few hills. All in all a good day.

Then we moved on to Loch Shiel and Glenfinnan, a popular destination for Harry Potter fans (so in other words, everyone). We saw the Glenfinnan Viaduct, across which Hogwarts students travel twice a year in the Hogwarts Express. We also spent some time walking along the shores of Loch Shiel, which served as Hogwarts’ Black Lake in the films.

Just flying with Buckbeak

This was all very cool for us as Harry Potter fans. But all of that aside, it was still very beautiful. Have I said that before? That’s because everything in Scotland it beautiful.

And we hadn’t even seen the most beautiful parts yet. Our final days in Scotland were spent on Isle of Skye, a stunning mountainous island outlined by one single lane road. It made for some pretty nerve-wracking driving for my poor mother, who didn’t get to see as much of the island as I did.

The Old Man of Storr

Beams of sunlight

We stayed a lovely. comfortable little bed and breakfast called Seaforth Cottage, owned by a little old Scottish man called Ian, who took great care of us and more importantly introduced me the delicious breakfast food that is the tattie scone. There we met Caio and Julia, a couple living in Erlangen right outside of Nürnberg, Germany, who offered to have me stay with them anytime (I took them up on this a month later and found them to be the best hosts I ever could have imagined).

After a couple days on Skye, we were ready to head home. We made our way back to Fort William, crossing Glenfinnan Viaduct in the process. In Fort William we caught an overnight train that would get us to Preston at 4 AM. Despite the fact that we were in seats and not beds I managed to sleep for the majority of it. We made it back to Preston tired but happy. My mother flew home a couple days later.

Once the excitement of the Scotland trip was over, it hit me that the semester was about to end. I only had a couple weeks of class left. Realizing this, my friends and I spent as much time as possible together, filling the hours with movie nights, potluck dinners at Sophie’s, Quids night at Adelphi, barbecues, and Tuesday nights at Warehouse. These are some of my favourite memories of Preston. We had a gala-themed going away party at Roper Hall in which we all dressed to the nines and celebrated as one big group for the last time. Another memorable night started off with frozen yogurt with the girls, followed by tapas dinner, finished off with another late night round of frozen yogurt. Next thing I knew, the goodbyes began. This was more difficult than I ever could have imagined. It was the end of May when I said the first of my goodbyes and a month and three days ago when I said the last of them, yet I still miss Preston and the people I met there every day. Those months were some of the happiest of my life.

But enough of that sad feely stuff. I had a blast and I’m already starting to think about saving up to cross the Atlantic once again. As Clara said to me, “life just started to go crazy.”

Northumberland and Scotland Part 1

I didn't realize this when I booked my tickets to Dublin, but I didn't leave myself a whole lot of time to prepare for my mother's arrival. I returned to Preston on April 6^th, which gave me three days to get ready. Which sounds like a lot, but it really wasn't. I had lots of shopping to do, but more importantly I had to clean. My flatmate Mili and I spent a lot of time scrubbing everything down. Next thing I knew, I was at Manchester Airport once again to pick up my mother. I was very happy to see her, and almost as happy to see all the baking she brought from Nana. It was a little taste of home.

We had a big trip to Scotland ahead of us so we decided not to do too much for the next couple of days. We did, however, take a little trip to Lancaster for the afternoon. I elected not to take my camera since being a tourist can get a little tiring after a while.

The night before we left we headed to Wetherspoons where my mother was lucky enough to meet just a few of those wonderful people I keep talking about.

Then the week-and-a-half long journey began. We were up early to board a train to Morpeth in Northumberland, where we rented a car and headed to our first stop: Alnwick (pronounced “annick”) Castle, where some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

Just got out of herbology class

Next we headed out to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. This island is interesting because, due to shifting tides, it can only be reached at certain times of the day.

The causeway

One of the coolest parts about Lindisfarne was the priory ruins:

We walked up to the castle as well, although we were too late to go inside. I didn’t mind so much, considering it would have been a steep climb to get in.

Lindisfarne Castle from afar

 The sky was a beautiful blue grey that day: a perfect backdrop for rock sculptures. So we made one.

An Inukshuk in Scotland

But it started to get really windy so we headed back to the town of Seahouses where we were staying. It’s a cute little fishing town with a lot of character and not too many tourists. I would go back there in a heartbeat.

The next day we headed to Bamburgh Castle, located southeast of Lindisfarne on the mainland.

This castle contained my favourite room, complete with a live cello player. I was very reluctant to leave.

Makes me want to take up piano again

The other castle we visited that day, Dunstanburgh Castle, is actually a ruin. But that’s what I liked about it: what’s left of it certainly has a unique appearance.

The following day, we headed north to Scotland and what became one of my favourite cities: Edinburgh. Sophie and her boyfriend Arnaud just happened to be spending some time in Edinburgh as well, so we met up with them for lunch on a sunny terrace.

Momo, Soso, and me

 Then my mother and I decided to hike up to Arthur’s Seat. Sophie and Arnaud had done it that morning, and they said it wasn’t too difficult. So we weren’t worried. But we probably should have been. To put it bluntly, I am not athletic or in shape whatsoever, so getting up there was a struggle for me. Many times on the way up, my mother said “You know, Anna, we can just stop here and then go back down.” But I would have none of it. I started it, and I was going to finish. My mother, as a skilled yoga instructor, had no problem with the physical aspect of the climb, but her vertigo got the better of her a few times along the way. We were quite the pair, what with me stopping to catch my breath every few minutes and her clinging to the side of the hill. But, despite the odds, we made it to the top. And for the views, it was worth every second of that climb.

We spent the next morning at Edinburgh Castle. Situated on top of a giant rock, it offered some interesting historical background (all of which I forgot) and some more views of the city (all of which I remember).

Next: a quick stop at Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling spent a lot of time writing the Harry Potter novels.

This is me stepping on my own foot.

 A visit to St. Giles Cathedral and then Calton Hill finished off our stay in Edinburgh.

To be continued….

Dublin

Since April started I haven’t really had a chance to catch my breath, I’ve been so busy. The first weekend of April took me to Dublin, Ireland with three Catalans, a Spaniard and an American. We’d done some trip planning thanks to a very detailed and humourous powerpoint presentation from Alfonso the day before, and we had a great weekend ahead of us.

We arrived that late on the first night and arrived at our hostel by taxi easily enough. We were tired and ready to head to bed. Unfortunately it would be a while before that would happen: Upon our arrival we were told that there were two hostels on the same street with the same owner, and we were booked to stay in the other one. So we walked down the street a block or two to check in to the other hostel. At the other hostel, there had been a mix-up with the booking that meant we would have to switch rooms after the first night. Then, when we tried to pay for our rooms, it turned out the machine would not accept any of our cards except for Jeff’s. So we had to walk back to the first hostel to try their machines. They didn’t work either. The six of us did some calculations and managed to work it out with a bit of cash. By this point we were tired and frustrated. We expressed this to the man at the first hostel, who told us the man at the second hostel would give us free breakfast. But when we asked the man at the second hostel about the free breakfast, he got angry. No free breakfast for us. After all that, we finally checked into our room, which wasn't really the nicest we'd seen. Nevertheless, we just wanted to rest up and get ready for the next day.

The first day didn’t start out very promising either. We woke up, got ready, and stepped out of the hostel, ready to start the day. The second I stepped out the door, something wet landed on the back of my head. A pigeon decided to welcome me to Dublin with a little present. I was disgusted to say the least. Luckily, Alfonso came to my rescue and got as much of it out as he could. Nevertheless, I spent the entire day with bird poop in my hair which wasn’t the greatest. Luckily, the day got much better from there.

We spent the day on a bus tour of the stunning Wicklow Mountains. We started off with a quick tour around some important spots in Dublin, including a bay which probably has a name, and if it does, I don’t know what it is. But it was pretty anyway.

That bay with a name

We saw many other beautiful sights, including Lough Tay (Tea Lake) and the Guinness Estate, as well as some pretty waterfalls.

Lough Tay

Then we made it into the valley, where we saw the remains of a medieval monastic settlement and then took a walk through the woods to yet another beautiful lake (Ireland seems to be full of those).

The next day, we did a free walking tour of the city. 

Trinity College

We spent a lot of time outside that day, visiting the park at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the outside of Dublin Castle and another park whose name I do not know.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

We also stopped by Trinity Library to see the Book of Kells and the Long Room, which is full of old books.

That night we moved to a different room in the hostel, which was even sketchier than the first. I’d rather not go into detail about the showers, but let’s just say I might have been better off just not showering. But it was worth it, because we made a new friend there: Juanjo, who, like Blanca and Aida, is from Barcelona, and therefore speaks Catalan as well (and Júlia does too of course). He joined us for dinner as well as a night out to Temple Bar, an area of Dublin full of pubs, cobbled streets and live music.

The next morning, the six of us and our new friend returned to St Patrick’s Cathedral for late morning mass. That way we could get in and have a look around for free. They also served refreshments afterwards, and since we were kind of on a budget, I took advantage of the opportunity by helping myself to four cookies and a juice box. Hopefully no one noticed.

St Patrick's

Next we headed to the Guinness Storehouse, where we learned how Guinness is made (I only remember three out of the four key ingredients), got free samples, and saw Dublin from the top floor.

We walked around the city a bit more and then headed to the airport. Everything was fine with our flight until after we had landed. We had booked the flight knowing we would have lots of time to catch the last train to Preston. But the plane sat there waiting for about a half an hour before letting us off. By the time we disembarked, we only had ten minutes to catch the last train. So we all ran for it. I was the first off and so I ran ahead of the rest, but anyone who knows me and who knows how convoluted Manchester Airport is can guess how long that lasted. One by one, we reached the train station all out of breath, only to find that trains weren’t even running. Then we found out we would have to take a bus to Manchester Piccadilly and catch a train from there. So we ran to the bus. Then when we got to Manchester Piccadilly, we ran to the train, only to find that we had plenty of time before our train left. Needless to say, I fulfilled that week’s exercise quota in one night. Although the trip began and ended with a bit of stress, it turned out to be a fantastic weekend consisting of the girls giving poor Jeffie a rough time, Alfonso getting lost, and lots of sandwiches. A weekend that wonderful just makes me want to go back. And one day I will.