While everyone in my Calvin group prepared for the long trek home to America, I was getting ready for two weeks in Edinburgh with Julia, Mike, and Alex. These two weeks have been filled with great food, fun games, and lots of beer (we even had a beer tasting party last night). The best part of my final leg in the UK, however, was our three-day journey to the Isle of Skye, about five hours north of Edinburgh.
We had five CDs and the Gaelic radio to get us through the hundreds of miles of road through the highlands. These hundreds of miles of road, mind you, consisted mostly of hairpin turns. When we got to the island, these roads became one lane, dotted every so often with passing points. More repetitive than the music was one of us saying, "Alex, keep to the right!" "Alex, stop driving us off the road!" "Alex, slow down when you're going around a curve!" We managed to get to our hostel in one piece, although we all agreed that paying the thirty pounds to cover any scratches and dents in the car was well worth it.
The Isle of Skye was not what I thought it would be. Google Earth had suggested that it was mostly flat, with a few moderately impressive hills. I should have known how it would look, since it was the site for Stardust. Anyway, Skye was immensely impressive. Everywhere you looked could be a postcard. Sheep rule the land, since they outnumber humans by about fifty to one. They apparently also rule the road, spending a great majority of their time either walking down the middle of it or lying across it, giving an apathetic middle finger to any cars attempting to drive by.
We managed to see and do a lot in our limited time in Skye (for more details, see Julia's pictures, since she will know well enough to correctly label them). My favorite part of the trip was hiking the Old Man of Storr, a giant rock formation. We hiked up through the woods (and I mean up), through mud and little streams and uneven rock. And that was just the hike to the base of the Old Man. When we saw the rest of the trail leading up through the giant rocks, my first instinct was, "Well, that was nice. Let's go get some ice cream." The others did not agree, and we kept climbing upwards.
At one point, Al turned to Mike and said, "Let's go climb that giant rock over there." So they went skipping off to do that. Julia and I, however, decided to do a more modest climb to a nearer rock and look at the view. Then Julia decided that she wanted to climb up to a huge needle-shaped rock. This is an approximation of our conversation:
Me: That's a lot farther than it looks.
Julia: Well, do you just want to climb to this next rock?
Me: Sure.
*climbclimbclimb*
Me: Well, this is nice.
Julia: Yeah. See, the needle isn't too far away now.
Me: Yes, it is.
Julia: Well, do you just want to climb to this next rock?
Me: I see what you're doing. And sure.
We finally made it to the needle and sat down to enjoy the view. The hike back down to the car took roughly three seconds, compared the hour or two it took to go up.
This little journey to Skye was packed with great views, lots of laughs, and about a thousand ham and cheese sandwiches. It was well worth the exhaustion we felt on returning to Edinburgh.
To see pictures, click on this link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1842321658504.2096420.1254450317
