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Sep. 15th, 2007 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
numberoneblindOkay, so. Time for a legitimate update.
My flight left for Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon. I spent a lot of time at check-in wanting to punch someone at the KLM counter, and they spent the entirety of the flight making up for it by feeding us constantly and giving us free booze. Apparently there was a tailwind, so we got into Amsterdam an hour early, at 6 AM local time. Better early than late, but unless duty-free shopping is your thing, it is not an airport I would recommend sitting in for 3 hours. We finally made it to Aberdeen at around 11 AM local time. About 2/3 of our group had temporary rooms and couldn't unpack, but I was in my proper one and spent the afternoon settling in and trying (and failing!) to coax the internet into working. A bunch of us went for a walk and wound up just getting to the student union early, and we had dinner there as a group at 5:30. Later that night, the 9 of us that were still conscious went to the Bobbin, where I watched several frat boys get way more wasted than they should've on not THAT much beer, and I had 7 legitimate drinks and was one of the more sober-acting out of our group.
Tuesday:
We had a campus tour, then went shopping, then I went and discovered the glory that is Lidl discount grocery, came home, made a sandwich, got my internet working, and spent the night online. In my defense, it was raining.
Wednesday:
I got up early and we started our trip to the Highlands. After a lot of driving and lunch in a parking lot, we stopped at Clava Cairn briefly, where there were... well, cairns. And cows. And berries, which I ate one of even though Sally said not to and I was right and it was a blackberry or a black raspberry or something, because I didn't die. We then went to Culloden, which... I feel bad saying this but I think it's one of those things you have to really know the history to appreciate, I know it's a battlefield, but battlefields are just big fields again once all the dead people are off them.
And then, of course, because it's Scotland... we went to Loch Ness. No, I did not see Nessie. But Urquhart Castle is gorgeous and the lake was beautiful and the skies were blue, and maybe monsters don't come out when it's that nice out. I took a lot of pictures, which I will post here in a bit. After that we went to our hostel, Farr Cottage, where I played a bad game of scrabble with bad players of scrabble and then went for a walk in the rain with a few people.
Thursday:
We go first to Glenfinnan, which has a sign out front reading "Monument - Visitor Centre - Exhibition - Cafe & Shop - Harry Potter Film Location". You know that train bridge the Hogwarts Express comes over in the movies? Yup. That lake that Harry flies the hippogriff over? I'm thinking so. It's also the site of an important moment in Scottish history, evidently, but the Harry Potter thing has sort of overridden it. It's also gorgeous though, and I climbed a big hill (setting the theme for my day) and it was very pretty. We went back to Farr Cottage for lunch, and then the hiking doom began.
When I say hiking, I do not mean it in the often-used sense of "walking somewhere". I mean it in the "mud and big rocks and crossing waterfalls and hills" sense, and it is not something that a summer of being laid up with my still-angry foot has prepared me for. It was not pleasant. I did take a lot of gorgeous pictures though. Really, I probably would've been fine with it, but the pace we went at frustrated me both physically and because I couldn't take many pictures. It's the sort of thing I would've spent a day at -- hike down in the morning, slow and photo-ing, eat lunch where we stopped, come back in the afternoon. But we plowed through. You could either risk hypothermia and cross the river barefoot or cross a steel tightrope-style bridge if you wanted to get up close to the waterfall, or you could chill along the river and watch other people crossing the bridge and/or thrashing and screaming in the water, and I opted for the latter. Normally I'd've done the bridge, but my legs hurt enough that I didn't trust one of them not to spasm if I forced the amount of tension through it required not to fall off the bridge. The hike back was less awful, and we went back to Farr Cottage. Later that night they hosted a pub quiz, wherein as the voluntary representative of the last team to forfeit I wound up having to drink, while blindfolded, a foul-ass concoction of what turned out to be Guinness, sherry, cherry syrup, probably something else I'm forgetting, and milk, which of course curdled. I've had better. But it did all go down, and I did not end up wearing it, which is more than can be said by my team's male representative.
Friday:
More laid back. Went to Glen Coe, where we mostly lurked around the giftshop because it was nasty out. Spend a lot of time on the bus. Ate lunch in a park somewhere. More bus. Went to see a crannog, which was some sort of prehistoric hut. One of those rebuilt things with reenactors around. Spent three more hours on the bus. Ate dinner somewhere. Came home. Got online. Passed out.
Today:
Woke up, got food, went shopping, got rained on, came home. Am currently waiting for flatmates to arrive, as none of them have.
I was horribly allergic to Farr Cottage, so now I am gradually getting sick. Hooray.
Anyway. I will post pictures later. I need to go through them first.
My flight left for Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon. I spent a lot of time at check-in wanting to punch someone at the KLM counter, and they spent the entirety of the flight making up for it by feeding us constantly and giving us free booze. Apparently there was a tailwind, so we got into Amsterdam an hour early, at 6 AM local time. Better early than late, but unless duty-free shopping is your thing, it is not an airport I would recommend sitting in for 3 hours. We finally made it to Aberdeen at around 11 AM local time. About 2/3 of our group had temporary rooms and couldn't unpack, but I was in my proper one and spent the afternoon settling in and trying (and failing!) to coax the internet into working. A bunch of us went for a walk and wound up just getting to the student union early, and we had dinner there as a group at 5:30. Later that night, the 9 of us that were still conscious went to the Bobbin, where I watched several frat boys get way more wasted than they should've on not THAT much beer, and I had 7 legitimate drinks and was one of the more sober-acting out of our group.
Tuesday:
We had a campus tour, then went shopping, then I went and discovered the glory that is Lidl discount grocery, came home, made a sandwich, got my internet working, and spent the night online. In my defense, it was raining.
Wednesday:
I got up early and we started our trip to the Highlands. After a lot of driving and lunch in a parking lot, we stopped at Clava Cairn briefly, where there were... well, cairns. And cows. And berries, which I ate one of even though Sally said not to and I was right and it was a blackberry or a black raspberry or something, because I didn't die. We then went to Culloden, which... I feel bad saying this but I think it's one of those things you have to really know the history to appreciate, I know it's a battlefield, but battlefields are just big fields again once all the dead people are off them.
And then, of course, because it's Scotland... we went to Loch Ness. No, I did not see Nessie. But Urquhart Castle is gorgeous and the lake was beautiful and the skies were blue, and maybe monsters don't come out when it's that nice out. I took a lot of pictures, which I will post here in a bit. After that we went to our hostel, Farr Cottage, where I played a bad game of scrabble with bad players of scrabble and then went for a walk in the rain with a few people.
Thursday:
We go first to Glenfinnan, which has a sign out front reading "Monument - Visitor Centre - Exhibition - Cafe & Shop - Harry Potter Film Location". You know that train bridge the Hogwarts Express comes over in the movies? Yup. That lake that Harry flies the hippogriff over? I'm thinking so. It's also the site of an important moment in Scottish history, evidently, but the Harry Potter thing has sort of overridden it. It's also gorgeous though, and I climbed a big hill (setting the theme for my day) and it was very pretty. We went back to Farr Cottage for lunch, and then the hiking doom began.
When I say hiking, I do not mean it in the often-used sense of "walking somewhere". I mean it in the "mud and big rocks and crossing waterfalls and hills" sense, and it is not something that a summer of being laid up with my still-angry foot has prepared me for. It was not pleasant. I did take a lot of gorgeous pictures though. Really, I probably would've been fine with it, but the pace we went at frustrated me both physically and because I couldn't take many pictures. It's the sort of thing I would've spent a day at -- hike down in the morning, slow and photo-ing, eat lunch where we stopped, come back in the afternoon. But we plowed through. You could either risk hypothermia and cross the river barefoot or cross a steel tightrope-style bridge if you wanted to get up close to the waterfall, or you could chill along the river and watch other people crossing the bridge and/or thrashing and screaming in the water, and I opted for the latter. Normally I'd've done the bridge, but my legs hurt enough that I didn't trust one of them not to spasm if I forced the amount of tension through it required not to fall off the bridge. The hike back was less awful, and we went back to Farr Cottage. Later that night they hosted a pub quiz, wherein as the voluntary representative of the last team to forfeit I wound up having to drink, while blindfolded, a foul-ass concoction of what turned out to be Guinness, sherry, cherry syrup, probably something else I'm forgetting, and milk, which of course curdled. I've had better. But it did all go down, and I did not end up wearing it, which is more than can be said by my team's male representative.
Friday:
More laid back. Went to Glen Coe, where we mostly lurked around the giftshop because it was nasty out. Spend a lot of time on the bus. Ate lunch in a park somewhere. More bus. Went to see a crannog, which was some sort of prehistoric hut. One of those rebuilt things with reenactors around. Spent three more hours on the bus. Ate dinner somewhere. Came home. Got online. Passed out.
Today:
Woke up, got food, went shopping, got rained on, came home. Am currently waiting for flatmates to arrive, as none of them have.
I was horribly allergic to Farr Cottage, so now I am gradually getting sick. Hooray.
Anyway. I will post pictures later. I need to go through them first.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-15 08:44 pm (UTC)