hoos in cambridge

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So, after having said in September that we were sorry for not updating more frequently, it looks like we proceeded to get even more busy. Oops. Will has been working late nights and early morning to try and finish up the project faster. Jackie has been working part-time for a research office at the University and commuting to London twice-a-week for an internship. Add in Sunday School and Bible Study and the weeks begin to roll. Now, suddenly, we find ourselves in middle December, in damp, dark, and cold, and thinking fondly of our warm summer trips. What better time, then, to update you all on those adventures.

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Scotland

It had been our full intent to give a complete and detailed update of our time in Scotland. Suffice to say, we got bogged down in the details, the masses of photos (over 500!) and the memories of what was our most enjoyable vacation, yet.
There's no other way to say it: we love Scotland. It wasn't even on our short-list of places to visit yet, like Man On Fire it's come out of nowhere to shock us with its awesomeness. England has national pride; there's no doubt about that. But, one wonders how much is born out of jealousy directed towards her more naturally handsome Northern sister. Our first trip to this "far-greener country" was in December 2007. We had stayed with friends over Christmas and Boxing Day, but then we caught the express train to Edinburgh because it stopped in Peterborough. Despite the cold (extremely) and wet (this is Britain, don't forget), we loved the city's strong, Georgian architecture and its little alcoves. More than that, the food was beyond compare. We knew that there was more to this country and we wanted to see it. Trouble was, we couldn't drive and that is the only way to get around Scotland.
Enter 2009. We decide in January that our big trip, our second anniversary, was going to be a Highlands Roadtrip. For Will, this meant learning to drive. Lots of breakfasts spent pouring over the Highway Code, several lessons with an instructor, fake parking spaces made of cones, and the incomparable generosity of family and one of the world's better drivers (at least, in his opinion) was now qualified to drive not just on the right, but the left as well. A tune-up trip to Devon (to adjust to the tiny-windy roads) and it was time to head out into the vast verge of Scotland.

We started and ended our trip in that glorious city of which we have written so much: Edinburgh. Since we were spending quite a bit of money on B and B's at nicer locales, we opted to do something that neither one of us has every done: we stayed in a hostel. We figured it would be one night, we could get a private room, and hey, it was £50/night. What could possibly go wrong? First of all, let's get one thing straight. Neither one of us are "silver-spooners." Yes, we are middle, if not upper-middle class, but we won't turn our noses up at anything if it's given to us. However, our lives are mean enough as is. The ability to travel, and to travel well, is highly important to us. Thus, hostels have never made much sense to us. Perhaps we could "get more for our money," but really, we would not enjoy it nearly as much. We're quite happy to cook for ourselves, and not go out during the year, if it means that we can eat without guilt or sacrifice when we travel. It's just being prudent. So, we quickly found that the "hostel crowd" is not our crowd.
Let's just say, it wasn't a great night's sleep. Concurrent with our arrival in the Scottish capitol was the beginning of the largest clan gathering since the 19th century. It was being billed as the "Scottish Homecomings" in the United States, meaning who else but Sean Connery could sell it. So, our convenient hostel, located right at the foot of the Castle Mount, was within earshot of the dress rehearsal for the massive opening ceremonies. It's hard to describe in text the disorientation we felt as we struggled to fall asleep to the sounds of tribal drums and an overbearing director shouting "If you are running in a circle, then you should be running NOW!" There was some interesting singing, as well, but perhaps that was just us praying for daylight.
Fast-forwarding to the next morning, we picked up our microscopic rental car from Edinburgh Waverley station. After getting lost for about an hour trying to get out of the city--Edinburgh is in the process of destroying all its streets by installing tram rails--we made it onto the motorway and off to our first destination: the Falkirk Wheel. It's big, it moves boats, it runs on the electrical power of a hairdryer. To an engineer this is still magic.
To get a grip on Scottish weather, picture wintertime, wherever you are. See something gray? Now turn down the brightness by about 12%, throw in some high winds, and rain that comes from every direction. This is roughly the description that you will receive from 98% of all Englishmen and 99.5% of all Scotsmen. Bizarrely, the further North and West we went from Edinburgh, the better the weather was getting. By the time we made it North of Glasgow (...nothing to see here...) we were already getting sunshine. We took some wonderful pictures of Loch Lomond, the largest loch in Scotland, from a roadside lay-by. The jet-skier was a total bonus.

Our first port-of-call was the Victorian fishing village of Oban. Famous in the UK for producing whisky, Oban was once a popular resort for the merchants and aristocrats coming from Edinburgh and other points southward. Nowadays, it is still popular, though a tad past prime. Nevertheless, it has managed to avoid the ubiquitous kitsch and tat of the English seaside (our favorite little Southwold, excepted, of course). Having walked around for 15 minutes, we'd pretty much seen all there was to see in Oban, but that was just fine by us.
We stayed at Dun-na-Mara, a charmingly renovated house with its own private beach looking out to the Isle of Jura and Isle of Mull. This particular B&B sported wonderful minimalist design and a tranquil atmosphere that literally stripped all the stress of our Edinburgh adventure away. We had a gorgeous sunny dinner picnic on the rocky beach (albeit, in high winds, of course) and were generally loving life.
At this point, we weren't quite in the Highlands. Yet, we were already finding how difficult it would be to get around the countryside. While you might be inclined to think this was due to caravans being pulled slowly by elderly people in Kias (since most of the time this is the case), in fact it was because of the countryside itself. Every parking place along the way was an opportunity to take a picture of some hillock, some loch, or some other gorgeous piece of Earth. It was astounding to be surrounded by such beauty, having just come from the fenland.
We stopped off for the afternoon in the resort town of Inveraray. Its uniformly white Georgian buildings were quaint, if the town itself was a bit quiet. Inveraray is famous for being the seat of the Dukes of Argyll, notable for gifting the world with the diamond-patterned knit sweater and socks. It also lies on Loch Fyne, a wealthy fishing loch.
Oh the fish. Will was never much for seafood living in the US. Scotland, though, has changed him forever. Everything, and we mean everything is locally-sourced, fresh, caught that morning. More on that, though, when we get to the best part of the trip.

Leaving Oban (and the lawyerly named county of Argyll & Bute) we made our way northward in dense fog and mist into the Highland Council. We decided to drive through Glen Coe, based on the recommendation of friends. Despite (do we even have to mention the high winds?) wind and rain, we were amazed at the rising peaks, the green glens, and the waterfalls. There were waterfalls coming down literally every hillside. As we made it out of that sad, but brilliant valley, it started to sun up. We stopped off for lunch just outside of Fort William (ha ha), the gateway to the Highlands. At this point we were still a little over 100 miles south and East of our ultimate destination: the Isle of Skye.

In The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe the Narnians speak of Aslan with great reverence and fear. Despite his being a lion (and that being quite a scary thing for a beaver), there is no question that Aslan is more beautiful, more wonderful, more amazing than anything the Pevensey children have ever seen. When they finally meet Aslan, they understand that the hyperbole was not exaggeration at all. Rarely is anything in reality that good. When it comes to people, the face-to-face encounter often brings out their more human characteristics. When it comes to places, different people have different preferences.

When we mentioned that we were going to Skye, no one, not a single person at all had a single bad word to say. In fact, almost all people described it as being one of--if not the--most beautiful place on Earth they have ever been. Once or twice, you think this is just a narrow thing. Five or six times, though, and you make it the hinge of your trip. Despite a typically harried timetable (we only had 10 days) we planned to spend three days on Skye.

One drives to Skye by first driving through Lochalsh; a rugged, beautiful, rural country in the Western Highlands. The queues of traffic that we had followed on the run up to Fort William had all but dispersed. It was now us, some scattered sheep, and Dutch motorcyclists doing at least 120 MPH. Before Skye, we stopped at one of the most photographed landmarks in Britain: Eileen Donan castle. Famous for its place in The Highlander, Eileen Donan is the seat of Clan MacRae and was a family home up until the 1980s. It sits on its own small island surrounded by gorgeous Highland vistas.

When we arrived at the Skye bridge (a white elephant project of the 1970s) in Kyle of Lochalsh, we were all tense with excitement. Crossing over, though, led to a brief moment of panic for Will as the first road sign he saw was posted in Scots-Gaels. Thankfully, all the signs on Skye are (eventually) bilingual. In the rest of Scotland, the average amount of spoken Gaelic is down around 20-30% now. On the Hebridean islands, however, the rate is as high as 70%. Hence, we were now into some fiercely Scottish lands.
Our home for our three days on Skye was Tigh-an-Dochais (tie-an-doh-chess, Gaelic: "house of hope"), a modern B and B sat on the bay in the town of Harrapool. Our host, Neil, is now one of our favorite people in the world. Not only does Neil make his own yogurt, but he was an invaluable source of information about the entirety of Skye. Every day began with a 45 minute conversation with Neil about our plans, what was good about them, and what we might consider doing differently. Oh yeah, Neil can cook a mean breakfast too. He also will give you a ziploc bag for your muffins (home baked!) if you don't eat it with breakfast!

Skye is a hiker's paradise. Only 30 miles at the span, Skye has a disproportionately large ridge of mountains dividing it through the middle. The Cuillin Range, as they are called, create microclimate zones around the island. Hence, each peninsula has its own unique floral character. Harrapool, in the Southeast of the island where we were staying was flat and low-lying with scrub plants. Further to the North (across the Cuillin), we found it to remind us quite a bit of high prairie and the West Country. To the West, it was practically tropical with palm trees and sandy beaches. Now, this is not to imply that the temperatures fit the places (they didn't) but the lighting, the look, the feel. All of that was right. It was as if the whole world was pulled together in miniature on Skye.

Our favorite location on Skye was, without a doubt, Talisker Bay. One gets to Talisker by driving through the village of Corbost (home of Talisker Whisky Distillery. Do you even have to ask?) on a well-maintained single-track road. Rather than driving down into the town, you bear up onto the hills above and onto a very rural single track. Keep going for about 10-15 minutes through sheep-filled grassland until things start going downhill again and the road ends. There's a small cul-de-sac at the end of the road. If there is parking then you can go, otherwise, you're at a loss for private parking. Leaving the road, you walk for a mile through someone's private property past a gigantic Edwardian farmhouse. Passing the farmhouse on the farm road, the sheep are grazing up and down the impossibly steep hill off to the left and an expanse of cultivated fields runs down literally to the end of the Earth where there is a bay. Surrounded by high cliffs and filled with volcanic black sands, we believe that Talisker Bay is a piece of heaven here on Earth. We could stay for only a moment (it was about 45 minutes), but it hurt to leave because we knew we were somewhere beautiful.

As much as we enjoyed Neil's breakfasts, the food on Skye as a whole was wonderful. Being an island, things still have to be brought in. However, being a part of the Hebrides, Skye benefits from a fishing tradition. Hence, when we got seafood gumbo (yes! Seafood gumbo!) the majority of the seafood had been fished out of the bay across the road that morning. It doesn't get much more fresh than that. The most unique dining experience was absolutely dinner at The Three Chimneys. Although located at the opposite end of Skye from our B&B, and in a tiny village accessible only by single track, Three Chimneys is a luxury B&B with a world-famous restaurant. The food and service were easily the match of anything we've had in London or anywhere else. Jackie is still craving some hot marmalade pudding. That meal alone will be enough to draw us back to Skye one last time.

When the sad, though inevitable, day arrived for us to depart, we drove largely in the same direction from which we had come. However, this being the Highlands, we knew that we had to at least see Loch Ness. We did. It was a beautiful sunny day. We didn't stop. After ricocheting off Inverness, we piloted the Bonnie Blue southwards and into the pastoral Speyside region. We spent only a short time near the Spey, but we enjoyed the distillery tours. It is fascinating to visit a large operation (like Glenfiddich) who still insist on using traditional methods, while a smaller producer (like Aberlour) uses the most modern production techniques. Both manage to make a good dram.

Following our Bacchanalian stop off in Speyside, we crossed the Cairngorm Mountains and returned to Edinburgh. Of note was how we still managed to get lost, but were able to get to the train station by driving up the Royal Mile. Once central, it seems, the traffic seems to disappear.

The pictures of Scotland tell the story better than this writer ever could. It is, after all, a picturesque country, rather than one given to description. We could lavish hyperbole on the scenery, heap praise on the local food, or go on for hours about the people and how welcoming and relaxing a country it is. It would do none of it justice. Instead, this understated, wet, plucky little country to the North of a much more-heralded brother can continue to awe and inspire all who visit, no matter what we may say.