Final Days in Scotland

All good things must come to end, but, in order to bid farewell to Scotland and her thistles, Mary and I have prepared the following cheesy video full of greetings instead of goodbyes:

"Hello!" Of course there are more photos on flickr!

Mhairi would often times stop by her friend's place to feed scraps from the restaurant she's employed at to these oh-so-huggable baby boars.

From right to left, Jamie, Ferguson, and I cannot remember the brown one's name. They live with the boars.

As I mentioned at the end of our last entry, we took a train ride! A quick look at our flickr page will provide more pictures of the historic Ledgowan Lodge, which, by the way, has special rates for winter holidays.

Achnasheen is where we got off the train, and there's not much to it besides the lodge. This was definitely a journey-not-the-destination day-trip.

Mhairi always gives us a pack lunch when we're going to be out & about, and the pack lunches always contain Soreen© malt loaf- an excellent source of "Deliciously squidgy energy". No, they're not paying me for this. Mary does not care for the squidginess, but I can't get enough!

This a view from right out the train window on the way back to Kyle of Lochalsh. Some say the Kyle Line is one of the best train rides in the world! Needless to say, we waste much time trying to take pictures out the window...

The evening after our locomotoring, we went to a Halloween party in Dornie. Mary was a hippie and I a sheep. It took place in a pub, where we bore witness to the lower European drinking age. There were the equivalent of high school seniors having a legal, albeit rowdy, time. It was from them we learned all  I ever wanted  to know about Shinty, which is a traditional highland sport similar to field hockey. As an aside, trick-or-treating is locally known as guisin' in Scotland (think disguise?).

The day after the party, we visited a rocky shore revealed by the low tide. High wind and cold rain provided an unpleasant contrast. We still had a good time, especially the dogs, and Mhairi got to collect sea snail shells.

On our final day with Mhairi, we took a ride to the highland island of Skye. It was, in essence just a lot more of what we're used to in Scotland, with the exception of a lot more beach. We ended the journey in a little nature walk through the woods and down to the rocky shore, where we might've seen a seal.

Right before we hopped on the bus to begin our journey to Italy, I snapped this last photo of the view from just outside Mhairi's front door.

As I'm writing this, we've already spent a day in Glasgow and Rome, both! It'll take another blog to fill you (the readers!) in. We're resting now in our new workaway in scenic Tuscany, with olive pickin' planned for the morning. Mary or myself will bring the blog up to speed after we've done some work, but for now let me just tease that if Scotland was the most beautiful place on Earth, then we must now be in heaven.

For those unfamiliar with the UK, switches are employed on the side of many electrical outlets. I believe these exist simply to avoid the hazards of disconnecting live plugs- very useful for one-handed unplugging (not that I've ever zapped myself that way...).

Too late for a Happy Halloween?

-Jake