Site Seeing in Glasgow

I have learned to use the subway system and grown accustomed to the accent. I have avoided Kelvingrove at nighttime and perfected staring off into the distance and ignoring the pamphleteers that accost you while walking to class. I have started calling fries “chips” and saying “cheers” when people hold the door open for me. I have done a lot in Glasgow, yet, until a couple of weekends ago, I had still not acted like a proper tourist in what has temporarily become my home city.  Which is why I spent the first weekend of November exploring Glasgow and seeing the sites with a few of my other FSP mates.

None of us have class on Friday, so we all met up and took the subway to city center.  When we stepped out of the subway station, we were greeted with the lovely site of six ragged Scottish men in kilts playing the bagpipes and drums in front of the Gap.  I shot a quick video because they were really fun and I love it when cultures display where their stereotypes come from.

Our first stop was the Glasgow Cathedral, also known as the High Kirk of Glasgow, St. Kentigern’s, or St. Mungo’s Cathedral.  The site is apparently linked with where Glasgow’s patron saint, Saint Mungo (yes, this name did in fact stir some excitement in me), built his church and the tomb of the saint is actually in the lower crypt.  The first thing to notice about the cathedral is that it is old. And very dirty-looking.  The building is so ancient that it is simply too fragile to withstand any vigorous cleaning attempts.  Hence its decrepit, spooky appearance.

the Glasgow Cathedral

The interior of the cathedral is beautiful – lots of stained glass, pews, and a massive organ that was playing some slightly sinister sounding tunes when we first entered the doors.  

the inside of the cathedral 

I think that one of the most interesting facts about the cathedral is that it is the site where the University of Glasgow was founded in 1451.  Classes were held in the precinct until 1460 when the university was moved to an adjacent site.  Ten years after that it was moved again to its current location – the location I walk to everyday in fact!

the spire of University of Glasgow

After the cathedral, we walked over to the Glasgow Necropolis, which is now undoubtedly my favorite site in Glasgow.  The Necropolis is an enormous Victorian cemetery built on a hill east of the cathedral.  Fifty thousand individuals are buried there, but only about 3,500 monuments mark graves.  Most of these gravestones are bigger than I am and the cemetery is peppered with all sorts of tombs, mausoleums, statues, and sculptures.  It lacks the organized grid layout of most cemeteries; instead it just meanders indiscriminately up the hill, quite literally a city of the dead.

"Glasgow's a bit like Nashville, Tennessee: it
doesn't care much for the living, but it really
looks after the dead."
- Billy Connolly (Glasgow native)

It actually reminded me a bit of the Greenmount Cemetery in Durango in that it has one of the best views of the entire city.  The day we visited was a gorgeous one and we reached the top of the Necropolis just in time to catch the beginning of a beautiful sunset over Glasgow.  It’s such a wonderful place.

Joy, Tova, Huan, and Cassie at the top of the Necropolis

The next day, we diverted our attentions away from the antique and focused on visiting some of Glasgow's newer landmarks.  Most of these dot the northern banks of the River Clyde, which is in a part of town that we seldom visit.  In fact, I was the only one in the group who had been there before.  The first time I had been there was on a bus tour I went on when I first got here.  The second time was when I decided to go on an impromptu run to hunt down the BBC Scotland broadcasting building.  This decision resulted in two and half hours of directionless pavement-pounding that my knees did not thank me for the next day.  Anyway, since we were in such unfamiliar territory, we accidentally got off at the wrong subway stop and ended up in a rather seedy neighborhood.  Since it was Guy Fawkes Day as well as the day of a highly anticipated football match (we anxiously made sure we weren't wearing any colors that suggested we were Celtic or Rangers fans when we learned this), there was a lot of rambunctious daytime celebrating going on.  We managed to navigate our way out of there successfully though and eventually ended up at our first destination: the Clyde Auditorium.

However, nobody actually calls the Clyde Auditorium the Clyde Auditorium.  It is more affectionately known as "the Armadillo" for its resemblance to the animal of same shape and name.  I think it looks a bit like the Sydney Opera House, but apparently this was not the architect's intention.  Instead he was aiming to make the building look like  a series of interlocking ship hulls, in reference to the city's shipbuilding heritage.  I'd say he was pretty successful.

Clyde Auditorium/the Armadillo

The venue seats 3,000 people and has hosted the Scottish auditions of a couple seasons of Britain's Got Talent.  So it's where Susan Boyle was discovered! Also, at the end of this month, one of my favorite actor/singer/dancer/musical theatre performers (he's a very talented man), John Barrowman is performing there.  Unfortunately, I don't have the type of money to support this adventure, but it's exciting nonetheless.  We didn't actually go into the auditorium, but we did get to enjoy the view from the outside.  Scotland was providing us with another unexpected beautiful day, so we just meandered along the River Clyde, snapping pictures and taking in the modern buildings surrounding us.    

Maddie, Tova, and I in front of the Armadillo (across the river)

Other landmarks we saw included the BBC Scotland broadcasting building (finally), the Glasgow Science Center, the IMAX theater (which also looks a bit like an armadillo), Finnieston Crane, and Glasgow Tower.  

BBC Scotland, the IMAX, and the Science Center

Finnieston Crane is a 175 ton crane that used to load railway trains and tanks onto cargo ships for exports during the Industrial Revolution.  Of course it's not in use anymore, but it has been left erected as a monument of Glasgow's industrial golden age.  

Finnieston Crane to the left

Equally useless, but less intentionally so, is Glasgow Tower.  The tower is the tallest freestanding building in Scotland and rotates 360 degrees to provide tourists with the most optimal views of Glasgow.  It's a neat idea, but the building has apparently been plagued with engineering and safety problems since its completion in 2001.  I really wanted to go in since I love heights and views, but the tower is currently closed and not expected to open again until at least 2012.  C'est la vie.

Glasgow Science Center and the Glasgow Tower

After we had our fill of these sites, we trekked back across the city to our apartment to eat a quick dinner before setting out again for the Guy Fawkes Day celebrations.  Our plan was to visit Glasgow Green where there was supposedly going to be carnival rides, music, and fireworks.  Good lord, it was insane.  We were packed into the subway like spoons in a drawer and the streets looked like the zombie apocalypse was occurring - so many blaring car horns, loud bangs, and screaming people darting around and over cars.  We eventually made it to the Green just in time to behold a dazzling fireworks display. What a crazy holiday.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Maddie and I topped the wonderful weekend off by attending a concert at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut (ridiculous name, I know) in city center.  We went and saw King Charles.  If you have never heard of this British musician, all you need to know is he is probably the most farcical spectacle I have ever laid eyes on.  For starters, he has the most confusing, yet most spectacular hairstyle ever. He piles the locks into a massive pompadour type thing on top of his head, but during his more enthusiastic songs, you might be lucky enough to see them fall loose and cascade to his waist in half dreaded thick and wavy tresses.  

note the pompadour...

This is not the only ridiculous thing about King Charles, however.  Once you move on from the mane, you will notice he has a lopsided pointy little mustache and the fashion sense of Victorian upholstery.  I seriously think he started his career by getting up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and thinking, "From now on I am going to take myself as non-seriously as possible."  In other words, best seven pounds I've spent.  You really must behold him in person to appreciate his splendor, but I've done my best to capture it with this description.  As an added bonus, here is a video of his song "Bam Bam."  Even if you don't like the music, I hope the video makes you appreciate the fact that your head probably doesn't resemble a communal shower drain. Enjoy!

And now to reveal the most exciting part of my weekend. I think the picture probably speaks for itself.

Hope everything in America is wonderful.  Love and miss you all.

More pictures:

Site Seeing in Glasgow

Kelvingrove Park to the Botanic Gardens

Once I got back from Dublin, it was as if Glasgow could tell I had warmed up to it, and in return, it warmed up to me.  Last Thursday was one of the most beautiful, sunny fall days I have ever experienced.  Thus in celebration of this enigma, I took my camera out along one of my favourite running routes in order to show the handful of people that read this blog where I’ve been spending a lot of my time over the last two months.

First up is Kelvingrove Park.

the leaves are past their prime, but at least the sun is shining!

Kelvingrove is one of the very first places I heard about when I arrived in Glasgow.  Looking at the picture above, you might expect that it came up in a conversation about the prettiest places in Glasgow or where one would be advised to spend a romantic afternoon. In reality, however, I first learned of Kelvingrove when I was informed that it holds a high standing on the “Places To Avoid At Nighttime” List.  Apparently, once the sun dips down below the horizon (which is happening earlier and earlier these days), Kelvingrove transforms into a place notorious for drug deals, male prostitution, and stabbings inspired by fierce football team alliances.  I’m sure the Glaswegian imagination has exaggerated a lot of this over the years, but I still avoided the place altogether for the first few weeks.

statue at the entrance to the park

Yet after these couple of weeks of awkwardly skirting the peripheries of the park, I realized that in the daylight, Kelvingrove seems to possess an alter ego.  Instead of syringes and balled fists, it’s mainly couples, leashes, and strollers.  After witnessing a very tender moment between a toddler and a gray squirrel while standing outside the fence, I decided that I too could probably venture past the wrought iron and into the park.  The first thing you see when you walk into the park is a grand statue (picture above) commemorating the Highland Light Brigade, a regiment of the British Army from 1881-1959.  Occasionally, the statue will also be sporting a fluorescent orange traffic cone as a makeshift cap.  I imagine the cone is put on by Kelvingrove's nocturnal hooligans and then taken off again by some respectful citizen of Glasgow.  The cone just keeps coming and going though; nobody ever seems to win.  Anyway, cone or no cone, Kelvingrove is now the place where I do all my best intervals and people watching.  I’ll even occasionally attempt to do spenst up one of the grassy hills or my reading for class on a park bench, but it rains so much here that both these activities usually end in wet and muddy disaster.

the result of attempting to do two-footed
hops up a grassy hill right after it had rained

Then, if you run out of Kelvingrove and turn left, you can follow a shady bike path that winds along the River Kelvin and underneath the bridges of the roads above.  I’ve often seen foxes prancing along the banks and just a few weeks ago I watched a blue heron catch itself a mid-afternoon snack.  There is also a lot of interesting and intricate graffiti speckling the walls of the buildings along the trail.

 I liked this one - for obvious reasons

more artsy-fartsy graffiti 

On one of my walks along this path, I stumbled upon some spray-painted quotes that sounded like song lyrics.  When I looked them up online later that day, I discovered that they were in fact from a song written by a local Glaswegian, Gillian Christie.  I've included a video of the her playing and singing the song if you're interested.  She's quite pleasant.

"You can't ignore the animals in your bones"

"I'll show you the place I've been dreaming of"

And speaking of music, while I was meandering along this same path just last week, I actually heard bagpipes being played from somewhere nearby.  I love bagpipes and they’re not played here as often as I expected them to be (probably because Glasgow is less touristy than most of the rest of Scotland), so I was determined to discover the source.  This decision led me to scrambling up a brambly hillside along the river and crouching in somebody’s backyard, stealthily listening to them practice inside the house. I didn’t think I should trespass for too long though, so I scampered back down and continued on my way, stopping every once in awhile to listen again and try to figure out what they were playing.

the River Kelvin

The trail keeps winding along the River Kelvin until eventually it meets up with the Botanic Gardens, which I included pictures of in my very first blog post.  Kelvingrove and the Botanic Gardens are my two favorite/the only places to run outside without dealing with traffic, so I was thrilled to find out that I could get between them so easily.  It’s not a particularly long route, but it is nice for short runs, afternoon meanders when you need to be alone with your thoughts, and apparently discovering music!

the greenhouse at the Glasgow's Botanic Gardens 

Anyway, the point of this blog post was to just show you a bit more of Glasgow since almost all the other posts are about other places, but this is the one where I actually spend the most time.  More info on Glasgow to come soon!

And as always, more pictures here:

Kelvingrove Park to the Botanic Gardens

Dublin

Well, I have finally added another stamp to my passport!  This feat was achieved through a lovely weekend trip to Dublin, Ireland, where another group of Dartmouth English majors/minors are living and taking classes at Trinity College.  Maddie and I bought the plane tickets ages ago when we found them really cheap online and the excursion couldn’t have been more perfectly timed.  We had just finished a stressful week of paper writing for midterms and only had free time to enjoy ourselves.  So here is my (rather long) description of the weekend:

Day 1 - Contemporary Art Exhibit, Book of Kells, and Jameson Whiskey Distillery

When we arrived in Dublin on Friday morning I was feeling a little confused, because not only was it practically daybreak, but one of the clouds in the sky also appeared to have spontaneously combusted into a great flaming ball of gaseous - oh wait, that was just the sun! The weather was beautiful and so was the city. Everything seemed to gleam – the buildings, the statues, the people, the Irish flags streaming from the building tops, the street performers, the beer, everything, as well as the other Dartmouth students’ apartments.  They are palaces.  They all live in one building and are spread out over three levels.  Each level has individual bedrooms, a living room, bathroom, and kitchen; a stark contrast from our double bedrooms, teeny showers, and the kitchen that we share with eight other people and mice. Clearly, it was difficult not to start the trip feeling a little bitter. 

part of Stephens Green, the park the Dartmouth students
 in Dublin walk through on their way to classes

I soon forgot my resentment, however, once it came time to go exploring.  After a quick nap on a couch that is comfier than my bed and a hearty breakfast that Laura Bryn graciously cooked for us, Maddie, Laura Bryn, Olivia, and I all went and visited a contemporary art exhibit.  I haven’t been to many museums while over here (something I’ll have to fix before I go home), so I was pretty excited to wander around feeling inspired and alternative.  But after two hours of meandering through a building that looked like an insane asylum, the only word I could use to describe the exhibit was bizarre.  Even Laura Bryn and Olivia, who are both studio art minors, were feeling a little baffled by it all.  I had a difficult time selecting which picture to share on my blog, but after much deliberation, I think that the replica of the dead giant squid languishing in a massive pool of its own slime was a good choice.  I hope you enjoy it too.

this was actually one of my favorite exhibits

After the art exhibit, we met up with some more Dartmouth pals to go tour Trinity and see the Book of Kells.  Since Maddie and I had been to the Book of Kells’ birthplace, Isle of Iona, earlier this term, we were quite excited to behold this little piece of history.  Unfortunately, this too was a bit of a disappointment.  The book was beautifully crafted and obviously ancient, but the way it was displayed detracted from the experience.  It was held in a glass case in a dim room with a bunch of other aggressive tourists bustling and nudging each other to try to get a better view. I suppose some things are more magical when left to the imagination, so I'll maintain my overly-romantic vision of St. Columba mixing inks and paints in the Iona sunshine.  Pictures weren't allowed, so here's a photo of some cool graffiti we saw in the city.

this guy looks like he's got quite the imagination

Our next stop was the old Jameson Irish Whisky distillery, where a very charismatic Irish man took us on a tour of the building and told us about the process of making Jameson. He was very interested in knowing where everybody came from and seemed able to respond to each of us with a fact of anecdote about our home place.  For example, he informed me that the best whiskey in America is made in Colorado.  In fact, he was so excited about my origins that he chose me as a volunteer to be part of a whiskey tasting at the end of the tour.  So once we had seen the various rooms of the distillery and learned that Jameson is distilled not once, not twice, but three times (a fact that was repeated so often I don’t think I shall ever forget it), we all trekked to the bar where the volunteers began the sampling.  We had three shots set before us – one of Jameson, one of Jack Daniels, and one of a Scotch whiskey.  We were then guided through the distinctive qualities we should notice about each, cleansing our pallets with a sip of water between tastes.  At the end of the tasting we were all supposed to be amazed by how obviously superior Jameson is to any other whiskey, but the only conclusion I came to was this: I don’t like whiskey very much.  It was a really entertaining and fun experience though and I now have a certificate with my name on it stating that I am a “qualified Irish whiskey taster.”  I’ll be sure to add it to my resume.

displaying my fine selection of Scotch, Irish, and American whiskeys

Later that evening we met up with some other American exchange students who the Dublin FSP had befriended and ate at a restaurant called Cornucopia.  It was relatively inexpensive, completely vegetarian, and absolutely delicious.  I sure love me a tree hugger buffet. We then roamed the streets of Dublin, reveling in the palpable sense of enthusiasm the Irish have for Halloween.  They seriously treat it as if it is a weeklong holiday and their costumes are some of the best I’ve ever seen.  In America, I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that many girls will interpret Halloween as “Excuse-To-Clad-Myself-As-Scantily-As-Possible” Day, but this is not at all the case in Ireland.  Or maybe it is – I was usually too distracted by the Irish gals’ extraordinary use of zombie makeup and fake blood to notice how sufficient their clothing was or was not.  Oh the Irish are a beautiful, beautiful people.

Day 2 - Wandering the City and Halloween Activities

           

Our second day in Dublin was considerably more low key than the first.  We slept in, made pancakes as a group, and then wandered around doing errands with the other Dartmouth kids.  Dublin has many narrow, cobbled streets that are home to pubs, vintages shops, and depending on the day, farmers’ markets.  At any given moment, hundreds of people occupy these streets and you’re constantly weaving in and out of other tourists, rowdy pub goers, cyclists, street performers, flower stands, etc. etc.  Think Diagon Alley without owls and wands.  It’s actually pretty hectic.

waking down Grafton Street in Dublin

Inspired by the various costumes we had encountered the night before, Maddie and I decided to venture off into Dublin in search of last-minute costume supplies once everybody’s errands were finished.  After visits to Claire’s, an itty-bitty craft store, H&M, and a funky pop-up Halloween shop, we journeyed back to the Dubliners’ apartment laden with an assortment of face paint, fabric, safety pins, and cheap clothing.  We brought this all to Anya, another Dartmouth student who loves to craft, and spent the evening pinning, sewing, snipping, and watching Rocky Horror Picture Show.  The result was an impressive (if I do say so myself) Cheshire Cat and Queen of Hearts!

Maddie and I channel our inner-Brit with our
Alice in Wonderland themed costumes

Of course our costumes paled in comparison to Anya’s completely homemade costume that she had been working on all term.  She was the raven from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”  She even had a handmade wire necklace that said “Nevermore.”  I love English majors. :)

"Once upon a midnight dreary..."

Our little motley gang then went back out into the streets of Dublin to mingle with the zombies, vampires, pumpkins, and black cats and enjoy the crazy Irish revelry.

Day 3 - Enniskerry and Powerscourt Estate

As much as I hate to admit it, by our third day in Dublin, we were all feeling a little Halloween-ed out; therefore, Tommy, Maddie, Angie, Laura Bryn, Olivia, and I all hopped on a double-decker bus (my first!) and drove off into the Irish countryside. 

gorgeous Irish scenery at Powerscourt

We stopped about an hour away from Dublin in a little village called Enniskerry situated in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains.  We walked up the road a bit until we reached Powerscourt, an estate comprised of an 18^th-century Palladian house and an extensive 47 acres of gardens.  Powerscourt is a popular tourist destination, so it was pretty busy when we got there.  To avoid the crowds, we stopped by the gift shop, each bought something we felt like eating right at that moment, and wandered off into the woods to set up a hodge-podge little picnic of crisps, rice salad, hazelnuts, bread, apples, and chocolate among the fall foliage.  After much relaxation, we then strolled back to Enniskerry, stopping at an old cemetery on the way back.  As anybody who knows me well could probably guess, this was one of my favorite parts of the afternoon. So pretty and peaceful.

the cemetery we wandered by on our way back from Powerscourt

Then for our last dinner in Dublin, we went and ate at Bewely’s, a café that apparently used to be on old haunt of James Joyce’s and is even mentioned in his book Dubliners.  I’m certainly no food snob and am usually happy at any place I can get pasta, but despite their wide selection of noodle dishes, this place was pretty bleak.  To put it simply, the food was not good. But I suppose since James Joyce ate there, it doesn’t really have to be.  Either way, it was a nice way to spend our last night in the “town of the hurdled ford.”

nighttime picture of the River Liffey in Dublin

So, my conclusion? I had a fantastic time in Ireland and enjoyed everything the city of Dublin had to offer.  The streets were teeming with activity, the people were enthusiastic, the architecture was appealing, the Guinness was tasty, and the accent was significantly easier to understand than the rough Glaswegian brogue I’ve been listening to for the past two months.  Yet, by the time I returned to Glasgow, I was surprised to find how thrilled I was to be back among the doom and gloom of the gunmetal rainclouds and buildings.  I realized that even if the Dartmouth students in Dublin may be able to watch movies on sleek flat screen televisions while lounging on leather sofas, I wouldn’t trade positions with them even for a more equal dollar to pound conversion rate.  You see, Dublin was exciting, but just a bit too glittery.  While there, I felt almost as if somebody was flashing a mirror at me on a sunny day. I was dazzled by the light, but knew there was something less enchanting lurking behind it.  I think it was superficiality.  Glasgow may be gritty, but at least it’s genuine – a great place to build character. I’ve grown quite fond of the tattered umbrella skeletons that litter the streets on a blustery day.  I like the glowing orange streetlamps that make our rooms at night look like the inside of a Jack-o-Lantern. I’ve even come to tolerate the occasional pitter-patter of mice scampering across our kitchen and bedroom floors.  I don’t think anybody put it better than when my Scottish flat mate David told me, “It’s shit and we’re proud of it.”

But Dublin definitely was lovely, so please check these pictures out!

Dublin

The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond

Hogwarts ... Logically it had to be set in a secluded place, and pretty soon I settled on Scotland in my mind.

            -J.K Rowling in a 2000 London interview

Hogwarts…Logically I had to go find it, and pretty soon I settled on Loch Lomond as the first place I’d look.

Basically, that was my super nerdy way of introducing a new blog post about my enchanting visit to Scotland’s largest body of freshwater: Loch Lomond.  As a small weekend excursion, my eight other Dartmouth pals, our trip advisor, and I visited the lake and went hiking for the day just so we could escape the hustle and bustle of the city and grab a breath of fresh country air.  The lake was only about an hour’s drive away, but the scenery was a stark and welcome contrast to that of Glasgow. As I was standing in the heather on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, I no longer felt like an inhabitant of Gotham City, but rather like a Paige in a Harry Potter novel (ba dum chhh - the pun was too good to pass up, sorry). In fact, Loch Lomond is in Harry Potter…or at least the movies.  It is the lake that was used for all the screen shots of the Great Lake outside of Hogwarts!  Obviously I was very pleased about this.  Ya know that scene in the third movie when Harry takes his first ride on Buckbeak?  If not, this is what I’m talking about:

Well just try and tell me that this is not the spot where they filmed that scene (or at least very near to it). It’s so beautiful!

view of Loch Lomond from Ben Lomond

Unfortunately, I must be a muggle though, because the actual castle never revealed itself to me. Expecto tragedio.

Anyway, once my initial Harry Potter excitement had finally been placated, we all went on a lovely hike up Ben Lomond, a domineering mountain overlooking the lake.  And let me tell you, this hike made up for every one of the disappointments Maddie and I encountered on our hiking adventure on the Isle of Mull.  We saw sunshine, fog, mist, rain, dazzling views, purple heather, rusty meadows, grassy knolls, sheep, cows, and several Scottish hikers, every one of them greeting us on the trail with a friendly, “Hiya!" I already liked Scotland before that day, but the hike up Ben Lomond alone convinced me that at some point in my life, I will need to return to the Scottish Highlands and explore to my heart’s content - someday when I have more money and less school (which will probably be never considering I’m an English major).

another gorgeous view of Loch Lomond from Ben Lomond

After the invigorating day hike, we all trekked back to our youth hostel to dip our toes into the lake, eat yet another hearty meat and potatoes (or potatoes and potatoes if you’re me) type meal, and spend the night reading.  We packed up and went home the next morning.  Even though we were only gone for about 24 hours, the break was so refreshing and I returned to Glasgow feeling like I had been away for weeks.  I can’t say I’m surprised though; Hogwarts is a magical place.

           

And here are more photographs of Loch Lomond and the hike up Ben Lomond. Sadly, they do not move.

Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond

Adventure to the Isle of Mull

Day 1 - Traveling to Oban and Mull 

Being our last weekend before classes started, Maddie and I decided to take advantage of the (somewhat) warm weather and plan a trip to the Isle of Mull, a little island off the western coast of Scotland.  We left at around 8:15 a.m. on Friday and the morning was a very groggy one of rolling out of bed, packing food for the weekend, and wandering around a foggy Glasgow looking for our bus stop.  As can be expected of the Scottish wilderness, the scenery on the way over was stunning – rolling hills, leaves turning colors, ribbons of creeks and waterfalls, and mist mist mist.

After a three-hour ride, we arrived in Oban just before lunchtime.  Oban is a very small and cute seaside town that’s natural smell is one of salt and fish and chips.  I always feel very smitten with the ocean and therefore wanted to stay longer in Oban, but alas we had to board the ferry that was taking us to Mull.  The ferry was very large and spacious and had plenty of room to snuggle up in inside, but I wanted to sit on the deck so that I could watch the waves and Oban disappear behind us.  It was frigid standing up top, but I’m so happy I did, because during the 45-minute boat ride I saw a seal dipping about in the waves, a couple of dolphins, several neighboring isles and hills, and Duart Castle materialize on the shoreline as we made our way into Mull’s ferry terminal.

Duart Castle as seen from the ferry to Isle of Mull

Once we had gotten off the ferry, Maddie and I loaded ourselves with our bags and began our half-mile trek to the seaside hostel we’d be staying at in Craignure. We felt so thrifty and empowered marching straight on past the buses and strings of tourists forking their money over to get to their more comfortable, albeit more expensive, lodgings.  As we were walking, we spotted blackberries on the beach, so we stopped and filled one of our empty lunch Tupperwares to the brim with the sticky little fruits, laughing the entire time at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.  Two friends spending a blustery Scottish afternoon picking wild blackberries on the shoreline of the Isle of Mull – we don’t live such bad lives…

We then checked into our little hostel.  The first thing I thought of when I saw it was a commune where hippies live.  It consisted of a smattering of little white tents speckling the hillside.  Inside each tent were a little brick hearth, two cots, questionably stained bedding, and a threadbare rug (okay so it wasn't *that* bad but the online description’s use of the word “carpeted” was a little generous).  Further up on the hillside were more tents that housed some sinks and showers for dishes and bathing.  As janky as it all was, I did find it pretty cute.

Maddie's and my tent

my cozy little cot 

After we got settled in, we made plans to spend the afternoon visiting Tobermory, the town that houses 2/3 of the isle’s population in brightly colored seafront houses.  We waited patiently at the bus station only for our bus to never come.  Confused and quite chilly, we found a tourist information center to inquire about the bus schedule.  As it turns out, the bus schedule we had based our weekend plans on was the summer schedule and they were now operating on their autumn times.  No more busses were coming that afternoon.  Oops.

So there we were, stranded in Craignure, home to hippie commune tent village, some blackberries, ominous rainclouds, and not a whole lot else – not the best place to be spontaneous.  We stood in the rain deliberating what to do and after going through a rather diminutive and bleak list of options – walking (in the rain), renting bikes and exploring (in the rain), sitting on a park bench and reading (in the rain) – we turned around and boarded the next ferry back to Oban.  It seemed like a ridiculous course of action since we had just been there, but I can’t help but love those decisions that seem so illogical but are still exactly what you want to do.

So once we were back in Oban, we wandered around waiting for a socially acceptable time to eat dinner and comparing prices at different restaurants, trying to find a place that sold more than just fish and chips.  It turns out that the seafood capital of Scotland is not the best place to be a vegetarian.  We eventually found me some pasta and sat down to dine.  After supper, we got ice cream and with the company of many seagulls, a couple of ducks, and even a swan, watched the sun set on the pier.  We then sat at the ferry terminal for 20 minutes only to have the exact same bus fiasco happen – we were attempting to operate off the summer schedule but soon realized our next ferry wouldn’t come until 11 in the evening.  At least Oban is pretty at night…

Oban's boats and buildings at nighttime 

We resigned ourselves to wander around Oban some more, but everything was closed except for fish and chips joints and pubs.  So we chose a small cellar pub to visit, purchased a half pint of the cheapest beer we could find, and sat down to watch the football/soccer game and see just how long we could nurse our drinks before being asked to buy another.  Our first half hour there was very uneventful and slightly awkward.  If somebody were to take a snapshot of the scene we had immersed ourselves in, presented it to a random person, and asked, “What doesn’t belong here?” let’s just say he or she would not have chosen the grizzled war vet, thickly-accented bartender, or either of the two ruffians playing pool in the corner and choosing aggressive Scottish drinking tunes on the jukebox.  At least we were getting to know the locals right?

notice outside of the cellar bar

The atmosphere quickly changed, however, when a gang of Scottish teenagers rolled in with their last names embroidered on their upturned collars and the most ludicrous haircuts I have ever seen.  They began speaking very loudly in unintelligible slang and harassing the bartender for drinks even though half of them were clearly underage.  Maddie and I melted into the background, no longer concerned about attracting attention, and prepared ourselves to behold what was quickly becoming a bizarre hybrid episode of Skins and The Jersey Shore.  We spent the rest of the evening there with smiles on our lips and flat beer in our glasses. 

We finally made our way back to Mull on our ferry and walked back to our tent in the pouring rain.  Since we were planning to wake up quite early the next morning to go visit the Isle of Iona, we decided to take showers that night, which turned out to be one of the coldest and most miserable experiences of my life.  There was no hot water and the faucets were automatic – I felt like such a masochist punching the knob every 20 seconds to voluntarily douse myself in ice water.  Brrrr! We then did our best to bundle up and fall asleep to the sound of rain hammering on our canvas roof.

Day 2 - Isle of Iona

During my freshman year at Dartmouth, at each floor meeting, my undergraduate advisor would have each of us share what we considered the high and low of our week.  Now if somebody were to have me do the same with this trip, my low would definitely would have been Saturday morning.

Damp. So incredibly damp. My hair was damp, my covers were damp…even the pound notes in my wallet were wilted from the moisture.  Getting dressed was like slipping back into a bathing suit you had peeled off earlier and our fresh baguette had been transformed into an oblong sponge.  This was not the worst fate our food suffered however.  What hadn’t become a wet and pulpy mess had been infiltrated by various critters during the night.  Earwigs in our granola.  Slugs in our blackberries.  It was a grim morning.

Yet, unwilling to be deterred by the bugs and drizzle, Maddie and I wriggled into our soggy jeans, nibbled at what was salvageable of the food, pulled ourselves up by the straps of our Wellies, and marched through the puddles out onto the main road to catch the bus that would take us to Fiohnphort…only to watch it, ten minutes early, zoom right past us and around the bend at the end of the road.

However, this is the point where our melancholy tale turns around. The bus driver must have caught our expressions of sheer American desperation as he whizzed by because a few moments later we watched the cumbersome vehicle lumber back around the corner in reverse and stop directly in front of us. Hooray for Scottish kindliness!  And so began what turned out to be a magnificent day at the Isle of Iona.

laundry drying outside on the Isle of Iona

It’s a little embarrassing to admit this, but Maddie and I didn’t have the slightest awareness of the historical and religious significance of Iona when we first decided to take our daytrip.  Yet once we exited our ferry and began wandering around the island in the early hours of the morning, watching the sunlight creep across the Sound of Iona and shed light on the wee island, we began to get the feeling that there was certainly a reason why being on Iona made us feel so peaceful.

To be brief, as many of you much better educated people may already know this, the Isle of Iona is basically the place where Christianity in Great Britain and Ireland originated.  Somewhere around the end of the 6^th century. Yeah. Pretty darn impressive.  The rich religious history of the place is a tangible one, as you can actually walk around the ruins of a 13^th-century Augustine nunnery, a 13^th-century Benedictine abbey, and an ancient cemetery that contains the graves of numerous Scottish kings, including Malcolm and Macbeth (I was especially excited about this).  It’s absolutely unreal.

 the most complete remnant of a medieval nunnery in Scotland

About 150 people live on the island, most of them members of an ecumenical Christian group called the Iona Community.  At first I found this a little creepy, but the sense of community and companionship they’ve built there is truly amazing.  And I suppose it’s difficult not to feel spiritual when you live in a place that looks like this:

shoreline of Iona

We ended up spending nearly the entire day on Iona just meandering – it’s a place that lends itself nicely to walking slowly and taking several breaks to stop and sigh.  We even got to know some of the locals, mainly really relaxed looking sheep and a persistent little cat that was intent on us sharing our couscous with him.  I named him Penry.

kitty nom nom nom

Before we had to board our ferry back to Mull, we just sat on the beach and soaked it all in.  If there is anything to make you feel very small and so at peace, it is quietly sitting in the sunshine on a white sandy beach of an island off of another island off the coast of Scotland (which I suppose is itself part of another island).  Leaving was unfortunate, but once we got back to our tent village we discovered that when not drenched in rain, Craignure is not only tolerable, but positively charming. One benefit of Scotland's bipolar weather patterns is that they make for excellent rainbows and we saw the most fabulous one stretched across the sky right as the ferry from Oban was coming in.

this picturesque moment has been brought to by
water, sunshine, and the ridiculousness of Scotland

We had planned to spend the rest of the night in our tent reading, but the evening was too beautiful not to be outside, so we walked to a convenience store, bought ice cream bars, and sat on the rocky shore, watching the ferry travel back across the water and skipping stones into the sunset.  All and all, not a bad day. 

goodnight Craignure

Day 3 – Attempts to Hike and Torosay Castle

Maddie’s and my plan for our third and final day on the Isle of Mull included a grand scheme to do what we had originally gone away for the weekend to do: hike! After talking to some locals, we decided on a hike that was apparently not only a short walk from our hostel, but also “quite trekky.” So we laced up our sneakers, set off for the trailhead, and began hiking! The first hour was very promising.  Most of the trail was straight uphill and filled with many lovely waterfalls.  We seemed to be following a stream up into the mountains. Perfect!

Scotland is pretty

However, after only about ten minutes after our encounter with the stream, the trail began to curve away from the mountains and back downhill.  Very confused, we backtracked to the last sign we had passed to make sure we were going the right direction. We were.  So we decided to just keep following the path down and hope that it turned back toward our pretty mountain again. It never did.  We ended up right back where we had started, staring stupidly at a sign that expressed its hopes that we had enjoyed Craignure’s 5-kilometer hiking loop and would visit again soon. That was it.  Maddie, leading force in Dartmouth’s Cabin and Trail, and I, Miss Colorado State Pride were pretty disappointed.  Apparently attending a college where walking on the Appalachian Trail for 50 miles straight without stopping for sleep is not only considered normal, but enjoyable, turns you into a pair of hiking snobs.

We considered bushwhacking on up the mountain anyway, but decided that might be bad form, so we trudged back to the tourist information center to consider our options.  After surreptitiously rifling through some guidebooks and consulting some maps we didn’t want to have to pay for, we decided to walk about a mile and half up the road to visit Torosay Castle and Gardens, which turned out to be an excellent decision.

view of Torosay Castle from one of the many backyards -
it seriously looks like a set for a Shakespearean play

Torosay Castle was built in 1858 and people still live it in, so obviously we couldn’t tour inside, however much we wanted to.  We could, however, take plenty of pictures of the imposing mansion from the outside as well as explore the garden and grounds, which were delightful and extensive. 

view of the tiered backyard

I had just finished reading Rebecca so I felt as if I had been directly transplanted into the setting of Daphne du Maurier’s novel.  The castle and grounds had everything it needed to be Manderley – the wild woods, the blue azaleas, the sounds of the sea, and the haunting feeling of secrets.  Coincidentally, when I was looking up the history of Torosay online later that evening I discovered that du Maurier’s older sister, Angela, had actually visited Torosay in the 1930s when her companion Olive Guthrie became a widow. Go figure!

Since we had nothing better to do after we had seen everything there was to see of Torosay, Maddie and I took our shoes off, stretched out in the grass, and took an afternoon nap.  It was a very relaxing afternoon.  And for those of you who know Nigel, he also thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Nigel and Maddie soak up the sun

And as must always happen with great adventures, we eventually had to pack up and head back across the water to Oban and back through the winding roads to Glasgow.  But hopefully we shall meet again someday Isle of Mull!

another sunset photo - taken on the bus ride home

For more pictures of the Isle of Mull, here ya go! A lot of them look the same, but it's hard not to take a lot of photos when you're in a beautiful place!

Isle of Mull Adventure