Highlands and Hockey

This weekend was JAM-PACKED.  So be warned, this post will probably equal the length of the past couple days.

Day 1:
Glengoyne Distillery

I woke up early on Saturday morning to catch the train to Glasgow, where the tour bus picked us up and took us to Glengoyne Distillery. There we got some free samples. The whisky was really nice and light, so even some people who don't normally drink whisky kind of liked it.
Our tour guide did a really good job of explaining how whisky is made (meaning I actually understood it), and it's a surprisingly fascinating process. Plus, she had one of my favorite Scottish accents that I've heard so far, which I'm assuming is from that general area of the Western Highlands. Glengoyne is located almost directly at the southern border of the Highlands because it used to be that the taxes were the cheapest there.
Glengoyne's whisky was actually the favorite of the Queen Mum (Elizabeth's mother) up until she died, so they used to have the royal crest on all of their products. The tour guide jokingly asked us to give Will and Kate a bottle if we see them so they can reinstate the honor. She also told us that one of the main differences between Scottish whisky (Scotch) and other kinds is that Scotch is only distilled twice whereas Irish and American whiskey is distilled three times. Moreover  Scottish "whisky" has no "e" in the name, while other kinds are spelled "whiskey." There's actually a whole list of rules that designate the differences between how Scotch and other whiskies are made. This is just a guess, but I'm assuming one of those is that Scotch has to be made in Scotland.
There's plenty more interesting stuff I could say about whisky, but other things did happen on the trip that I should probably cover. I guess.

Loch Lomond

We had lunch in Tarbet, which is pretty much a pit stop with a fancy hotel and a little cafe next to Loch Lomond. The Loch was super cold because of the wind coming off it it, but we got some pictures and then walked up the road to have lunch. We found a tearoom, where I got to talk with two really cool girls studying abroad in Edinburgh and the two program guides. We had a really fun conversation over our meals. I ordered an egg and sausage sandwich, but something about the sausage they make here doesn't really sit well with me. It seems like they add some kind of quinoa-type grain to the ground meat. I also had my first caramel wafer, which is kind of like those Voortman wafer cookies except with caramel between the layers and covered in chocolate. I liked it, but I've definitely had desserts in Scotland that I enjoyed more.

Dunstaffnage Castle

Dunstaffnage Castle was the first castle I've seen located right next to the water. There's a very small harbor right next to it and a pretty view of that from the top. I've heard that a lot of castles in the Western Highlands are situated beside water or on islands, which I think makes them the most scenic. Dunstaffnage is pretty tiny, but they probably just added it to the trip itinerary because it's right outside of Oban, where we were headed.




Oban

Oban is a really cute little harbor town where you can get ferries to a lot of the Western Islands, including Staffa, Mull, and Iona which is probably the most famous (and also a really common girl's name in Scotland). There's an old abbey there, and the landscape is supposedly really neat. I'm planning to go sometime in May.

Iona Abbey

There are also ferries which will will take you to see the local seal colonies. I'd love to do that later in the spring.

McCaig's Tower

McCaig's Tower is less of a tower and more of a coliseum overlooking Oban. It was built to create jobs in 1897 and took five years to complete. Although it's a pain to walk up to it, there's a nice view of the city from there. I could see the tower from my hostel room window, and it looks really cool at night when it's lit up with spotlights.

After we visited McCaig's tower, our guides let us go exploring, so I went with my two new friends from Edinburgh to find someplace to eat. We heard there was a good seafood restaurant on the ferry port, so we walked down there and got to see a cool view of the city. Eventually, we found the Waterfront Fishhouse, where I got some amazing clam and crab chowder (I'd never had the kind with little clams still in their shells before), and a lobster with some kind of cream sauce, potato wedges, and a tiny salad. I also tried a bottle of Estrella Damm, which is probably the best pale ale that I've had. I normally only like darker beers.

Dinner was really fun, and after that, we decided to find a pub to hang out in. For some reason, we couldn't find a lot of pubs, although we realized the next day that there were way more than we'd thought. The general problem in Scotland is that pubs are often divided between the young people and the old people ones, and the majority of them are exclusively frequented by old people. But we did manage to find one good pub called Coasters that had a mix of generations and seemed to be pretty happening. The one funny thing about Coasters was that, even though it looked like a standard pub with a lot of middle aged people, they were blasting top 40 dance remixes the whole time like it was a night club.

We didn't hang out at Coasters long because we were pretty tired, so we went back to our room at about 10pm.  The place we were staying was actually really nice for a hostel, and our room was fairly large for four people, though we only had three because one girl cancelled at the last minute. We hung out there and watched The Time Traveler's Wife on TV and had a rather good time making fun of how little sense it all made. I'm really glad that I was lucky enough to meet some great people to room with and hang out with.

Day 2: I got up early on Sunday to have breakfast, and as soon as I stepped into the hallway, there was this lady there yelling about how nobody was at breakfast. Apparently, there was some miscommunication, and everyone thought that breakfast was open for a certain length of time, whereas in actuality we were all supposed to come when it started at 8am.  We didn't miss it though, and the food was surprisingly good.  I had some of the bacon, which in Scotland is more like ham, and I liked that much better than the weird sausage.

After breakfast, we were allowed to either go to the War & Peace Museum or wander around Oban for an hour. However, nothing in Oban was actually open at 10am besides the museum, so we just ended up going back there. The museum was way too small (like one and a half rooms) to spend very much time in, so we looked around for an open coffee shop, which we finally found about twenty minutes before we had to leave. The whole experience was more funny than awful though, so it was fine.  Although the day's planned events turned out to be largely a bust by the end.

There was a lot of driving to be done on Sunday, so we rode a hour or two out to Fort William where we were supposed to ride a gondola partway up Ben Nevis, the tallest peak in the UK.

This is kind of what it looked like, but there was a lot more snow and mist, so it was hard to really see the top. I had the feeling that when we got up there, we wouldn't see much because of the weather. We didn't get to find out though because the gondola ride turned out to be closed due to high winds. One of my friends told me that she had been on it before, and it didn't even take you all the way to the top, and the gondola windows were so scratched you couldn't see very well anyway. So I guess we weren't missing too much.

When Ben Nevis didn't work out, we went to the visitor's center for lunch. Apparently "visitor's center" is code for "giant tourist shop." They had a cafeteria there, but the food was pretty expensive and not even that good. It was nice to sit and talk with my friends and the program guides again though. One of the guides had a really strong Canadian accent (I'd never met a Canadian who actually says "eh" before), and when I asked her if that was where she was from, she was surprised and happy that I'd noticed. She was really nice and friendly, and the reason she came along on the trip was to talk to us about this book written by a Scottish author from Oban. The book, Morvern Callar, sounded like a serious downer, but she was clearly really into it, and it's always fun to see someone talk about something they're passionate about.

After lunch, we drove another few hours or so to Glencoe, which is supposedly one of the major must-sees in Scotland. I was really frustrated to find out that it was also obscured by snow and clouds, so the view from the lookout point was hardly visible. When I got home, I signed up right away for a free student trip to Glencoe over spring break. I can't know for sure if the weather will be any better, but it's worth a try. Glencoe is one of the things on my list that I most want to see, so I'm going back as many times as I need to until I actually get to see it.

From Glencoe, we headed back to Stirling, and on the way, I could tell from what I could see of the mountains that they were really impressive and massive, just not very easily photographed because of all the snow blowing around. And that was pretty much the official end of the trip.

Edinburgh Capitals vs. Dundee Stars Game

(Dundee's logo is just like Dallas's, but Edinburgh has really cool jerseys that look like Scotland's flag)

We stopped in Stirling to drop people off, but I decided to ride through to Edinburgh and spend the evening there, since it was a free ride and we'd arrive by 6:30pm. On the way though, I remembered that the Edinburgh Capitals' final game of the season was that night, and I asked how to get to Murrayfield Ice Rink. The bus driver said we were going right past it and that he'd drop me off.

When I got there, I had to walk all the way around the Murrayfield rugby stadium to find the ice rink, which I didn't even realize was the rink at first because it was so small, especially compared to the massive stadium right next to it. I got there about 15 minutes after the start of the game, only to find that they didn't take credit cards. So I had to walk about 20 minutes, there and back, to the nearest ATM. I got momentarily confused and asked some guys coming out of the arena where the closest bank was, but they didn't know because they were a visiting curling team from Denmark. Oh well. I found the ATM fairly quickly, but by the time I got back, it was the first period intermission (I was so tired, I asked the guy if it was "halftime," haha). Any later, and I probably wouldn't have been able to buy a ticket. For students though, admission was only 11 pounds, so it was still worth it to see the last two periods.

The arena was super small, even smaller than WesBanco where the Wheeling Nailers play, and it looked a lot like the ones that high school teams use.  Considering how few fans the Capitals and ice hockey in general have in the UK (compared to North America, at least), I was expecting the game to be really gimmicky and low energy, kind of like a Blue Jackets game. However, I very surprised and impressed to see how passionate and serious the fans were. They had all kinds of cheers and chants and songs, one of which was a version of "Jingle Bells" about one of the star players, and it was a lot of fun to be a part of the crowd. It was also  really weird to be with a ton of people rooting for the Capitals, since I always automatically think of Washington, and in Scottish accents no less. But I did quickly come to think of these "Capitals" as a separate team.

During the second period intermission, I explored the arena (again, it's very small, so that didn't take long). I saw some framed jerseys from past local teams, and my favorite was "The Old Timers." I also saw a lot of people wearing Edinburgh Capitals jerseys and other stuff, but I couldn't figure out where they were buying it. I finally discovered that they had a little merchandise table right next to the rink. Unfortunately, they weren't selling the hoodies or scarves (they have scarves for the hockey teams like they do for soccer teams here), but I got a really quality baseball hat with the team logo on it and a Powerplay magazine, which is like the Hockey News for all of the British teams. It actually included the week's NHL stats, which made me kind of nostalgic for my own team, seeing the Penguins and Sidney Crosby at the top of the charts.

I noticed that Dundee's fans were also really crazy, and they had a rather large cheering section on the opposite side of the arena. They were all decked out in logos as well, and there was even one hilarious guy who had this homemade puck costume on with some catchphrase written on it that I didn't really understand the meaning of. There were also a lot of kids there, and one of them had on a Patrick Kane jersey. I saw some Habs and Leafs fans too, and an old green and purple Anaheim jersey. It made me so happy to see all these Scottish people, especially the kids, who were really into hockey. There were even some Scottish players on the teams, although most of them seemed to be Canadian, Russian, or Scandinavian transplants.

Anyway, the Capitals won, and I found out that they were already slated for the play-offs. I wouldn't have guessed because neither they nor the Stars were at NHL level (both teams constantly made a lot of really dumb, sloppy mistakes), but I was very happy for them, especially because it meant that I might get to see them play again.

At the end of the game, they had a really cute end-of-the-season thank you thing for the fans, who totally loved it. It was so great to see the connection that they had with the team, and I hope that the Capitals get even more fans and popularize the sport further in the future (haha, it's so weird to talk about the "Capitals" like that).

On my way to the train station, I stopped to ask if I was headed in the right direction, and the bus driver I asked told me that I should take the shuttle he was driving to Falkirk because the tracks were being worked on. So it was very lucky that I happened to talk to him! When I got to the Falkirk station, I met this really nice girl who lives in Stirling and has a sister at the university, and we had a great conversation on the train. She has a job in music at a church in Edinburgh, but she's originally from South Africa, and I was surprised to hear from her how dangerous it is where she used to live. For some reason, I'd always thought that South Africa was a safer part of the continent, but she said it's a really corrupt country, which is sad because it's such a physically beautiful place. She said that she feels so much safer in Stirling and is much happier here. Also, since she knows a lot about the area, she offered to friend me on Facebook so I could contact her if I ever needed help with anything. I actually found out she's mutual Facebook friends with someone I met in the Christian Union at the university, so that's a cool coincidence.

Anyway, that was my eventful weekend! Bless your soul if you actually read this post all the way through to the end. :) Next week, I'll have even more to talk about after Debbie and I visit Glasgow and the Isle of Skye, so get ready!

Song of the Day(s) (SO MUCH TRAVELING!):