Juliacentralicious

(Part of) the West Coast of Scotland-- a couple towns

1. Out, and Oban
There's nothing like sitting on a train, heading West and watching the sun rise over Glasgow. That said, I hope I never see it again, though I saw I believe every sunrise this weekend. So yes, it was quite lovely on the way out, and I slept through most of it.
I arrived in Oban, a coastal town (pretty small, kinda like one of those Oregon beach cities), and of course it was raining. I mean RAINING. All afternoon. I still explored a bit, found the hostel, climbed up to McCaig's Tower (this big round dark granite structure, based off the colliseum, on the top of a hill). It was rather lovely, and the rain managed to let up long enough for me to enjoy it some. I sought refuge in a pub for dinner (goal accomplished: having bangers and mash, and eating 2 sausages. Woo, gluttony!), then went back, intending to crash at the hostel.
Of course, that didn't happen-- once it got to be night (and I mean pitch-black-sky night), the rain stopped. So I decided to walk around more-- hanging out by the docks, walking through town. I stopped by a local pub by chance, where I met Shauna the waitress and Boyd the teacher. They were really nice-- Shauna kept telling me not to go to the other pub, because it was a rought place-- and introduced me to some of their friends as well. It was a rather nice meeting people sort of night.

2. Isle of Mull
The next morning, I'm up bright and early, and head over to catch the ferry to Mull. It's a nice 45-minute ride, lots of sights to see. This time I stayed mostly awake for it. We land at the ferry port, which of course has nothing to do-- the plan was to get a bus to the Southern port so I could spend the day at Iona. I spot a bus, and say, "I need to get to Iona." The driver replies, "Seven pounds." (Pay attention to the dialogue, this is important.) I get on the bus, and we drive out. About five minutes in, he goes, "So, we're heading North to Tobermory" (the main city of the island). Hm, this isn't right. Then he goes on to mention that all trips to Iona were cancelled due to weather problems. Better, but still like a surprise trip-- yay, the complete wrong direction! Oh well. So no Iona, which was sad. The bus ride was rather exciting-- we saw seals. From the bus! Also lots of rainbows. I walked around Tobermory-- setting of the BBC children's show Balamory (famous for the brightly-colored buildings on the waterfront). At the edge of town, there was a path going up into some woods, so of course I follow it. It was really gorgeous, following the coast. At one point, I took a really overgrown path down to the beach, which, despite all the thorns, was worth it. The beach was all rocks, and I even got a little bit of sun as I sat there. Then I explored the creepy shed nearby (an old sleeping bag in a corner, and a magazine with the "missing persons" page ripped out, I kid you not). After the shed, I scrambled back up with as much dignity as I could muster, and ran into a girl who had been on the bus up with me.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring more, taking trails up to the suburbs, through some more woods, into the center of a gold course, and to a farm, munching on the wild blackberries growing everywhere. Finally she had to go catch the bus back, so I went to hang out at the hostel until they'd let me check in (not until 5, how strange is that?) I basically stayed in that night-- Tobermory is even smaller than Oban, minus the pubs. Oh well, seeing as I had to get up early to catch the first bus and ferry back.

3. Oban. Again.
Ah, nothing like waking up ridiculously early, catching a half hour bus ride, a 45-minute ferry ride, and then finding out that the train won't leave until hours later, since you've just barely missed the first one. So I had an opportunity to explore Oban some more. Fortunately, there was this old old castle a bit out of town that I hiked to-- now, let me say this as a separate sentence, so you see how cool it was. I sheltered from the rain in an abandoned castle. Eh? It was pretty awesome. Nothing like ivy-covered ruins (with a second story that you could still climb to) to stop the rain, and to watch rainbows from.
So I slowly slowly headed back to the train station, stopping along the way to sit at about every bench I see, and then get a chippy roll (I would like to marry the man who invented french fries on a bun with brown sauce-- it's perfect). Finally, the train took me back home.

So that was the long long weekend. Only one missed class (though I'll be skipping my afternoon one today because I'm just tired and don't want to deal with a boring lecture), some slightly muddy boots, and a big rip in my favorite jeans were the cost (non-monetary, that is). Also, being damp for about twenty-four solid hours in Oban. Time to do laundry and get back into the swing of things.

posted by Julia @ 7:03 AM