Two week nutshell of Scotland and some Ireland!

INTERNET SWEET INTERNET!!
So...Inverness...hahahhaha. Was about two weeks ago. Since then we have hopped across a pond! So after Inverness, I went to Glasgow with Shanu to see her off on her flight back to Vancouver. Unfortunately, that did not happen. I got there to realize I had to catch a really early train so it really ended up to be a really hurried goodbye on a twisted, white staircase in a hostel...at like 7am. Or earlier. the train I was catching was going back to Inverness (I tried) and then on to John O' Groats, the northernmost tip of Scotland (though I think it's really Dunnet Head, cause it looks like that on the map). It was a bit of trouble getting there cause transportation kind of started getting more non-existent, but we got there. Our hostel was in a village called Canisbury. Pretty! You see the coast from there. It also opens at 5pm, so you're locked out until then. Well, after waiting an hour or whatnot to check in (yeah, we got there at 4ish), we walked about a bit. Lots of farms in the area, very nice..calm. Lots of cows. We saw seals singing in the evening, which was brilliant. And then as we were walking back down the main road, I got followed by about 20 cows until we passed their square patch of (thank god fenced in) land. But the flimsy wire fence didn't look very formidable as they all started trotting towards me at once. Those things can kill you.
Took a long walk to John O' Groats itself the next day, an hours' walk from our hostel. It was a nice day, so it was good. Went by the road and when I got there I decided that the actual point isn't as sexy as they advertise it. It was a sea port...cause there were boats for wildlife tours and things like that. And...yeah. But if you walked along this path you started to drool immediately. So I did. I went through hill, grass, sheep, sheep poo (oh my god lots of it and everywhere, those things must have no fear whatsoever for steep cliffs), an amazing white beach that appeared randomly! And against these dark brown rocks, and the water..wow! It was amazing. I climbed up on one of the cliffs and didn't fall! Cause there was practically no footing. But it was so pretty! Although I saw a dead seal from there, so that was sad. Eventually I made it across a bunch more plains and grass, brown stuff and mud and arrived at the Stacks of Duncansby, which are these large rock formations that form into two points. They come out of the water next to these cliffs. Absolutely amazing. It started to rain a bit then (and I started needing that ridiculous toilet thing people need occasionally), so I headed back to the John O' Groats area (cause it had ridiculous toilets at disposal). By the time I arrived there, it was 5 hours since I left our hostel. Lots of walking. But SO amazing! We didn't get to go to the Orkney Islands, but I loved it..I've even picked out the perfect little house in Canisbury that was on sale at the time. Unfortunately, I don't even have enough money for one wall. But one day.
We also went to the Isle of Skye, which was not nearly as sunny as its' name suggests. In fact, it was cloudy. All the time. With rain. Stayed a bit in Kyleakin, which is at the sort of bottom beginning of the island. Iain wanted to go bike around it and I wanted to see some other areas of it, so we split up for a few days. I ended up going to Portree, which is one of its' biggest towns. Stayed there for two nights and met some awesome people. Went on a walk with these two girls I met there, and it was pretty neat! Took us a bit to find the beginning of the path, though. I was wearing flip flops because the day before I mistook a patch of grass near a castle to really be a pool of water wearing a patch of grass for summer fashion and soaked my shoes completely and utterly. So that night it was interesting sort of hiking that path in flip flops. But I made it! Next day we went to the Old Man of Storr, where I was doing a very good impression of being scared shitless (pardon the french and all that). We hiked up (I wore shoes, damp ones but close enough) and eventually ended up going from path to climbing rocks. The Old Man of Storr is otherwise this large rock that sticks up out of the ground. We were climbing to the bottom of that giant rock. So after some clambering, I found myself desperately clutching to a roundish, slippery rock with my slippery hands and feet, horribly noticing how everyone else was wearing hiking boots and I was wearing Chucks (in other words, converse sneakers). I was also attempting to find any other hand or foot holds that represented something a bit more than a 12 year old girl's boob (in other words, nothing whatosever). Below me there was a neat green hill that I could slide down and be a bit bruised - before which I would crush myself on the jagged brown rocks right beneath me, first. Or at least, that's how it looked to me at that moment. But seeing as I'm writing this with body whole, I made it. Otherwise, The Old Man of Storr has a story. Or at least this is how I heard it.
Basically, there was a giant that was so incredibly annoying that all the other giants couldn't stand him. So then they somehow (missing information) managed to cast a spell on him so that he could only be up during the night, but if he went out during the day he would turn to stone. So life kind of started sucking for him after that. But then one day there was a giant giant party happening and he got all excited cause parties last all night. So he got all excited, and finally the sun went down and he went to the party. And he even met this incredibly annoying giantess (equally as annoying!). So they started dancing or doing what giants do and eventually started getting closer (hint, hint) and eventually got really close, and the giant got all sexy and just as they were going to get the sexy down - the sun came up and turned him into stone. From one of the angles, the mountainous area and that giant rock we climbed up to show an outline of a man lying down with a well known body part standing up proud like a flag. I didn't see the outline this time, but there it is.
So! After clambering down a bunch of genitals and all that, we decided to meet at Staffin to do a walk near this beach. I had an all day bus ticket so I got on the bus and the girls talked to this car (with people in it!) to hitchhike there. Unfortunately, I misheard...it was not Staffin. And needless to say, we did not meet up. I waited for a bit but no one showed. However! Another guy got off at the same spot and he was going to go to Quiraing, where I wanted to go initially. So after no one came up (and I realized I heard god knows what with my crazy ears), we decided to go up. See, a man from my dorm told me it had the remains of a castle at the top and it looked amazing. Actually, it was some really neat looking green fields on cliffs. But I learned that later. Basically, I didn't really know what I was going to see when we started walking from the bus stop. It took us like an hour and a half or something to reach the beginning of the trail. Long walk, haha. A dog from some neighbouring...structure? (all i saw were sheep and hills and a car) followed us for about half an hour. Had cookie break. Dog got really friendly but did not receive any cookies. The trail was very deceiving. A sign pointed "Quiraing" thataway. We followed thataway and after like 4 hours or whatever it was, we found it! Climbed to like 3, 4 different clifftops, across fences, past creeks, god knows what. And whenever you would stop to breathe (and this happened more often because of my wimpy, wimpy legs), you would get eaten by flying mites. Well, when we got to the very very top of all of them, we saw it. And it was really cool. And there was even a pile of rocks in the flat distance of said cliff, with fog around (we were in a cloud). (That must have been the castle.) It was amazing. You can see the villages below, farmlands, the water in the distnace, an island that looked like a heart or a speartop, hills and cliffs! Clouds!! And the wind was so strong, too. We found a faster way coming down, though. Apparently if you go in another direction than the one the sign points to, you get there much much faster.But we took some shortcuts and slid down some hills, cause we wanted to get down
faster. It was five hours since we left the bus stop when we finally got down to the beginning of the trail again. That was also when things closed and busses stopped running. And we were about an hour and a half away from any bus. So we hitchhiked our way back. We even got a ride from people that were going exactly where he needed to go (in short, my town was his halfway point) - but I got carsick..and...yeah. They stopped the car for directions and I had to exit it quickly, while thanking them very much (very quickly) and telling him to stay in the car (also quickly), so I can go spill my insides onto Scottish bush. He stayed with me, though! I appreciated it so much, but at the same time, oh my god! Exactly in the same direction! Agh! Stupid body! I was gulfing cookies prior to that ride, hoping to not have to get carsick (empty stomach does it), but I failed miserably. Evidently. We got to Portree quick, though...But that's where we split and he went on the hitch onwards. I very much hope he got there quickly and easily. But people were incredibly nice in picking us up...I'm saying this mostly cause my jeans were muddy up to the knee and my shoes looked like furry slippers. My mom probably wouldn't have let me in the house. I suppose on the plus side of that we learned why people always walk on the side of the road when they hitchhike and not just sit there (since you know you'll never get to your destination anyway). The attack of the Mites. That's right. Upon returning to said hostel, I found myself looking like I had Chicken Pox.Bitten everywhere. I was wet, muddy, and even had sheep poo everywhere (because even though we didn't see many sheep, it was EVERYWHERE). At one point, we sat on the wet, muddy, pooey ground for a break (legs=dead again) and we realized we were probably the only people up there then (you couldn't see anyone else). Very neat. The next two days I wore flip flops, tried to dry shoes (they were a very different shade of brown). Visited Fort William and intended to climb Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK. Did not happen. Still wet shoes, tired from day before, etc. Ended up visiting a caste 2 miles away. Had some dinner with the girls from Portree (they were there, too) and did not sleep all night thanks to two groups of boys ranging from 14 to 60. Four hours of sleep. One of the kids apologized for the noise and blamed it on showers (very nice kid, though). I think I looked scary since it was 1 30am, there were drunked idiots trying to fight outside and the said groups of boys would not stop walking into my room and making noise (and it wasn't even their
room!). I probably looked something like a dragon with hair.
Next, went to Kilmarnock to stay with Iain's family (and Iain, obviously). Took three trains there, and bumped into two guys from Germany for the longest train. We met in Portree, as well. It was nice! Chatted with one of the guys for the entire time, pretty awesome! Funny how everyone ended up coming to the same place. Iain's family is super awesome, though. Everyone is so incredibly nice and there's so many of them! We spent a few days there, and Iain tried to get rid of his cold. Kilmarnock is a small town, and not as easily accessible without car (we found that out when we got a train to somewhere that could or could not return us to our place of rest). But very calming, and with many kind people. We then left for Ireland after a few days. The day we left I received a special gift.
Iain's cold. Nearly over it now. We went to Ballintoy, which is a village near the Giant's Causeway. It's a rock formation created by I believe molted lava, cooling down and breaking off very evenly. It looks like a bunch of hexagonal (or such) rocks of different lengths. On the coast with water splashing away. Or like crystals from Stargate or something. Really just..wow. It's crazy it's natural! It looks carved. And the day was
just beautiful, which made pictures all the better. We walked down there with a roommate we shared in our hostel. Nice guy, and very quiet.
After that, we decided to go to Letterkenny, a town. It looked something like this. Got to Derry (eventually) to get a bus to Letterkenny. Stayed a night (two nights booked there, by the way).. Left in the morning to go see the highest coast cliff in europe. Not possible cause buses were not good. Instead, lady sold us tickets to - Derry! Went to Derry, Bussed to Bridgend (side of road, really), walked two hours, and up a hill, saw round, stone thing possible made around birth of Christ, possibly a citadel at one
point. Walked down two more hours in the now freaking rain, got pants soaked, got shoes soaked, got socks soaked, still have cold. Bussed back to Derry, back to Letterkenny. Next day wanted to go to Armagh. Had to bus to Derry. Bussed back to Derry. No bus to Armagh (it's on the way! what the?!), have to bus to Belfast. We were going to be in Belfast in two days time, anyway...so we threw the whole thing in the water and just went to Belfast two days early. So we're here now. I tried writing this as fast a spossible, since we've gotta go get food soon. I suppose I'll end it there, then.
But yes. The last two weeks in a nutshell. Oh. I'm also in love with Scotland. I WANT TO GO BAACKK!!! But it's nice here, too.