Cripes. What a week.
We'd only been in Scotland for 45 minutes, when our Fearless Group Leader slipped in a well-known British supermarket, fell over and broke her kneecap, leaving the three remaining teachers in charge of 40-plus students. We gathered our nerves and left her in the care of capable Scottish medics and on we went to Inverness.
Scotland is lovely. It looks very like Ireland in places. The people look like Irish people: hardy, red-cheeked people inadequately dressed for the inclement weather (well, so were our German students, but they'd just underestimated how darned chilly the Atlantic winds can be, bless their little cotton socks. You have to experience them to believe them.) The Scots also share our Celtic easy-going attitude to ... well, life, really. (If you've been living in Germany for a while, you become accustomed to a very straightforward way of dealing with things: if you say you'll be somewhere, you're there at the appointed time and place.) But, hey, we adapted and rolled with the punches and enjoyed a lovely week oop North:
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| Eilean Donan Castle |
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| One of hundreds of lovely lochs |
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| Loch Ness - don't get excited, that's a boat, not a monster. |
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| Yes, there were standing stones! Yes, I went up and had a grope! No, I was not transported back in time. Sadface. |
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| Beach at Skara Brae, on Orkney |
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Unfortunately, though, I missed the wedding of my sister-in-law to her fiancé. I also missed several fantastic parties in its celebration. If you want to celebrate, find a group of Germans. Honestly. These people invented
Kirchweihe - beer festivals to celebrate the consecrations of new churches (our local
Kirchweih is a week-long carnival that has been going strong for 254 years. The church itself is long gone, by the way.) Sister-in-law and new husband had a two-day, three-party wedding. Hats off to the newly-weds!
4 comments:
Love the pictures. The castle is part of my husband's heritage. When we visited he could just see his ancestors there. It was an amazing trip to his "homeland." Almost didn't get him back on the plane.
Thanks for the lovely trip pictures and I'm really glad you weren't transported as you wouldn't have been able to post these lovely pictures for us!
Scotland is lovely and so glad you are home safely, but what really stopped me in my tracks was your last paragraph: BEER festivals to consecrate churches?
Oh wow - you went to Orkney! I've never been there ;(
Love the pictures and commentary! I would have groped the stones, too.
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