Hike in the Highlands

Saturday was our big walk day.  We left the hostel around 8:30 to take a two hour drive to the Scottish Highlands to an area known as the Trossachs.  The walk was different than anything than anything I have ever done before.  There was not really a clearly defined trail (and most definitely not a paved path).  It was more like trotted down grass.  The hike in total was around four miles, but those four miles were beautiful.  The landscape was very lush and ferny, and we could usually overlook various "lochs".  The first mile and half up were pretty easy, but the last half mile was a killer.  It was very steep and rocky.  Almost everyone made it, but there was a small accident.  A young girl in our group feel and twisted her ankle and couldn't make it the rest of the way up.  We had the craziest guide to get us up the hill.  His name was Mammit and he would literally run up and down the trail from the front of our group to the back to make sure that we were all okay.  On the way down the mountain I asked him if that sort of thing was his job and he said yes, and he does mountain climbing training, some other insane mountain sport where you go to the middle of a forest with a map and compass and search for flags (while running).  He got into this type of job while getting his PHD in glaciology haha.  Anyways, on the way down the hill, it started to rain and everyone started slipping and falling in the mud.  Fortunately, I never fell, but I saw about 10 other falls.

By the time we made it back to the hostel it was after 5:30.  They announced that if anyone would like to accompany Ben, our program assistant, to a comedy show, we needed to be ready by 6.  We hustled to shower and somehow made it.  It is pretty overwhelming to try to manage finding a good show on your own, so we jumped on the idea of someone figuring out everything for us.  Ben comes to the festival every year so he has pretty good grasp on navigating the venues and different shows.  The show that we went to was quite intriguing.  He was not crude and I could tell that he was extremely intelligent.  Although it was a comedy, his jokes almost sounded poetic at times.  The fact that he was blind added something different to the show.   When he came up in front of us, the first thing he said was, that he was blind and he wanted to tell us so that we didn't think he was drunk or on drugs, but that he uses that same excuse when he is drunk or on drugs.  It was fun to go to the show with the PA's because it felt like we were experiencing a true UK evening with them.

After the show, Nicole and I went to find dinner.  It was raining pretty hard at the point so we went into the first place we found.  It was a take out pizza place and that was perfect because she loves pizza and I was cold and tired, so we ordered a 12 inch pizza and took it back to the hostel and stayed in the rest of the night.