I really am failing at finding titles for these entries. I really don't care what the title says...I just want to tell you what is going on in my life! Thus, the awesomeness. This past weekend, my program planned a weekend at the Isle of Skye. It was amazing. We had perfect weather all week (which, according to our tour guides, NEVER happens...) and had an amazing time. Here's how it went.
We left Friday morning at 8, so I missed my tutorial and lecture for Greek, and lab time for my chem. project. We made our way to Skye via the scenic route, stopping multiple times at different locations. We stopped at places such as the Queen's View, the battlefield of Culloden, and a little town for lunch. We finally made it to Skye at 17:30. We were staying in a town called Kyleakin. I didn't have very high expectations about the trip, as I heard rather depressing comments about the previous trip that I did not attend since Justine was here. However, the first thing I find out is that we were staying in a relatively nice hotel, and I had a single room! Nice! It was an awesome room and it even had a heated towel rack. We had dinner at a restaurant in town (decent food) and then just played cards in the lounge area of the hotel. I got some of the locally distilled whisky, Talisker, which was simply amazing. It was very smokey and had quite a strong and distinct flavour. Good stuff. I took a bath in my room's bathtub (no shower though...) and went to bed.
The next day, we were scheduled to have continental breakfast. I came down, saw the cereal, fruit and porridge, got some and sat down. I was perfectly content with this, however, I was then offered coffee and tea, which I gladly accepted, and then asked if I wanted any hot breakfast, which was included! I had some scrambled eggs and sausage. Mmm...good way to start the day! We hopped on the bus and made our way to Portree, the capital of Skye. There we got lunch supplies and then made way for our hike. We were hiking up to the Old Man of Storr. It was a long hike! We made it to the hill where you can climb to the base of the Old Man (you can't climb the Old Man unless you have climbing equipment and such, but you can to the base.) I didn't make it all the way because it was quite steep and I freaked myself out about how high I was. It was very feasible that if I slipped or fell, I would have tumbled down onto a bunch of rocks. I found out later there was an easier way up...but we ran out of time. After the hike, we went to Dunvegan Castle (the home of the McLeods) which was kind of boring. We then went back to Kyleakin, had dinner, played some cards, and then there was karaoke that night. I didn't hang around for much of that, but some of my friends sang and stuff...and didn't feel well in the morning. I, on the other hand, went to bed at 11 and felt great in the morning. Ahh...so nice.
Sunday I had fabulous breakfast again, and we set out for St Andrews via Eilean Donan castle, Loch Ness, and Glencoe. Those were pretty neat as well! I was a little disappointed in Loch Ness...we weren't on the side of it that is always photographed. Bollocks. Plus I couldn't find Nessie because it was windy and wavy. We finally made it back to St Andrews and I went back to my room and played on facebook for awhile, adding pictures and such.
School has been going well. We have been working hard in the lab trying to synthesize our UV-active Cadmium Selenide (CdSe) nanoparticles. Today, I synthesized my own and they turned out fantastically! See photo... I
had a Greek exam today as well with which I felt much better after than the first one. Hopefully I did well! We'll see...I studied hard for it so hopefully that paid off. I also had a 'special' tutorial today for my main group chem. module. It is special because I missed all 3 of the regular scheduled ones because the times and locations of said tutorials were not made known in lecture, but in the inorganic lab, which I was not a part of...It was a good tutorial, and it definitely made me realize I have a shit-ton of work to do for that class. We went around the circle of students there answering questions and the only one (out of about 3 that came to me) that I was able to answer was a question whose answer was 'Oxygen'. Awesome. I hope that turns out better than I foresee. I hope you are all well! Only about a month til I am done! 12 days of class remaining!
We left Friday morning at 8, so I missed my tutorial and lecture for Greek, and lab time for my chem. project. We made our way to Skye via the scenic route, stopping multiple times at different locations. We stopped at places such as the Queen's View, the battlefield of Culloden, and a little town for lunch. We finally made it to Skye at 17:30. We were staying in a town called Kyleakin. I didn't have very high expectations about the trip, as I heard rather depressing comments about the previous trip that I did not attend since Justine was here. However, the first thing I find out is that we were staying in a relatively nice hotel, and I had a single room! Nice! It was an awesome room and it even had a heated towel rack. We had dinner at a restaurant in town (decent food) and then just played cards in the lounge area of the hotel. I got some of the locally distilled whisky, Talisker, which was simply amazing. It was very smokey and had quite a strong and distinct flavour. Good stuff. I took a bath in my room's bathtub (no shower though...) and went to bed.
The next day, we were scheduled to have continental breakfast. I came down, saw the cereal, fruit and porridge, got some and sat down. I was perfectly content with this, however, I was then offered coffee and tea, which I gladly accepted, and then asked if I wanted any hot breakfast, which was included! I had some scrambled eggs and sausage. Mmm...good way to start the day! We hopped on the bus and made our way to Portree, the capital of Skye. There we got lunch supplies and then made way for our hike. We were hiking up to the Old Man of Storr. It was a long hike! We made it to the hill where you can climb to the base of the Old Man (you can't climb the Old Man unless you have climbing equipment and such, but you can to the base.) I didn't make it all the way because it was quite steep and I freaked myself out about how high I was. It was very feasible that if I slipped or fell, I would have tumbled down onto a bunch of rocks. I found out later there was an easier way up...but we ran out of time. After the hike, we went to Dunvegan Castle (the home of the McLeods) which was kind of boring. We then went back to Kyleakin, had dinner, played some cards, and then there was karaoke that night. I didn't hang around for much of that, but some of my friends sang and stuff...and didn't feel well in the morning. I, on the other hand, went to bed at 11 and felt great in the morning. Ahh...so nice.
Sunday I had fabulous breakfast again, and we set out for St Andrews via Eilean Donan castle, Loch Ness, and Glencoe. Those were pretty neat as well! I was a little disappointed in Loch Ness...we weren't on the side of it that is always photographed. Bollocks. Plus I couldn't find Nessie because it was windy and wavy. We finally made it back to St Andrews and I went back to my room and played on facebook for awhile, adding pictures and such.
School has been going well. We have been working hard in the lab trying to synthesize our UV-active Cadmium Selenide (CdSe) nanoparticles. Today, I synthesized my own and they turned out fantastically! See photo... I
had a Greek exam today as well with which I felt much better after than the first one. Hopefully I did well! We'll see...I studied hard for it so hopefully that paid off. I also had a 'special' tutorial today for my main group chem. module. It is special because I missed all 3 of the regular scheduled ones because the times and locations of said tutorials were not made known in lecture, but in the inorganic lab, which I was not a part of...It was a good tutorial, and it definitely made me realize I have a shit-ton of work to do for that class. We went around the circle of students there answering questions and the only one (out of about 3 that came to me) that I was able to answer was a question whose answer was 'Oxygen'. Awesome. I hope that turns out better than I foresee. I hope you are all well! Only about a month til I am done! 12 days of class remaining!All my photos are on Facebook...let me know if you are unable to see them and I will post the links!
2 comments:
I love heated towel racks! I hope that someday our society will advance to that level.
You were lucky with the weather, we've had 10 days of sunshine in Kyleakin, and the first rain in a while has been one shower today!
Glad you liked the place, I guess you stayed in the White Heather? The other main hotel, the Kings Arms is only really suitable for Club 60-90 who arrive in the village by the bussload with walking sticks and flat caps flying about everywhere!
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