July (incomplete)

July was a super awesome jam-packed month. It didn't start out on a particularly great note though. I started to notice a musty/mildewy smell in my room, but mostly only when I was lying in my bed. At first I thought it might be somehow related to my surfboard, which was between the bed and the wall, like as though my surfboard was growing mold inside its bag. I freaked out and took the surfboard out from behind the bed and took it out of its bag and that was definitely not where the smell was coming from. But now the smell was stronger, which meant that the board had previously been blocking some of the smell from reaching me. It got so bad that one night I was completely unable to sleep because it was making me sick. I was not happy and I reported the problem to the residence hall. I came back in the afternoon to find a note on my desk that said they had sprayed the walls for mold. Since I had said there was probably something in the CARPET I wasn't exactly sure what they thought they were accomplishing. I reported it again. This time they came in and shampooed the carpet. It still didn't solve the problem but my friend was just about to arrive and we were leaving for holiday shortly thereafter so I didn't complain another time. Instead I took the hall manager's advice and started sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed as a stop-gap measure.

The 3rd of July my friend Noam came to visit! He got into Heathrow in the morning. He came dressed to match his suitcase.

We spent the day walking around and exploring London. We walked up fleet street, past St. Paul's, the Royal Courts of Justice and stopped in to browse in a tea store before continuing on to Trafalgar Square.

I had secretly always wanted to have someone take my picture on one of the lions guarding the plinth with Nelson on top and I thought this might be my chance. But once I had hauled myself up onto the same level as the lions I realized that the day's rain had turned them so slick that there was little chance I could make it up to the back without sliding off and plummeting to the ground. In the interests of safety I settled on a different pose.

I patiently waited MY turn with the lion, then climbed up and had Noam take the picture. Within a couple of seconds a couple had their young child up next to me having decided it wasn't worth waiting until I was done and pretending that I just wasn't up there or thinking I wouldn't mind their child in my shot. I did. I did mind. The picture below was taken while the child was up there and Noam just cropped the shot to avoid her.

 Then it was back down and on our way. We stopped by one of the phone booth installations that were scattered around the city in preparation for the Olympics. This one was "monster" themed.

Onward we walked, down the Mall and eventually via Olympics mandated detour to Buckingham palace. While there we casually followed behind a Euro-celebrity that neither of us recognized but sent an entire group of French school-girls into a whispering tizzy as he passed by.

That afternoon we were scheduled for the Alternative London Tour. We bought ourselves a picnic lunch at the grocery store and then went to the meet-up place. My family had taken this tour on their trip and absolutely raved about it. The tour focuses on street art in East London but also throws in some area history at the same time and best of all, it's a pay as much as you want tour!

I won't include too many pictures of street art, since I've done that before, but I was thrilled to be shown this area, which I had been looking for one my own and never found.

 and then this dude used a really unique style that I admired

After the tour our guide caught up with us as we walked back to my residence hall and so we walked with him all the way back to London Bridge. That night we just made dinner and stayed in and let Noam catch up with his couchsurfing messages and packed for Scotland.
 
Noam's second day in town was also the 4th of July and he had come prepared - we walked to all of the famous London landmarks wearing American flag regalia (well, I was just in red, white and blue, he had gone all out). We started the day with a jam and clotted cream scone and a walk along the southbank river front all the way to Westminster Palace

where one of the guards queried why, if we love 4th of July so much, we weren't celebrating it in America.

Then it was Westminster Abbey, where a group of Americans, ALSO dressed up for 4th of July (sadly not pictured) grabbed Noam to take pictures with them.

and then as we walked along St. James park we waited until this cab stopped in traffic so that he could run up and take a picture with it. The passenger inside was appropriately horrified.

Although we had just been there the day before we had to have pictures in front of Buckingham palace and so that was our next stop

 and still we walked! We went to Oxford street and found yet another of the decorated telephone booth statues

and then I dragged Noam to Camden town so I could find something to wear for the 4th of July party that night. I desperately wanted it to look something like this:

but ended up with something a little more subdued.

We had been out and walking around for hours so we grabbed the Tube back to my place and finished packing for Scotland and then hauled everything over to Valerie's for her fourth of July extravaganza. There were red, white and blue foods, an American flag made of berries, and sparklers!

 and some of us got more into the fourth of July spirit than others (Sarah, Valerie, me, Noam and Jeremy)

That night we stayed at Valerie's and in the morning woke up bright and early to catch a cab to the train station. We took the train from King's Cross to Edinburgh.

I had purchased the tickets for everyone because it seemed that was the only way we could all sit together. Sadly, what actually happened was that we had two seat next to each other at one of the tables and then one seat by itself a couple of rows further back. The trip was about four hours so we swapped around a few times so that no one was alone the entire ride. We shared the car with a bunch of teenagers who were drinking in preparation for the "T in the park" festival and sat across from a couple our age going to the same.

When we got to Edinburgh it was rainy and gross and we had a little bit of trouble finding the right exit that would allow up to follow the directions to our hostel. Eventually we figured it out and checked in and settled into our room which was actually a little apartment with it's own kitchen, a queen and a twin bed (which Valerie and I, of course, were sharing) and a shared bathroom. It was way nicer than we thought it would be considering how sketcy the hallway and stairway were. This was our view

We were only in Edinburgh until the next morning so we went out to explore as much as we could. We started back by the train station (which I insisted was really a giant green house, which is what it looked like, long story) and the Scott monument. Confusingly, the Scott monument is not actually a monument to Scotland, but to Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott. It's big and gothic and you can climb up it but we decided not to.

The Scott monument sits on the edge of a park which is located at the base of Edinburgh castle, an edifice that dominates the center of the city, rising up on this big craggy mountain that no one in their right mind would want to attack.

We walked around to the other side of the mountain where you could climb up some steep stairs to be on the same level of the castle.

The castle costs 16 pounds for entrance and was closing in an hour so we just saw the parts that we free and then started to walk down the Royal Mile which is the street that leads away from the castle.

 the Queen was in town and apparently we had just missed (by a couple of hours) her appearance at this church (below)

 right outside the church was a statue of Adam Smith (economist geek alert!)

We kept going and eventually found me another lion to pose on.

And an archway to nowhere

which was down the street from this random cemetery.

which had fantastic views of Edinburgh (and the train station below, see why I thought it was green houses?!)

 

and you can just barely see, to the left of the picture below, where the Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat volcano begin to rise up behind the city. What was incredible was that the cloud cover was so low and thick that that is the only indication that there are these mountains just lurking right there!

for a while we thought we had found the grave of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns but google later proved this was just the grave of someone else named Robert Burns...

and then there was this, a statue of Abraham Lincoln commemorating the loss of Scottish American soldiers

From the cemetery we crossed the street to climb yet another hill, at the top of which are more views and some interesting buildings/monuments.

The lighting was incredible

above is a picture of Balmoral, the Queen's residence in Scotland and where she was residing right at that very moment. The palace is also directly at the foot of Arthur's Seat which you still can't see. Then we turned our attention to Scotland's National Monument, also known, I'm not joking, as Scotland's Disgrace because it was meant to be a replica of the Parthenon but they ran out of money so they just left it totally unfinished which is how it remains today.

we climbed all over it and then, exhausted, headed back down to our hostel (past this amazing store) to refresh.

Our night in Edinburgh was a quiet one, but we did go out and do a scotch whiskey tasting at a local bar where Valerie decided she for reals definitely doesn't like whiskey.

The next morning we had some time to spare before we left Edinburgh so we did a bit more of city-wide wandering, past the Olympic rings and through little alleyways

It finally started to POUR down rain so we tried to take shelter in the National Museum but it was closed for another hour so instead we just ran errands. My phone had developed weird lines across the screen so I took it to multiple shops hoping for a cure (there wasn't one) and then we went and tried to find maps for our upcoming Highland Way hike. We didn't end up finding anything but by then the museum was open so we went and browsed the collection until it was time to catch our train to Glasgow.

The ride to Glasgow was a short one, we got there in about an hour then literally RAN to the nearest Tourist Information for our hiking maps and then literally RAN from there up the street to the bus station to catch our bus to the edge of Loch Lomond. Valerie broke the bus about five minutes into the ride.

On the way to the ferry Valerie called the ferry operator to determine exactly, for sure, how we would get from the bus stop to the ferry. How far did we have to walk? Would it be obvious? When they said "you just walk downhill" what did they mean? Did they mean we were definitely not going to get lost? When we got to the bus stop and got off we all burst out laughing, uncontrollably, because that poor ferry operator must not have known how to explain in small enough words to the idiots he was on the phone with that the bus was going to drop us off literally in the ferry parking lot and there was no way we could possibly mess this up.

We had some time between the bus dropping us off and the ferry leaving so we took pictures and explored the area nearby

it was the first time we saw these flowers which were everywhere in the Highlands and so beautiful

 Loch Lomond

We finally started our final journey to our day's destination on the ferry. We took the scenic tour which meant that every once in a while the ferry driver (captain?) would get on the loudspeaker and talk about the area or the history and we would catch like 3/4 or so of what he was saying. The weather was schizophrenic, one minute cold and windy the next so sunny and hot you were tearing your layers of clothing off to cool down.

below is Rob Roy's cave, he was the "Robin Hood" of Scotland and lived here in this cave, which as you can see, is marked "Cave" in white paint.

If you look really closely there is a miniature fort/stronghold on this tiny, tiny little island in the lake that was actually used by a clan as a base

About halfway through the trip the old man I was sitting next to somehow struck up a conversation with me asking if I knew who "Bonnie Prince Charlie" was. I didn't, so he proceeded to relate both the history and lineage of the Prince (starting with his grandparents and moving from there). It took most of an hour and by then we had arrived at our destination:

Inversnaid! Which is nothing more than the hotel you see in the picture above and the bunkhouse we stayed in about 800 metres up a large hill above the hotel. It makes sense why everyone we talked to about where we were staying assumed we were just mispronouncing Inverness because there is no reason, unless you've been there, to know that Inversnaid exists.

We arrived at the hotel and called the bunkhouse to request a ride, we had to wait so we chilled out and took pictures of the waterfall and relaxed for a bit.

Eventually we were picked up and driven up the steep hill to our bunkhouse which was a converted church.

 we were excited and tired and starving. We had dinner and then played scrabble (and Valerie misspelled "Quell")

then we spent the evening reading and prepping for the next day and chatting with the guys who worked there, one of whom I offended mortally by mistakenly saying Andy Murray was English.

We went to sleep early but the two guys that worked at the bunkhouse stayed up late, playing guitar and drinking even though the few guests had all retired for the night. This became important the next morning when we woke up to start our first day of hiking, got dressed and ready and there was no one there to provide us with the breakfast or lunch we had already paid for. We waited and waited and waited and still no one showed up and the upstairs was locked. Finally Valerie pounded on the door of their lodgings until one of them stumbled out in his pajamas. He opened up the kitchen and we grabbed breakfast and food and drinks for later as he made our lunches which we later found out consisted of two whitebread sandwiches topped with grated cheese and an onion chutney that we just glopped onto the middle without even spreading around.

About an hour after we had hoped to leave we were finally on our way!

Our itinerary called for us to hike north about 20 miles from Inversnaid to Tyndrum along the West Highland Way, which is Scotland's most hiked long-distance trail. It stretches over 90 miles but we were aiming to do a bit more than half of it in the 3 days we had available. We picked up the trail and it wandered north along the banks of Loch Lomond. The sky was overcast but it wasn't particularly cold or rainy.

Everyone was in pretty high spirits that we had finally begun our adventure and we took our time in the first mile or so, stopping to take pictures

and to explore Rob Roy's cave, which we had seen from the boat as it made its approach to Inversnaid the day before.

Noam then tried to have us eaten alive by midges (tiny little swarming biting gnats) as he stopped to take myspace pictures and pose atop a rock. While he was posing the air between us and him grew darker and darker as it filled with the tiny little buggers (seriously check out the difference in lighting between the two pictures, I guarantee it is at least in part due to the presence of so many little gnat bodies). 

This was the where we were going - up along to the where the Loch ended in the distance

and when we finally got to about the point where it started to really narrow (here in this picture below, looking back down the Loch) we stopped for our very first yoga break. We stayed in that spot as long as we could doing various stretchy poses until we were driven away by the gathering midges.

Onward we hiked, through a field with the loch at our backs

then it was into the forest

where we encountered a group of adorable pine martins! One ran down the path towards us and then joined his friends on this log! They were ADORABLE.

Then up a hill and past this abandoned cottage filled with nothing but a lonely pacing german shepard (spelling?)

over a gate

 and through this field

until we stopped for more pictures

and then for a break and a bathroom at a campsite that was on the route.

On the map you can see where we are (the finger) and where we are going (Tyndrum) and where our final destination is (Fort Williams).

Soon after the campsite we triumphantly made it to this house, which was the half-way point of our first day!

 We were so excited because on the hill right above this house were cows and we were DYING to see some of the highland fringe cows (the ones with shaggy coats and bangs over their eyes.) so we were devastated when we got close enough to realize these were just regular old moo cows.

We carried on, with the cows on our left and a stream to our right for a ways

and then we crossed the road we had been paralleling for a while and then started up a hill through a sheep field.

At this point it really started to rain. We were generally prepared for this eventuality but it wasn't the most pleasant part of the experience. I was chilly and wet and my blood sugar was dropping fast. We finally arrived at the next logical stopping point, where we had gotten past the sheep field and we were about to climb up another mountain into a forest and we stood at the crossroads and started to discuss whether or not to climb up under the trees before our next stop and I just freaked out and was like NO I MUST EAT SOMETHING RIGHT NOW OR I WILL DIE. It was charming. But also I meant it. I could not have gone one step further without a break and a sandwich. It was a miserable break. Everything was wet and the midges were terrible. You could sit still for about 30 seconds at one time before the midges overpowered you. I almost didn't care. I devoured my food and did my best to regroup. I think this face really says it all

But we had miles to go before we could sleep so it was up and up and up this mountain. The forest really was pretty although we stopped to take very few pictures because it really was raining at this point. But we did find the coolest rock ever which was part of the path there

The last part of the day was loooong. We finally came out of the forest and down the hill and found ourselves in a field populated by horses that can read

and into a field full of sheep

 that I was TOTALLY THRILLED TO BE IN (and I guess also maybe a little delirious from exhaustion)

with a mile left to go we walked through yet another campsite with a stop for a bathroom and an admiring glance at all the different meat in their fridges

and stumbled onward. I can't tell you how very very miserable that last mile was. It turns out that if you walk far enough it isn't blisters that hurt, it's the very act of picking up your feet and putting them back down that is agony. To add insult to injury it started to rain lightly again. The only part of this last mile that I truly remember, other than vaguely rambling through the scrub brush and small hillocks was that we came across the Loch of the Legend of the Lost Sword!

Unlike what we assumed, it is not the Loch that King Arthur got his sword from. Even though there was this sword in the rock

 The internet tells me "when the Scottish outlaw Robert the Bruce was being pursued by the English he ordered his troops to lighten themselves by throwing their heavy weaponry into a small lochan on their route. Amongst these weapons was Robert the Bruce's legendary sword. According to the legend the weapon was of huge size, reports going from between 5 and 9 feet in length. Shortly afterwards and only a mile from the loch Bruce was over hauled but despite being lightly armed they fought off the English and lived to fight another day." and it was into this lochan that they threw their swords

after that it was just a haze of tiredness and pain. We passed through an area that used to be used for processing the lead that was mined in Tyndrum, where they had been kind enough to post a sign explaining that the land is still barren and poisoned from the process and then after a few more twists and turns we were THERE!

 our very first B&B and 20 miles down on the West Highland Way!!

God it felt so unbelievably good to take off our shoes and just lie down on the beds without being attacked by midges.

 and then warm up with a cup of tea.

The B&B we were staying at was just the house of a very kind woman who had made a few minor modifications for guests and welcomed us into her home. Even after a few minutes of relaxing we stiffened up and had to quite literally hobble the few blocks to a place we could buy some food for dinner. Then it was hot showers and an early night.

The next day we got up early-ish and had a wonderful huge breakfast at the B&B, suited ourselves up because it was already raining and took our "ready to go!" picture

 

then stopped immediately so I could get cash (from a cash machine that broke half-way through dispensing my money - this after the first one was out of order already) and picked up the trail from there.

The second day was awesome. We were remarkably NOT stiff after our first day of walking and the path was flat and wide and easy to walk on and the scenery was stunning.

Above was the view we had the first time we stopped for a yoga/stretching break and then just a little while later it finally happened, FRINGE COWS!! (see the cow on the farthest left)

 and this one staring straight at us

We were so thrilled but also kind of happy they were on the other side of the fence because the lady who owned the B&B in Tyndrum was telling us about how aggressive and dangerous they can be. Our relief was short lived. The next field we found ourselves in was home to herds of fringe cows and there we were, walking right past them, making plans for where to run if they charged. I was actually kind of excited about the whole thing (as you can see)

In almost no time flat after that we found ourselves at the 7 mile mark only a couple of hours into our 20 minute day. We had been making unexpectedly excellent time to the Bridge of Orchy rail station (it's on the way to Morder obviously)

 we took some time here to rest and take pictures

 and feel awesome about how fast we had been hiking and how we had "only" 13 miles left to go.

we tramped quickly down to the Bridge of Orchy hotel and stopped for a quick bathroom break and just as we did the rain started up again. It was also just as we started up the one big hill of the day's hike. But we made it up to the top and were rewarded with an end to the rain and a fantastic view of the progress we had already made. The two mountains at the right of the picture are the two mountains we had walked along all morning

 this was the view from we had from the top of the mountain we were on

 and the cairn that was placed there at the summit

Valerie and I had these plans to wait to eat until we got down to Inveroran, which was just at the bottom of this mountain we were on but we were ravenous when we got to the top so we had to stop and eat to regain our strength

We climbed down the mountain to the little B&B that is Inveroran and viola we were halfway there! 10 miles to go but this would be the last stop available to us before we got to our destination so we stopped in for tea and coffee and a snack and had a pleasant chat with the girl behind the counter, who was from the US but had been in Scotland since the age of 15. She was nice enough to take this slightly blurry picture of us together

Then it was day 2 part 2. Rejuvenated we set back out on the path.

 It was beautiful and flat and easy going until we reached this stream

 then walked past these woods

 and this creepy abandoned house, which stood guard at the gate to Rannoch Moor.

We passed through the gate and onto the moor, following along a path which was gently uphill, and curving around the mountains to our left.

The general expanse of the moor made it hard to measure how far we had been walking so eventually we just sat down and had ourselves a break on a little stone wall. Thankfully he midges were significantly less bothersome this day than they had been the first.

and with nothing better to do that day, we kept walking. We had the moor to ourselves, with the exception of a dirt-bike rider who past us going one way and then an hour or so later came back the other, tapping on his watch as he rode past the second time (I assume because he was impressed with what good time we had been making). Eventually we came to the stream which marked that our time on the moor was about to end and the path was going to ascend for the next couple of miles so we stopped on a small rise nearby and took pictures.

 below is the path we were following, you can see it rising in the distance to the saddle

 Below, at the very right of the picture, are the two mountains we started our day walking alongside

 and a look back down the trail we had been following

 the mountains to our side as we were walking along (above) and the stream we stopped at (below)

eventually we sucked it up and started the ascent. We walked past a cairn marking where someone famous died while out hunting and some abandoned ruins (just the foundations were left) and then at long last we started our final descent off the moor and down to Kingshouse. This part wasn't too much fun. We were tired, our feet hurt, the end was near, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we were ready to be done. The only neat part about this last mile or so was that the horizon was dominated the entire time by this massive, imposing, black mountain that reared up in front of us as we hobbled down to the road side.

 

Our plan had been to take the West Highland Way to the Kingshouse hostel where we would pick up the bus to take us to Glen Coe where our hostel was located. Instead, we got lucky and as we approached the road the bus showed up and stopped so we quickly hopped on and didn't have to wait at all. It was about 20 minutes between where we were picked up and Glen Coe and when we got there we had all stiffened up considerably.

Unfortunately this was also when we realized that the hostel we were staying at wasn't actually in the village of Glen Coe

It was 1.5 miles away. BUT WE WERE SO TIRED. Also, we found out when we called the hostel for directions that they had no food so we were going to have to make arrangements for that in town. We somehow picked ourselves up and started walking again, through the cute little town

stopping for a terribly long time at the grocery store. Terribly long because we were so tired and hungry it was hard for anyone to think straight and we were trying to plan for dinner, breakfast and lunch without giving ourselves too much to carry. Noam pretty much blacked this part out and I got made fun of for saying that corn was a vegetable (you are all still jerks!). Eventually we had everything we thought we needed and it was just one mile that stood between us and our hostel. It was that mile that really did me in. Within the first few hundred yards my knee started to hurt. Then it started to burn. Then it started to just flat out give up. I was limping heartily by the time we made it over that last rise and finally found the hostel. We made a pretty delicious dinner and I sat and iced and iced and iced my knee but it wasn't doing much good so we made the decision to cut out the "devil's staircase" and 9 miles off of the next day's itinerary. Instead we decided we would wake up, catch a bus to Kinlochleven and hike the 15 miles to Fort Williams from there.

I woke up still in pain. It was better but it wasn't good. We took too much time getting ready in the morning and making and eating breakfast and left too late to catch the bus. I couldn't physically move fast enough to make the bus time so we started calling cabs as we walked. The first few we called couldn't come for hours and hours and we needed to be on the road. Luckily we found someone who was available and willing to come and get us so we walked out to the Loch in the middle of Glen Coe to wait for our ride.

Our taxi showed up right on time and we were quickly in Kinlochleven and ready to start our final day of walking. There were 15 miles ahead of us, but the map showed that the most difficult ascent would be at the very beginning. The map was unfortunately accurate and the ascent was almost my undoing. I could only move uphill if I did so extremely slowly and carefully, otherwise the pain was too great or my knee would collapse out from under me. So we made slow slow slow time going up the hill (slow enough that a family with three young kids passed us easily). But we made it up to the top and had a gorgeous view of Kinlochleven

At this point Noam and Valerie stopped to tell me that they would be fine if we just turned around and went back down if I wasn't going to be able to make it. I was adamant that I was going to make it. I could walk, even if it was slowly and we had a good 12 hours of sunlight left and only 15 miles to go and I knew the last few miles were on a road into town and so even at a pace of 1 mile per hour I was going to be ok. So we pressed on, slowly, eventually finding ourselves in this massive upland valley.

like on the moor the trail stretched out before us with these dramatic mountains rising steeply on either side. Unlike the moor we were joined by more people than we had seen on the trail in the previous two days, all existing solely to make clear exactly how slowly we were going which led to more heated arguments about how I was going to make it and it didn't matter to me if the others went on ahead and so on and so forth. But the sun came out briefly for pretty much the first time in all three days and so we had the chance to enjoy the scenery without much threat of rain. This was the first and only day it didn't rain while we were in Scotland

 At least on the flat, provided I stepped carefully, I could make somewhat normal time

 We passed by yet another set of sad lonely looking ruins

and this little slice of upland valley heaven

one last set of ruins (above) and then after a short stop for lunch the trail began to ascend again (you can see from the look on my face how thrilled I was about that)

We had, after many hours, conquered the valley we had started in and the path curved around now and we found ourselves on the flank of a large gorgeous mountain where we found that someone had penned this love note to Valerie's boyfriend on the path we were following

the countryside had a post apocalyptic look because all the trees had been removed as part of a long term plan to replace them with native species

Once through the "forest" we were at our last half-way mark of the trip. Only 7.5 painful hours left to go. We stopped for a sandwich and Noam took the opportunity to take off his shoes and have a nap as you can see in pretty much the last picture Valerie took before her camera battery died.

Valerie and I just assumed he was planning to catch up with us because I was moving so slowly and for some reason we thought he knew we were leaving so we packed up and walked off. 45 minutes later a somewhat irate Noam caught up to us...turns out he had no idea we were leaving and woke up because it was so quiet only to find we had deserted him. Whoops! The weather stayed sunny and my knee was doing somewhat better and we were doing pretty well overall, trading off leads with a pair of teenage boys with packs 3x the size of ours across countryside that looked like this

and then we turned the corner and Ben Nevis, the largest mountain in Britain was right there!

 Kind of looks smaller when we are in the foreground but it was massively impressive

 we started our final descent on our final day as the path wound down through the forest

 where we started to get our first glimpses of the town of Fort Williams and the flank of Ben Nevis

if you look closely you can see the trail that winds up to the summit of Ben Nevis (moving from the left to right diagonally)

 Valerie pointed out these incredible plants that were growing upside down out of the erosion overhang (see the straight line at the bottom third of the photo, the plants were growing upside down out of it)

 And after much more walking and playing of 20 questions (sidewalk was a fair one!) we came to the home stretch. Where we promptly collapsed at the side of the road in the dirt for a long and well-deserved break.

We saw this sign and chose to follow the West Highland Way all the way to the end instead of through the carpark.

 which brought us down and out onto the road right here

 past this fringe cow sign

and to the road where we finally reached the entrance to the car park, which was flanked by these gigantic deer who were lying in wait to attach Noam. We watched in fear as another tourist got dangerously close to these wild animals to take their pictures but everyone survived unscathed

 And still we had like another mile to go. We KEPT walking along the road and this was just brutal. After another 15 or 20 minutes we got to a sign that marked the "original end of the West Highland Way" it took a few minutes for our brains to register that this meant it was probably not STILL the end of the West Highland Way and so we picked ourselves up and stumbled onward. Diligently keeping an eye out for elderly people as the sign suggests.

We walked past the street our hostel was on but kept going, through the village green and then down onto the longest village high street I've ever been on in my life. But finally, FINALLY we were THERE! WE FINISHED!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO! We had hiked 55 miles in three days. I had limped 15 miles in 1 day on a knee that took over a month to heal. But we made it. And it felt glorious.

Sadly, being done with the hike didn't mean that our feet no longer hurt or that we would be carried from then on. Instead it meant we hung out at the finish line for a while, where we ran into the two teenagers we had been seeing all day (who had thought they were done at the "original" end point and only just figured out they hadn't made it yet after hiking the entire distance in 7 days - at the age of like 17 and when doing something like this for the very first time) and then we got dinner ingredients from Tesco and walked back to our hostel to check in, eat dinner, shower and pass out. (below, the view from the hostel).

The next day we had breakfast with a Canadian girl we had met at the hostel and had the absolute best service I've ever had from a waiter (Martin!) in all my time in the UK (London service is notoriously bad) and then as it started to rain yet again we packed ourselves onto a bus back to Glasgow. I needed a nap so I handed my camera off to Valerie to take pictures during the ride. We got to Glasgow and hopped off the bus and proceeded to hunt down the "chippies under the bridge by the railway station" that served deep fried pizza. We had to look pretty hard with just that description but find it we did!

Which is when Valerie turned to me and said "take a picture!" and I said "but you have my camera" and that was when things got depressing. Valerie went to go back to the bus station to look for the camera, Noam and I stayed to try the pizza but it wasn't the triumph I had been looking forward to.

 We ate all of it anyway.

Valerie met back up with us and we went back to the bus station to report the camera stolen and to report it to the lost and found and to the bus company and to everyone else but it was gone. It was pouring and I was super super super depressed about losing all my Scotland pictures (especially after just losing all my Croatia pictures) so we just went to our B&B and checked in and then Noam went to go use the Internet and we stayed in the room while it poured outside. Eventually we went for a late lunch and then took a walk around the city but there wasn't that much to see and I wasn't really in the mood so Valerie and I went back to the B&B while Noam stayed out to walk a bit more.

In the morning I woke up in a black mood because it was really clear the camera wasn't just lost or misplaced, someone had stolen it, which really really is just the meanest thing. I ate breakfast and just tried to ignore everyone because I was in such a mood that I couldn't possibly be anything near nice so we just packed up and then caught a cab to the bus which we took to the airport. Valerie stayed in Glasgow to take the train back and Noam and I were back in London by that afternoon.

I hate to end on such a downer but it's a reasonable stopping point. Overall, after blogging about it and reliving it thereby, I can say I had a fantastic time in Scotland and felt really accomplished finishing up the trail the way we did.

I have to stop here, I know I'm super behind but I'm also super committed to getting this past year all down on paper; however. since I'm leaving today for Bali for the next seven weeks I thought it best to post an incomplete blog rather than wait to December to post about July.

<3 <3 <3