(Sunday)
Yesterday was fucking silly. I ate one meal. Paid for one more night at the hostel because I knew I wouldn't be able to do shit today. I almost got into a random party with Camile (aflter walking up the wrong set of steps). Now it seems I lost my passport. I'm a dumbass. Too fucking stupid for my own good. Having my camera on me was probably a good idea. I have some random pictures of stuff I don't remeber doing. I did fall off a statue, or something, which has left amark on my face. The beard covers the mark though. It seems I didn't lose my passport, it simply wasn't in my pocket as it should have been.

Apparently I bought 24 beers after the game, I found the receipt today.

Expecting Something Taller -- A good book.

(Saturday morning)
Last Night, I was going to do a floodlight walk of town. However, while waiting for it to get dark (it takes a while) I decided to hit the high St. Hostel for some 'net access. Since I was there I checked in the basement for the Royal Mile hostel folks. I found them, Brie, Edmonton girl, was a bit wasted, so was Nath, one of the aussie boys. So a beer from Toby and a few games of pool, Heather came back and Jonathon (Toronto -> Europe -> Vancouver), Heather (Moncton -> UNB) and Camilla (the Norwegian girl) decided to try to hit the Fiscal, no long the Fiscal and Firkin. The place was packed and the place was eating up the live band. We decided it was a bit too packed, so we headed to 'The Mitre' where Heather and her friend had been before. Again it was full, but we could get drinks and the band was really good. I met an English couple there. and shot the shit. So much for the floodlight walk. Maybe tnoght, not if the FA Cup is on.

The Edinburgh Castle is massive, it took me over 2 hours to see everything. It's nice, Edinburgh has stuff about Scottish royalty before James IV. The War mueseum probably took the most time. There is a lot of interesting stuff including written orders, and recruiting Scots/Highlanders into the British military.

Biking to Edinburgh wasn't hard but a bit of a pain in the ass, dealing with downtown traffic despite having cycle lanes in the city centre. I can understand why James (in Tarbert) said the buses and taxi's are a problem for cyclists in Edinburgh. Yesterday, I walked around the Royal Mile looking for Kilts. I've decided to get one full get up and another Kilt. One ancient red and one modern green.

The Hostel here seems to be full of Canadians with some Aussies thrown in for good measure. It's amazing anyone who I think has no accent is very much a Canadian. Last night was a drunken night at 'the globe' a local backpackers bar. The Kareoke was fun, I did 'Riders on the Storm' and 'Thank God, I'm a Country Boy'. After the bar we went to the other MacBackpackers Hostels and hung out with those folks. 2 small hostels make for an interesting atmosphere. At the pub there was a giant connect 4 board, 15cm diameter pieces.

The better the night, the less writing. Yesterday, the plan was to do a nice 45 mile trip to Stirling. I think I did about 50 miles, about 20 of which was on a cycle path from Killin to Callander. Unfortunately along that path I took at least one wrong turn and went up a big logging road. Going down was fun, but half of the down was backtracking. The Stirling hostel is even more institutional, the class of about grade 6 students doesn't help. I did meet a family from Saskatoon though and played crazy eights with one of them. The class of kids sat down for breakfast did not sit themselves in any mixed gender tables.

Doune Castle was a lot of fun. I arrived around 1315, and hour or so after I had wanted to, but still with lots of time to explore the castle and get to Stirling. Doune was fun to explore as there was very little blocked off and a bit of history to it. When I went in there was a sign saying the guardian was on the grounds, so have a walk around ans pay on the way out. So I explored for about an hour, then went to pay where the woman convinced me to buy and explorer pass which gets me into lots of places for 3 out of 5 days. So, I also spent 2 hours walking around Stirling Castle once I had arrived in Stirling before 1530. After playing crazy eights in the lounge I had my beer in the dining room and decided on todays plan: Argyll's Lodge, library, cycle shop, Wallace Monument, Campbell Castle. I think I got some midge bits while eatin lunch yesterday. Anyway, I was cleaning up my pint glass when an Aussie girl, Brenda, came in and started cooking. We ended up talking until about midnight. Which included eating, walking around town and spinning on a tire like thing until we were both very queasy. She mentioned sleeping naked a fair bit. However, the lowest temperature ever recorded in her home town was 17 Celcious. It's usually above 300K.

Anyway, today, I took a look around Stirling, saw Argyll's Lodge, William Wallace's Monument and then a nice flat ride out to Dollar, a walk threw Dollar Glen then a quick tour of Castle Campbell. There isn't much special about the place, but the monument curator lives at the castle.

Argyll's lodging had the more interesting bits blocked off, but the furniture was awesome to see. Brenda doesn't seem to around tonight so I don't have much to do and there is an extra class load of kids around. I did meet a couple from Peterborough, On.

Nestle is the cerial brand here instead of General Mills, i.e. Nestle Cheerios in a white box.

The Fort Willy Backpackers Hostel is an awesome place, I've stayed an extra two days. Well, I had the time to stay, so I did. I really haven't written since thrusday at lunch, so here is the attempted brain dump.

Thursday a large number of us sat around the outside fire, chatted and enjoyed ourselves. It felt like most people at the fire had been around the hostel for a while, but besides the 5 staff, the rest had been here only a night or two. I think there is a large large to make it look as if there is always people here and thus encourage people to stay as Victor stayed an extra 3 days, Owl has stayed more, Joey and Ned have stayed an extra 2 days, Simon has spent at least 2 extra days, and I have spent an extra two days here. Those have been the guests for the last few days with various other people coming and going. Caroline has also been here for the time. The staff are Macca, Christian and Mel doing reception with Fiona (Fee) and Bree cleaning.

Friday, I finally got on the internet again and had a good look around town. One of the strange things in Fort Willy is a cemetary under health and safety notice beside the old folks home, so there is a sign for elderly people crossing at the cemetary. Firday afternoon was mostly a walk around cow hill where I cam across a guy playing 'Teddy Bears' Picnic' on the recorder in the woodland. It was friday after the concert and cooking, I sat in the lounge for a bit where Joey and Ned, the boys from Minnesota, were talking to an aussie girl and a kiwi girl and one of those two had worked on the Isle of man.

Before cow hill though, I went to Inverlochy to buy a ticket to see the Peatbog Faeries. Once I had my ticket, from the BA Club, which has no sign indicating it is the BA Club, nor do I know what BA stands for. Anyway, it was time to look around Inverlochy caster, which was a 13 century castle. The ruins are in pretty good shape, but there hasn't been any word done besides stopping the ruins from getting any worse. Exploring the castle was fun, Owl and Victor where exploring it at the same time, so I was able to get up to the Parapet once Owl had found a way up.

The main event of friday was the concert at the B.A. Club. The opening band, the Billipops were decent, sort of countryish. The Peatbog Faeries were awesome though. They mixed the pipes/chanter and fiddle into over 8 different styles of music. All of it was easily danceable. Carloine was the first one up, I quickly followed, then everyone but Simon was up dancing. We bounced for a couple of hours. I was extremely tired. Mel and Bree were mostly able to keep up with me. At the end of the night one woman came up and complimented me on my energy. Another, older woman, gave me a kiss and a big hug outside. Her husband had to drag her away. Evan as they were driving away she was waving at me. I was quite soaked of sweat from dacing all might, my hat even ended up with salt stains. After the concert we got back to the hostel, around 0145, the kitchen was closed, but Owl decided he was going to cook a full meal which caused Macca to explode, partially at Owl and partially at Mel. It turns out Owl (Todd) doesn't remember cooking that meal.

Saturday I decided to do Ben Nveis since I was in Fort Willy. It was a nice long walk. I took about 2.5 hours to go up. I didn't stop. All I had with me was my Nalgene bottle. It was enough for the way up. The views all the way up were simply awesome. I'm glad I had looked around on the way up as looking around on the way down would have meant falling and hurting myself.

[ A crow attacked a seagull. It was a natural dog fight. Evntually, the seagul got away by going too high for the grow ]

The top of Ben Nevis was all snow covered with awesome views in all directions. There is a memorial and the remains of a meterogical station and lots of people. Ben Nevis is the big tourist attraction for Fort Willy. At least most of the people were going up to the top, 1334m, so it wasn't as bad as Eilean Dorean (highlander castle). The trip down took 2 hours and was painful. It was very rough and jaggity. I did see Audrey while I was on my way down. She took a lot longer to go up and down than I did, but 30 minutes of sunbathing on top of the mountain was enough for me. Out to the northeast of Ben Nevis there is a mountain range with one peak that looked very pointy /\ - I can even draw what it looked like.

I lost 1 pound somewhere on the mountain, I'm not sure if I lost thh 2 50p pieces at the top or on one of my breaks on the way down. My half-filled water bottle, filled with tasty Ben Nevis snow, wasn't enough for that much work. At least it was warm enough to walk down the Ben topless. It seems while I was on the mountain, a party had developed at the hostel. Fortunately, the party continued after I got back. So I bough some beers (3 Old Jocks, a Caladonian IPA) and enjoyed the company of the folks here around the fire until after it got dark where we went inside. I chatted with an old man in French, tried to answer some trivial pursuit questions, then passed out in the middel of a conversation. It seems that no lunch, a mountain climb, 5 500ml beers (3 6.7% ones) was toomuch for my body to take. I woke up at 0630 on the couch in the lounge. Now today, Sunday, has been a nice beautiful sunny day, 7thh in a row, to sit write things down and read the paper. Too bad those for those in Uzbekistan. Between the militant religious fanatics and the dictatorial government, the people that will get hurt are those that actually want a better place to live.

Every sink here has a hot top and a cold tap, usually the cold is on the right, but not always. My beard is getting lighter since I have been in the sun so long.

Right near the top of Ben Nevis there is a steep snow section. There were already some slide tracks down and a group to my right were trying unsuccessfully to slide down on one of the guys coat. I decided head first down a previous track would be the way. The slide was a lot of fun, but I got snow in all my pockets and my belt. I ended up a bit wet from the slide as snow is water. I was dry by the end of the walk down, so there was no problem. After I went down, the guy trying to slide on his coat on his butt, went head first with his coat on backwards down my track with great success.

Boozy is a word, great points when hitting a tripped word score.

Postal Service (the band) sounds a lot like Broken Social Scene.

There must be some sort of airshow coming soon as yesterday I saw two Brittish fighter jets flying over Invergerry. Today, I saw those jets again, as well as two spit fires. The ride to Fort William was nice, I did some forest riding, big up, big down around Invergerry then took the high road/path from Invergerry to Benavie. Finding the backpackers hostel wasn't too hard, it is even near the top of a steep circular road, so getting out should be fun.

50-pound day, ouch. One hostel in Fort Augustus is closed, so the other one is full. So, I'm staying in a B&B. I also went out for dinner. Dinner was Haggis & Neeps. Now I can say that I have had haggis. It tastes basically the same as mom/dad's beef stew. I've also had a strong real ale, it tastes pretty much the ssame as the weak stuff, but it has more alcohol.

To sum up the last two days: Today sucked, yesterday awesome. So why today sucked: the hostel was full, the servers at the restaurant were bad and unorganized. I did try 4 scottish cheeses, none were bad. The bike ride took from 9:30 until 5:15. The good parts of today: I tried haggis, and my clothes are being cleaned (2 days overdue). the view is nice. I saw Eilean Ducaan in Dornie. It is a nice bastle but there were way too many ADD (read american bus) tourists while I was there. It turns out Lochach started out in the Lordship of the Isles, which the MacDonald was given at a meeting at Dunakin or Castle Moil, which I saw yesterday in Kyleakin.

Yesterday was good, here is why. I found some free breakfast, scottish oatmeal poridge, at the hostel in Portree. I was riding on the road by 8:30am. The ride to Kyleakin was swift, and with the wind. I arrived at the hostel in Kyleakin about 11:35, by noon I had a bed and briefly met a girl from South Carolina. The afternoon was filled with walking. I stood on a view point compass which showed all the things to see around Kyelakin, then I sunbathed on a rock for a short period. Katie (the girl from South Carolina) actually had that rock. I did see the english couple coucling again, they were cycling out of Kyleakin, I was cycling in, we greeted each other in recognition.

The Illiad isn't so bad to read, I got a couple chapters into it while I was at the Portree hostel and the hostel was having trouble with the boiler. I'm amazed every night is full daylight at 8pm. It is usually light out until around 10pm.

After the viewing table dancing and sunbathing, I took a walk a long the Obbe, saw a lot of Herons. I don't think any of the pictures will turn out too well. My walk continued up into the forest outside Kyleakin. I walked along a logging road for about forty minutes with my shirt off (trying to remove the beakon-like whiteness of my belly. It didn't work). Supper was simple again, very student-like. After supper I started talking to Katie, who is at school in Glasgow for accounting during the summer. We had some drinks, went grocery shopping, played some cards and sat up talking until 12:30am. It turns out she is a huge B5 fan. There can never be enough of us.

I have a mirror in my room in the B&B, I couldn't find a mirror in the hostel in Stornoway.

The neighbours at the B&B are having really banding sex, they aren't being vocal, it can't be that good. I don't even have clothes to get outof the B&B (they are being washed). I do need clean clothes though.

The day of rest was mostly a day to sit around and watch TV. I was introduced to the sights of Glasgow by the famous Glaswegian Clare Gorgon. I really like the word Glaswegian. However, I did take a walk up the hill in Tarbert. There were some nice views of each bay outside Tarbert. No pictures as I couldn't pick up batteries on the sabbath. Later on in the evening an old gentleman rode in from Stornoway. He was planning on taking the early morning ferry to Uig with myself and a biking couple from Yorkshire. The old guy that biked in is on a 2 year bicycle trip around Europe. He started in London in early March. He also did a 1 year trip a decade back through the lower 48 states in his home country, the USA.

The ferry arrived in Tarbert at 7am. We boarded before the cars without any trouble and started the jouney to Uig before 7:30am. The ferry ride was very uneventful, so I got a nap in as we rolled along with the waves. Once we arrived in Uig I booted ahead of the English couple. I had an awesome ride the short 16 miles to Portree. The ride was really quick too, as I did it in a bit less than an hour. In the afternoon I was locked out of the hostel. So I walked through the local tree plantation and continued up to the top of the hill. It was a long boggy walk up and down the hill. However, the views were awesome. I was able to see a good ways to Dunvegan. The visitor's centre (Aros centre) wasn't all that interesting but they did have a Peatbog Faeries CD, which I hadn't seen elsewhere. How is a wind turbine any worse looking than a house on a hill? Today, was probably the easiest ride of the trip. Tomorrow the next easiest, with the day after being the hardest.

(Saturday)
Thursday I stayed around Stornoway and actually saw the place during the day. The mueseam was small, but explained some of Lewis' history. Laundry was what stopped me from going on to Harris, but I can't complain as I found a book of Scottish folk tales in the hostel and a book about why men marry. Friday was the journey to Harris. It was a fun bike, I stopped a couple of times to see the scenery. One of these stops was at a momument to a riot. While I was leaving the monument a hitchhiker was dropped up the road a bit. It turns out this hitchhiker was a girl from Montreal, called Izzy, who is on a working vacation visa checking out the hebides between working in a youth hostel in Fort William and working in a shortbeard factory near Inverness or Elgin. We met in the hostel in Tarbert.

Also arriving to Tarbert yesterday were Jonas, A Belgian on a 6 month cycling trip of the northern European countries. James, a bike courier from Edinburough biking the outer hebides the proper way, south to north. Roger, an englishman working in Paris bussing and hiking around the Hebides. So, Izzy, Jonas, James and I went to the bar at the Macleod Motel for a pint. It turned into a night of many drinks and loads of fun. The bar filled up with people from the fish processing plant in Scalpay that had closed that day, so they needed a party. We gladly helped and the drunkest of them even brought us a few rounds.

Apparently I didn't come back to the hostel with the rest of the group. However, somehow I woke up before Jonas, Izzy and James, alone in the correct bed in the hostel. Izzy mentioned at one point I should write detailed descriptions of any images I didn't actually have pictures of to help me remember them. Perhaps that is an activity that is appropriate for the sabbath here. Playing in the playgrounds isn't. The descriptions should be useful as the batteries in my camera have run down.

Finally to today. I biked around South Harris. The plan was to bike along the west coast first then take the east coast road back to Tarbert. I took the wrong turn so I ended up seeing Rodal before Northton. It didn't really matter though. The views on both roads were awesome and the church at Rodal is a stunning example of Medival construction and art. There are lots of Angus and Mary Morrison's buried around the church. Around Harris it seems to be the custom for a woman to keep her maiden name but for the children to have the father's surname. The centre in Northton, Seallam, was nice to see and the guy there was able to give me lots of information on Pabbay. He was able to find teh John Morrison who left Harris for me, but I didn't know what useful information I could gain from the chart.

The fish and chips at AD's take-away in Tarbert are good, but the vinegar is the best I have ever had. I left my towel in Stornoway, oops, 4 things now to buy: lock, helmet, odometer, towel.

Today's trip was to Calanais. The rain mostly held off until I started my way back, and even then it wasn't too bad. Calanais has lots of standing stones and the Blackhouse tearoom is run by some very interesting people. The bike back to Stornoway was absolutely awesome. It was mostly on a one-way road with the wind at my back. This was what I came for.

Sheep don't run away from fast moving objects.

The cheesecake at the tearoom was marvelous. It was a blackberry, red and black current cheesecake that was still frozen. Yesterday I used 11 gears on my bike, a new record. I figured 11 of 21 gears is probably all the useful gears. Today, I used all 21 gears, about 17 of them are in fact useful.

Tonight was the best night of drinking in a while. For 5 pounds I had a whiskey mac, a rum mac [Ginger Green wine], a 80/- beer, a 'light' beer and a tennent's lager. I was drinking with two Glasgow boys plus a dude from Japan who plans on moving here. I have the address of the Glasgow boys, so I will call them in Glasgow.

It turns out that I am not the only person in the hostel, but the other beds are taken up by a large group of Polish men. Of which only one seems to speak English. He is the one who helped me last night. Today, I tried to bike to Port Nis, I failed. Early this morning, read before 9am when the bike store opened, I took a nice walk around Lews Castle. Lews Castle was the home of Sir James Matheson, on the castle grounds is his grave stone, it is quite large and elaborate, containing James' entire life story.

The kiltmakers in town would take 8 weeks to make me a kilt, which means I would not have it for convocation. I seem to be having trouble find the 'old' Morrison crest and tartan. I have not seen any Green Morrison tartan's in town and the driftwood crest for Dun Eystein seems to been phased out for Phabby's sword crest.

Back to biking. Crossing Lewis' interior isn't too hard, it's only 12 miles. However, on my first attempt I thought it was only 8 miles, it was also pouring rain such that it looked foggy out, but it was all rain. The wind was also against me. So twelve miles of discomfort and 15 more to go , I decided I wouldn't go all the way to Nis. Instead I had lunch at Barabhas then saw the standing stone at Baile De Truiseil whre the Macauly's and the Morrison's last fought. The bike back from Baile de Truiseil to Stornoway was great, it only took an hour to cross the interior in glorious sunlight.

Scotland's Change '05 is a 'fair' everything youth publication. However, it is on glossy paper. So, is the print version recycleable? Is it printed on recycled paper?

The hostel in glasgow is nice enough, but the room is really humid, no wonder my towel didn't dry.

In my first day in Scotland, it was foggy while on the bus and raining in Glasgow, this is certainly what I came for.

Nothing interesting happened on the bus rides, but looking around the ferry a lot of people have blue eyes, more than I'm used to. I'm still waiting for the fairy tale view that Stornoway is supposed to be. It wasn't quite a story book view, but coming into Stornoway is nice view.

I am about the only person in the hostel, so it is nice and quiet even with the lights on. Stornoway is a slow place to be in, it almost makes the Manitoulin look active. I'm not used to the early Scotish nights, at 2230 Stornoway seemeed deader than Kingston at 1:30am after I was done washing dishes. The Hebedean Brewing Company's Celtic Black Ale is good stuff.