scotland log

Nathan (LAD, 30) - Myself. Eepy walker, quickly in pursuit of hot drinks and pastries

Anna (LASS, 23) - Load-bearing member, initiator, the trip wouldn’t have happened without her

Peters (LAD, 23?) - Considerate person, small talker, sometimes easily skeeved

Thomas (LAD, 23?) - Lanky cheeky fellow. Does not know how to stop infodumping (a good thing)

Adam (LAD, 27) - Chill dude. Prone to dropping verses, does not use syntax highlighting

ARRIVAL

• Anna arrives ahead of the group by about 6 hours, walks around, has seen all EdinBRUH has to offer
• Adam and Thomas arrive around noon
• Peters and I have some flight issues, and join the gang around 5:30pm
• Realize I don’t have working data (and it turns out neither do two other members of the party)
• Settle into the hostel
• Walk about, hit up a jazz club and listen to some live music

WALKIES DAY NUMBER ONE

• Discover the hostel has a nice food menu, and that coffee isn’t really a thing here (only espresso)
• Secure prepaid sim card, shoutout to the local vendor who made it seamless
  • Peters discovers his phone was not unlocked for international sim usage
• Castle was booked for the day (no cannon 😩), went to bookstore and museum
• Got sandwiches and went up for a hike to prince’s seat in the middle of town
  • Most of the gang ate their sandwiches on the way up
  • A very steep climb with a very pretty view
  • Extremely windy at the top todo here: pics
• Got semi-lost on the way back and got spooked by rain potential, I almost took the bus but in the end we all swaggered onward
• Ate dinner somewhere
• Ended up back at hostel
  • listened to a lady sing the 500 miles song while playing her guitar
  • Played chess and “shit head” with 2 decks until sleepy time

LOOK MA, THERE’S WATER HERE

nb: Oban is pronounced “oh-bin”

• Breakfast at Hostel
  • American ponderances about the nuance of oatmeal vs porridge
• Take the train to Oban
• Get settled in airbnb (start laundry)
• Checkout the local gift shop, get some trinkets
• Walk up to tower in center of town, meet 2 cats, take lots of pics todo: pics
• Stumble over to a high end seafood place and sweatily crash for dinner
  • The group all has the same scotch, even though 2 members of the group knowingly aren’t fans of scotch
• Stop for stellas at Aulay’s todo: pic
• Play pico park (lots of yelling) in the airbnb until it’s time to crash

wherein we harass the sheep.

• The plan: walk about Kerrara and then attend our (reserved) distillery tour
• Walk 45 min to the Kerrara ferry so we can cross and walk over there
  • The gang gets mildly chastised for not having tickets pre-purchased
  • Immediately buy return tickets upon landing, paying no heed
• See a sign that says “castle this way” and immediately pursue
• It’s a wonderful scenic route with many sheep and goats to befriend
  • todo: insert pics
• Reach the castle, do parkcore
  • todo: pics
• Realize we should head back to the ferry to have a shot at making our 1:30pm tour
• Do quick walk back to the launch point, see the ferry carry peeps, looks pretty active
• Ferry captain notes as he walks by: “The next ferry is at 2pm”
• RIP distillery tour we hardly knew ye
• Kill the extra time on Kerrara hiking the other way to see the farmstore
  • farmstore is unoperated, it’s the ✨honor system✨: we write down what we take and leave money in the changebox
  • Anna and I have the messiest tuna + crackers of our lives
• On the ferry back we meet some frenchies, and Thomas enthusiastically volunteers his french skills

After the walk back, we guesstimate an excursion length of 14 miles

• We visit the distillery afterwards anyway
• The owner is nice enough to chat and give us samples and the dram glasses we would have gotten
• Peters and Adam acquire scotch (as one does)
• Grab dinner at a bar+restaurant, make the mistake of ordering ribs
• Play pool on a really nice table there
• Chill in the AirBnB playing switch golf game until time to crash

• 5:00am-1:30pm train to Inverness
  • Connected through Glasgow, snacked on a “french fancy”
• Throw our luggage in lockers, kill time until airbnb checkin with bookstore and eating @ highlander
• Settle into airbnb, and decide to solo chill there while the group goes out
• The lads hit the malt room and have a whiskey side quest
• Get locked in the bathroom‽‽
  • The doorknob latch isn’t turning with the knob
  • Anna and Thomas come to my rescue
  • We get ahold of the landlady and she KICKS OUT THE DOORKNOB
  • I get a whiskey drink for my troubles

Aside: around here we realize tomorrow is the morning to sleep in whilst in Inverness, as we have a train at 8am the day after. We come to a consensus tonight is the night to go ham in Inverness

• We get wine and cheese tray at a site down wine and cheese place
• Walk around aimlessly, switching leaders, looking for alcohol and food
• Settle at a restaurant but the service takes forever so we end up just getting a bottle of wine there and eyeing the Thai place across the way
• Thai was full, collapsed into ’the white house’ the waiter immediately gave us 5 shots and we had very nice dinner
• Go to highlander, catch live music and dance a bit with the locals
  • The live music was an accordian guitar duo and they were very good
  • todo: find out who it was
• Crash for the night

• It’s hungover hump day. I need pancakes
• The clock ticks by and somehow pancakes transmogrifies into a full scottish breakfast
  • Peters + Thomas did this the other day, I had some catchup to do 😤
  • todo: insert pic here
• Adam installs emacs. Will he fall down the lisp rabbithole?
  • His distro ships with emacs 27, obv we want 28, welp time to compile emacs
  • emacs 28+ is hard to install on opensuse for gccemacs (libgccjit)
  • ultimately defeated because libgccjit is not packaged for Adam’s distro
  • motive for 28 lost, he installs 27 and his beard becomes a little grayer.
  • todo: insert adam pic here

Some how I’ve completely forgotten what we did this day. Maybe I’ll get an assist from the gang. What I do remember:

• Adam and I sleep early because there’s a train in the morning
• The youngun’s go out and end up going hard AF in inverness:
• They start the night at highlander
• Peters plays defence against a persistent suitor dancing into Anna
• They meet some locals (two long haired lasses) hit it off dancing
  • JK, turns out to be one long haired lass and one long haired lad
  • The lass is nice and flirty, but also smelly
• highlander closes and they wander over to the forest fox(?)
• They close out forest fox, but the locals know a place!
• On the way to the next place, they learn the destination is actually a strip club
• They’re REALLY excited about getting peters a lapdance
• Peters is not interested in a lap dance, and the other 2 have SO’s and are ready to call it a night
• They split amicably, but there’s a creepy straggler, whom Peters staves off (shoutout Peters)

• Get a bunch of coffee and pastries to start the day
• Train to edinburgh, gang splits up
• Store luggage, walk around
• Visit book stores
• Eat pancakes
• Get luggage, hole up in lobby, start a puzzle
• -> check in, nap
• Wake up, learn the lads are arriving at 9:30, prep for bar
• 2x bars we aimed for were closed, we were seeking madmen, ended up at “under the stairs” which was still a small chill vibe
• In search of an activity, the group decides to go through the 36 questions, but limit the answer time to 30 seconds
• We get in our feels (which I completely missed initially), teeter totter on home vs dancing and decide to seek a close dancing bar
• Jam to some electronic music and then get a compliment on my kilt - quickly realize it’s a gay bar, which is fun but also we’re ready for home so we just dance for ~10min and then head for home

• I get up before everyone, get my pastry + coffee fix and then start puzzling in the hostel lobby
• Anna departs today, goal is to puzzle till she leaves and then tbd
• There’s no way we’re finishing this 1000 piece puzzle before we have to leave
• JUST KIDDING WE DID IT, finished the whole thing in the nick of time to see Anna off to the airport tram
• The boys immediately lose each other, falling apart without Anna to bind us
• After regrouping, we stumble around looking for dinner and eventually land on a gordan ramsay restaurant (Bread Street)
• Pack and sleep after that, digging a new book
• We all leave for the airport in the morning