Hiking through the Highlands and other Scottish Adventures...

I spent the weekend of October 17-20th on a trip to Scotland for work. The weekend was framed with Edinburgh and filled in with a bus tour through the Highlands of Scotland. Tourist site after tourist site, the ride could have been a tedious journey... but it wasn't. With the misty wet sky gleaming through the windows of the bus and the icy rain on our faces as we trekked through the landmarkes of Scotland's history, I couldn't help but feel like I was in a magical place.

In Pitlochry we saw a salmon ladder and some beautiful autumn colours!

And as we trekked through the icy Battlefied of Culloden, we saw heather flowers swaying in the wind and a full rainbow overhead (not pictured).

And in Inverness, one of my favorite Scottish towns, we saw that Autumn was in full swing.

I even saw the Loch Ness monster, Nessie, at Loch Ness.

But by far my most favorite part of my journey through the Highlands of Scotland was my hike through Glencoe. The rain poured down on my fellow hikers and I as we climbed for an hour or two through the Glencoe wilderness. No words can describe and so I'll just have to show you some photos I took along the way:

I think that it is rather clear why I liked Glencoe so much!

The weekend was great, all in all, and it ended with Monday, the first day of my week off.

I wrote the following in my journal as I looked out the window below:

"I am writing this from the corner table at The Elephant House cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland. To my right there is a window out of which I can see Edinburgh Castle. On a wall near me there is the following poem:

a woman: by Mike Stocks

was I the only one who saw her cry?

she crossed me on the Mile, eyes raw and low,

went slowly grieving past the Netherbow,

a self-contained but sesperate passerby.

Everybody's father has to die,

though whether hers has died I wouldn't know;

and lovers love us deeply, till they go,

but whose to say if hers has gone, or why?

More likely, as you say, her tears were

for smaller causes than the ones I state--

though I'm the one who saw the then of her,

and paused before I walked to where I went,

not knowing who she was nor what it meant--

and watched her disappear down Canongate.

As I read the poem I realized that this really was a great way to begin my week off: Sitting in the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter, looking out the window at a castle, reading poetry off of a wall, drinking a freshly brewed cup of tea, eating a scone, and not worrying about the train that comes at 12:30."

Location: All over Scotland

Oxford is a place of imagination...

Oxford, despite primarily being known for its University, is a beautiful town. When you walk along its streets you can feel history oozing out of the stone walls of the buildings. It is as if at any moment you could find yourself in an intellectual conversation with pretty much any famous philosopher or author you could think of. For example, when stepping into the ironically titled The Eagle and Child pub, you can almost hear J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis brainstorming their character's newest magical adventures. It is not hard to imagine them sitting in dark corners of the pub, that they both frequented, coming up with worlds that only they could envision.

After leaving The Eagle and Child you can walk a mere ten minutes and find yourself in a shop entirely dedicated to Alice in Wonderland (whose creator also tread through the streets of Oxford). Just cross the street and you are in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. The pictures talk and the owls swoop down (even if only in your imagination) and tables are all set for Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin students.

Aside from all of this there is the buzz of academia in the air. Students flutter about, lugging their boxes to their new dormitories for the beginning of term, chatting in coffee shops, and donning costumes to raise money for charity... that is right: costumes. If you had been at Oxford when I was, then you would have found yourself face to face with Disney's The Incredibles. A group of Oxford medical students wore skin tight superhero costumes in the icy weather to raise money for charity. They were competing against other groups from their department in a scavenger hunt. Pirates vs. The Incredibles; it was a face-off of the highest extreme. After speaking with The Incredibles two or three times and seeing them in various parts of Oxford campus and the town of Oxford, they asked us a favor. For their scavenger hunt they needed to fit a large group of people (themselves included) into a phone booth and get photographic proof. My students huddled in and The Incredibles climbed all over the phone booth. I took a photo to immortalize the occasion and The Incredibles thanked us. I asked them what they had left to do in their scavenger hunt and they told me that they needed to make a human pyramid and to swim in the river. The air was icy and I wished them good luck.

It seems that any one's imagination can come to life in Oxford. First J.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, and the set designers of Harry Potter's imaginations came to life in Oxford, and then mine popped into reality and climbed up onto a phone-booth.

Location: Oxford, England