Where did October go? I have no idea, but from the looks of the stores in Aberdeen November's already over as well. Either way, I've almost three weeks to account for, which shouldn't be too hard; I haven't done anything terribly exciting for a while, and only just got pictures of anything last Sunday. But news is news, I suppoose. After Skye, the Lairig were going to Glenn Nevis, near Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the British Isles. It was a popular weekend, however, so like Skye, they ended up having to draw names to see who would go after committee members. My name was not drawn, and while I wanted to get up Ben Nevis pretty bad, I was a wee bit glad for a weekend off, and the weather ended up being terrible anyway (it was apparently too windy for anyone to get up Ben Nevis, and I'm not sure what anyone actually did). I stayed at Hillhead (the dorms) and spent some quality time out with my flatmates, who'd been complaining that I went away too much and was missing all the fun back at the flat. It was a very relaxing weekend, sleeping in and lazing aboot.
The following Tuesday I got an e-mail from one of the Celtic professors about a Gaelic poetry reading by a guy from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has a sizeable Gaelic-speaking population, and there are pockets of Gaelic speakers all over Canada. However, they do speak a sort of preserved 19th century classical Gaelic, so it's harder to understand but still pretty much the same. The poet was Lewis MacKinnon. He read about six poems and sang a couple of songs. It was really neat to hear Gaelic poetry and songs, and to listen to the people in the room all conversing in Gaelic. I was really interested in hearing the poetry because Gaelic has long and short vowels, like Latin, and like Latin poetry, a lot of Gaelic poetry emphasizes meter, and I wanted to hear a language's poetry that was still alive, as opposed to restored and reconstructed Latin. Unfortunately, as I had anticipated may have ended up being the case, he was a more modern free-verse kind of poet, so meter didn't figure as much into his poetry as a lot of classical Gaelic literature. But it was still interesting to listen to the rhythm of the language. After his reading, the professor from Aberdeen gave him twenty pounds and had him take the audience (about six people) over to the pub where we talked about a lot of different things, mostly somehow related to Gaelic.
Thursday the Lairig put on a slideshow of the club's outings from the previous year. A lot of amazing photos of different parts of Scotland, the Swiss Alps, and the Himalayas, all places these guys go at different times of the year. Afterward, they headed down to the pub for their usual Thursday night meeting at the Prince of Wales, but I got sidetracked by Robby, a guy I met through the Lairig, who was taking his pipes to the Celtic Society meeting in the top of the Blue Lamp, another pub (everyone meets in pubs here). Robby plays Border Pipes, which aren't blown, but you use a bellows under one arm to pump air into the bag under the other arm, where you pump air through the pipes. They're smaller and a wee bit quieter than the Highland Pipes, the normal pipes you see and think of. He played two or three tunes for a couple of dances, and then the music died down to a couple of people with guitars, tin whistles, and a Bodhran (Irish drum), while other people sang Gaelic songs. That night they told me about the Ceilidh they were having, the annual Celtic Society Ceilidh, the very next night. So I bought a ticket.
Friday night, obviously, I scurried on over to the Ceilidh at the Blue Lamp, the same place the Lairig had their Ceilidh a few weeks before. I danced a piece, and talked to some people from my Gaelic class, and then met up with some people from the Lairig, oddly enough. They weren't in the Celtic Society (neither am I), but they just like a good party. While talking to them I found out a few people were going away Saturday night to do a bit of hiking on Sunday (the word on Thursday was that no one was actually doing anything, or at least anything exciting that weekend, which is why I didn't mind skipping the Lairig meeting to go to the Celtic Society meeting). I told them I'd be up for going, and Saturday night we were off.
About 6:00pm we left the dorms in the minibus, only about eight of us, and headed up to Loch Nagar, the same place we went the very first weekend. We stayed in a "proper bothy," my first bothy experience. Bothies are little traditional huts that are set up all over Scotland. They're not marked on maps, and you sort of have to know where they are, but they're perfect little huts for staying a night or two, and anyone can stay in them. There's a small group I think that maintains them, but they're all volunteer. The bothy had a fireplace, an upstairs (amazingly, this is not common), and plenty of floorspace for us to lay out. Robby brought his pipes with him, so we had some proper pipe music in the bothy, mixed in with Freddie playing guitar and people singing. This time it was mostly popular songs on the guitar, however, not Celtic music. It was a great way to spend the evening. We all finally went to bed at some point, but I don't know actually what time it was. A few of the guys (including a new member from Czech on his first trip with the Lairig) got up at about five to head up several munros. The less ambitious bunch, this time myself included, got up about nine and dragged ourselves up a munro about 10:00. I had already climbed this munro, however, it was the last munro we did on the Freshers' Trip.
Robby on the pipes.
Freddie on the gueetar.
Freddie, Zoe, and Robby on the trail.
The trail with a bit o' loch.
Rainbow! Well, it was really a snowbow, since it hadn't rained all day, and it was beginning to snow (bha sneachd ann :: it was snowing).
This is when it really started snowing, as we were nearing the top. The weather changes soooo fast. It was perfectly clear, like in the above picture, and in about five minutes you couldn't see the edge of the hill.
Then it cleared up again, but the wind was blowing really hard. It was pretty fun. Freddie's on the top next to the cairn, and Robby's on his way.
More loch.
Robby avoiding the wind.
Not avoiding the wind. You could actually lean really far over and not fall when a big gust went through. I jumped up once and it took me about three feet laterally. Probably kind of stupid, but it was fun.
Gle ghorm (very blue)
A wee creek next to the bothy.
The outside of the bothy, which was connected to...
An taigh (the hoose)
Taigh beagh (a wee hoose)
It was obviously a really nice day.
Taken from the little dock.
The little dock.
The weather was superb until we finally decided to head home after a while at the fire warming/drying/talking/having a cuppa (tea). On our way out, though, it started to rain, then it really rained, and then it snowed.
Then it stopped.
Highland furry folk for the critter-crazy. These are protected range reindeer.
This week not much has happened just yet too exciting. I did get back my first written assignment for my Gaelic Culture class, and I got a perfect 20 (I did the night before it was due and thought that I had done the whole thing wrong when I turned it in...nice surprise). Grades are all out of 20 here, and apparently a 20 is really hard to get, though I'm not sure if that's just on final grades or generally all around. Either way, I'm off to a good start. All of my oral/listening worksheets have done really well, too, in Gaelic, with an 18 the first week, 19, and finally a 20 this last week. Every Wednesday I get together with a few other people from my class and a couple of graduate students in Gaelic and practice using the Gaelic we know, playing games and just talking about the weather, how many pets we have, siblings, what time it is, etc. Between the number of people that actually show up and the number of times we've introduced ourselves to one another I should definitely have a better grasp on everyone's name...but it's good fun, and great practice.
In other news, I ordered kilt today. I'm getting the "Granite City" tartan, since I live in Aberdeen, and it's nickname is the Granite City. It's a gray tartan, obviously, with a little black and white. Hopefully I'll have it in time to wear it to my Thanksgiving get-together with Anne, the Girls' Senior Counselor from YMA this last year who's living near London, and 0ne of the other counselors; the only problem is they normally take about six weeks, but the lady at the shop said she'd try to get a rush order through (no extra charge, oddly) so I could have it in four. She made it sound like it probably wouldn't be a problem, so I hope she's right.
This weekend the Lairig are going to Glen Coe, so I'm hoping to get on and get out of town for another weekend. One of these weekends I'm going to make it to Edinburgh, and hopefully another to Glasgow, but I'm running out of weekends fast.
Tioraidh
Gaelic Phrase for the Day: Tha e fliuch agus fuar. (Tr: It is wet and cold...pretty much the default response to "How is the weather?" in Scotland)
