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Published: February 9th 2006
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Whisky anyone?
At the Glenmorangie Whisky Distillery. Went to Clava Cairns
Shannon went into the clef
Didn’t go to the past.
It was a wild night out at the bar yesterday. More about that in a second since I want to write down today’s event as I remember them before going on about the amusing night at the pub.
It was a rough 9AM start for many this morning. Being a water drinker myself it was not different from any other day. Some stayed out until 5-6:30 this morning! Yikes! It was too funny when we found out that our first morning stop was at the Glenmorangie Whisky Distillery in Tain. It was quite interesting and quite smelly too. Got another whiff and taste of whisky. This one was nicer than the bottle we had back on the grassy hill a couple of days ago but I couldn’t take more than one sip and donated my share to Mike and Gareth. It was cool looking at all of the casks of whisky and amazing that they only use a specific tree grown in Missouri to make their barrels. In the States, Jim Beam and all are not allowed to use their barrels for more than four
years so Glenmorangie lends their barrels out first tow these companies and then returned to Scotland where they are used up to three more times.
After our time at the distillery we drove down to Inverness to have a wee little lunch break. We had the choice of a picnic again or going into Inverness for lunch. Most were tired of the whole picnic thing so we stopped in town. Rebecca, Shannon, Melissa and myself ended up at the food court and shared the Pizza Hut feast - four individual pizzas and four chips or salads plus a two-litre bottle of Pepsi all for £10. So score! Lunch for only £2.50. We had loads of time so we stopped in a few stores in the mall before heading back to the bus.
Next stop: Battlefield of Culloden. We went to the site where a major battle of significance in Scotland between the Jacobites and the Hannovarians took place.
We also made a short stop at Clava Cairns which are ancient burial grounds/cemeteries from over 5000 years ago. Our main reason for stopping there was to see these views because Shannon had read a book called Cross-stitch which
Dress up time
...for Mike and Kaz. involved these rocks and a woman traveling through time from the 1940’s Scotland to the 1700’s and the Battle of Culloden. It was pretty cool to make that connection.
We’re now off to Loch Ness where we’ll be stationed for the night. We were running late, so it was going to be a rushed baked potato extravaganza buffet and then having to rush off for the river cruise. I opted instead to skip the one hour river cruise (and btw saving myself £7!) and take my time and actually enjoy my dinner and also had a chance to shower up before heading over to the big Ceilidh (Scottish dance party.) Dinner was awesome. There was a fully loaded baked potato, garlic bread, mac & cheese and salads. I haven’t had a good backed mac & cheese in ages. It was so yummy! Guess one of those comfort foods and did I mention YUM?!?
There were a few of us that opted to not go cruising on the river and headed to the Ceilidh instead.
The Polish family (parents and Margaret), May, Mike, Rebecca, Natalia, Ludmilla and I headed over to the Hall to do a little dancing.
They were in the middle of a dance when we got there so we started off as wall flowers. But soon enough we were right in there learning the Scottish dances. The best way to describe it would be the equivalent is to square dancing (with a bit of waltz at times.) It was great fun. I even worked up a sweat. The most fun was the “Strip the Willow” dance. You’re in two lines. The head couple will link arms (crossed) and spin around like a sprinkler for eight counts and then you go to the opposite line and then you do a right hand swing, come to the centre and left hand swing with your partner, right hand swing with the next person on the opposite side and you continue on down the line. When the first head couple comes to the fourth couple the new head couple starts with the “sprinkler”. Man it was such a dizzying experience! There were other dances where you dance in groups of people or around a circle with your partner or you change partners or one guy with two girls. And the dance always ends with everyone in a circle singing
Dancing at the Ceilidh.
Kaz and Gareth in action. Auld Lang Syne. (I didn’t realize that Robbie Burns wrote this song!) Fun times!
Then it was off to the local pub in town to listen to some traditional Scottish music. But the guy turned out to be Irish and not very entertaining. So we moved to the next pub when Katie and Caroline came to the pub we were at and said the pub next door was great because the live act would take requests. We were there for about 45 minutes before it closed and we went back to the hostel pub to join the rest of the gang. I only stayed up til about 1AM since it was bad music selections on the jukebox and not much convo or rather good convo going on. I went back to the room and Shannon and Rebecca were there and we ended up talking for a bit before going to bed.
There was a bit of a rude awakening around 2:30 when Mals, Jean and Hayley came back to the room. They were noisy as. But it was kind of entertaining at the same time. My favourite line was from Hayley…”That’s okay, we won’t see these guys again after tomorrow.” So true but SO funny at the same time.
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