Many of you already know that I'm the inventor of the selfie (Jesslyn speaking here). So it’s natural that each of our trips have started with one. In honor of that…here is the first selfie of our world tour….
Travels went smoothly and after an hour stopover in Iceland we landed in London for a quick visit with Lynn and Rob. We had a fun time celebrating Lynn’s birthday and enjoyed the great weather with a long walk through Hampstead Heath before arriving at The Spaniard for a nice meal. Outdoor seating was an unexpected surprise for a London meal and the night couldn’t have ended better than with chocolate cake and a bottle of Moet at Lynn and Rob’s flat!
It felt like our adventure had truly begun after we landed in Edinburgh and picked up a rental car for our journey through Scotland. We spent our first night in the quiet but fun town of Perth before heading on to Ceres in the morning for the 701st Ceres Annual Highland Games. The live music in Perth reminded us of our time in Dublin the summer of 2011 - we heard “Take Me Home, Country Roads” - not once - but twice within a matter of probably two hours. For some reason the Scottish and Irish really like this song! We also heard “Sweet Home Alabama” which always reminds me of my first night experiencing the Ruck in good ol' Troy, NY.
After spending the night in Perth at a posh B&B with a full Scottish breakfast we moved on to roughin’ it with the younger crowd at the Fort William Backpackers Hostel. We have a private room with two twin beds and a small window that gives us a view of Loch Eil. The highlight of our drive out to the West coast of Scotland was the region of Glencoe: our first view into the majestical landscape of the Scotland Highlands. Our first day in Fort William was spent hiking the highest peak in Great Britain - Ben Nevis (4,409 ft.), but not before we had our own Supermarket Sweep showdown (come on, tell me you remember this awesome gameshow?). Traveling on a budget is kind of fun (for now)! In the grocery store, it was basically a game of who-can-find-the-cheapest-yummy-stuff. We stocked up on bread, ham, cheese, peanut butter, jelly, apples and oat cakes for our hostel-livin-days. Ok, back to Ben Nevis: we saw beautiful waterfalls and experienced both sunshine and snow on the 9+ mile roundtrip trek. Most of the way up was “oh this is so beautiful and great” and most of the way down was “what is wrong with us, why do we do this to ourselves”!” We expect to wake up quite sore tomorrow and leave the area and head to the Isle of Skye. We expect to do a lot more exploring on foot there. We hear that the elevation isn’t great but the views are. As we’ll be on the coast at this point…we hope to see some great marine wildlife and birds!
In addition to this blog, I really want to keep a personal journal while on this adventure. I have the book but haven’t started writing anything down yet. I’ve been having too much fun! Too be honest….getting it started is also intimidating. I have a lot of emotions I want to document including what it was like to see friends and family before we left New York and New England. So many special moments. I know that once I start it, I won’t feel obligated to write a lot each day, just the highlights. However today on our 5+ hour hike through rough terrain and questionable weather, I decided something: I know which words I’m going to use to start the journal…
I’m so happy.
- Jesslyn