Day Fifteen - Isle of Skye

I don't think that I can put into words just how gorgeous the Scottish
Highlands and isles are. It is very reminiscent of Ireland, although
wilder and more rugged...Scotland was blessed/cursed with more
mountains and lakes, and is green without quite the same intensity as
the Irish countryside. But the gleaming lochs around every bend, the
rough, rock-strewn cliffs, and the shifting mists and clouds are
simply awe-inspiring.

Today was spent entirely on the Isle of Skye, off Scotland's west
coast. I started with a Scottish breakfast (sausage and fried eggs and
toast and tea...I skipped the beans, tomatoes, and mushrooms), and
then boarded the bus for nine hours of touring the countryside. We
spent a lot of today climbing and descending hills...we would stop
every hour or so to climb around outside, which was fun and yielded
some (hopefully) gorgeous photo ops. We also had a lovely break for
lunch, where I did my tourist duty and had bangers and mash...four of
the best pork sausages I've had in a long time, with some great mashed
potatoes, onions, and peas on the side.

Properly fortified, I enjoyed the rest of the tour of the island, and
we were dropped off in Portree a little after six pm. I freshened up,
walked a couple of blocks to the town center, sat on a bench, and
wrote for a bit. I then had dinner at a nice little restaurant, where
I fortuitously ran into the two Aussie girls whom I hung out with a
couple of nights ago. They're quite entertaining, and we had a lovely
time...and I had a delicious steak pie. Not quite an Iowan steak, but
good nonetheless...big bits of steak in a kind of gravy, with puff
pastry, and vegetables and french fries on the side.

So now I'm quite well-satisfied, and I'm blogging early tonight so
that I can shower, pack up, and hopefully get around to labeling some
photos...I have used up one of my two memory cards, so it's time to
download them. I will tell you more about the tour when I have a)
proper internet and b) illustrative photos, but I have reached the
limit of my patience/thumb endurance for the crackberry tonight.
Tomorrow it's another full day of sightseeing through the Highlands,
before the tour ends in Edinburgh tomorrow night. Sad! But I can't be
too sad, because Walter awaits in Amsterdam (a city I loathe, but
hopefully seeing the much-admired Walter will make up for it). Then
I'm back in ye olde Iowa on Monday! And at that point, my blog will
revert to its usual mundane self :(

One more thing...I still haven't figured out what to do with my life,
and while I like to procrastinate, I had intended to figure it out by
the time I got on the flight home, and I'm running out of time. Any
ideas?