Today was day 2 of our Scottish Highlands tour. After a hearty breakfast of porridge and having to wake the oversleeping boys (an alarm malfunction, honestly), we set off for Eilean Donan castle, which sits at the intersection of three lochs. It is indeed the perfect castle if you’re in the market, and only £2000 for a wedding is a bargain. That said, we couldn’t muster up £3.50 for the entrance fee, but we were completely satisfied with just the exterior.

Then it was off to the Isle of Skye, or since it recently changed its official name to the original Gallic, I cannot now remember. It is a mystical place where fairies are real and witches can turn you into mountains. In fact, just about every mountain on Skye is best explained as some sort of human transformation.

Our favorite story involved a wedding between rival clans that was supposed to bring peace to the island. However, on her wedding day, the bride fell off her horse and severely disfigured her face (according to Graham, her eye was hanging out). She tried to hide the hideousness with her veil to no avail; the groom was not fooled, and peace was called off in favor of killing several of her clansmen and throwing her off the bridge. Sitting in tears by the riverside, a fairy found her and told her if she washed her face in the river, she would be eternally beautiful. She did and she was, but the groom never returned and the wars continued for centuries.

Long story short, all the ugly people on the bus dipped their faces in that same river. It was a bit chilly, but fun. There were no immediately noticeable effects otherwise.
Skye was basically just full of majestic vistas, and we may have just taken a couple photos here and there. Quite beautiful. It was a day well spent.

We returned to Fort Augustus for a wonderful pasta dinner, highlighted by macaroni and cheese (which actually was based on penne, not macaroni). From there, we went to see Ken down the road give a presentation on Highland life. To sum things up: Highlanders were very, very, very filthy dirty, folding a 7-meter traditional tartan takes a long time but is a very versatile piece of clothing, and Highlanders had many brutal ways to kill enemies, especially the Campbell clan (who make good soup).

Finally, we hung out at the hostel bar where we heard some really bad karaoke from Richard, some random intoxicated man with little connection to either the tour or the hostel. Eh. Eventually, one of the other tour guides supplanted him with a nice round of bagpipe music (and no “Scotland the Brave” !). Nick even had a go at it, and while he looked like he was gonna pass out, the guide was able to get a couple semi-musical sounds out. Then, bed.