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Today was day 2 of the bus tour around the highlands of Scotland.
Everyone was quite tired after having to wake up early again to leave by 8. Our first stop, however, woke everyone up very quickly. We stopped at a place called Sligachan (pronounced Slayakin) where the is a creek with water that is meant to keep you looking young. So it's a Scottish tradition, I guess, that they dunk there faces in the water for 7 seconds or just 3 times in a row. So Neil of course got us all to do it if we wanted to, by leaning over a rock and putting your face in. I did it and the water was absolutely freezing but it was actually quite refreshing. I think I look young enough already though so I'm not too worried if actually works or not.
We then just went to a little village called Portree to get food for the day and as quick bite to eat. I got a ham and cheese toasted sandwich from a restaurant there but when I finally got it, it didn't look like it at all. It looked more like a Turkey and and carrot sandwich, the cheese was orange and the ham was grey, but it was actually quite nice.
We then drove on to our main destination of the day, Storr. This was where we did out hike. It took about half an hour to get to the top of this mountain, but the view was most definitely worth it. The mountain looked over a valley, a lake, the atlantic ocean between islands and more mountains on the other side. But the thing we were really hiking up there for was a Viking giant's rock penis. Let me explain ... The story goes that this big vertical rock got to the top of the mountain because these three women who wanted this giant called Storr's silver, starting stripping while playing sensual music on a saturday evening so that the giant would get excited on the Lord's day of worship (Sunday) and God would smite him and then they could take his silver. So apparently this is what happened, God did smite him and turn him in to stone. But apparently he fell so hard that he drove himself right in to the earth so that only his "Old man" was poking through above ground. This is how the rock got its name as the "Old Man of Storr". Unfortunately for the girls, the Giant apparently fell on top of his silver and burried it into the earth. And apparently possibly out of coincidence some viking silver was found in the mountain a few years ago. It was quite a funny story, very Scottish.
We then drove on to a place kilt rock, which as the name describes is just a rock that looks like a kilt. It's right on the coast and it was extremely windy there but it was quite cool.
We then drove along to one of the oldest castle in Scotland which was completely ruinous called Duntuln castle. It was the castle itself that I found cool though, it was its surrounding. It was right on the edge of cliff where there were rock pools at the base so a few of us went down there and a few got wet from an unexpected wave.
We then went to a place called Fairy Glen, which is meant to be one of the places most inhabited by fairies in the world. Neil said that the Scottish believe that fairies aren't the nicest creatures and that they're attracted to music. So just before we got off the bus to have a look around he told us all not to sing or whistle so of course the whole time we were there that was all I could think about doing. Fairy Glen itself was just a series of heaps of little hills and little trees. In the middle of the little hills was an area where people had arranged rocks that had fallen off the hills into their names or their country's map or even a mini stonehenge. There was also a spiral shpaed thing there where you were meant to think of something you didn't like about yourself on the way in to supress it and then think about something you like about yourself on the way out to enhance it.
By the time we left it was just starting to get dark so we just went back to the hostel and then out to the pub for dinner again where I had plenty more good chats with people.
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