Oooohhh, you take the high road, and I'll get dropped on the side of the road...

This weekend was, without a doubt, exciting.  Not always exciting in a good way, but exciting, nevertheless.

First of all, I'll be completely honest.  I'm pretty much done with the whole travelling by myself thing.  It's just more fun with other people.  It was cool in the beginning, and I do like not having to worry about anyone but myself and just being able to do whatever I want, but it's really just too lonely.  So.  This was my last solo stint.

The trip started well: I did not miss my first bus.  Even though it was at 6:35 in the morning and I got mildly lost on my way to the bus station.  (Even though I've been there before.  Don't judge me.)  Unfortunately, I got on the bus and realized my iPod was dead.  This is BAD.  It was especially frustrating because my earbuds broke last week (!!!!) so I had to borrow some of my flatmate's, so I was really counting on the iPod working, at least.  Nope.  Okay, that's fine...I'll just...pray a lot...or something.

Okay.  Made it to Glasgow on the bus.  This was where the real trouble began.  I got on the bus, showed the driver where I needed to get off, and he was like, 'Okay, well, this is my first day on the job, so I don't really know where that is, so you'll have to yell when you want to get off.'  Um.  Yeah, okay.  Obviously I have no idea where it is either.  I probably should have said that, but it didn't seem like it would do much good, so I just let out a meek 'Okay' and walked back and found a spot as the group in the front of the bus had a good chuckle over the look on my face.  I'll make a long story slightly shorter and give you the obvious outcome of this situation: I missed the stop.  I ended up walking back the way we'd come, with another young woman who had also missed her stop, after the two of us were dumped unceremoniously by the side of the highway in the pouring rain by this bus driver who tried to make like it was our fault we didn't know where he was supposed to stop.  [Surely, Mr Bus Driver, they give you a map of the stops or something.  Somehow all the other drivers know where to stop.  Whatever.]  At least there was a nice walking path, with several meters and a fence separating us from the cars zipping by at 60+ miles per hour.  And it was right along the 'bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond', which were, actually, pretty gorgeous, even in the rain.  Ten or so minutes later, when both our Keds were soaked, we reached the other girl's destination, so I asked for directions to mine.  The lady at the desk of the Loch Lomond Lodge gave me a pity-filled look when I told her where I was headed - 'It's just over five minutes...by car,' she said.  Lovely.  So I started walking.  It took a little too long for me to realize that if the speed limit was 60 mph that meant my destination was at least five miles away.  Great.  But oh, saved - a bus stop!  Right there!  With a bus that goes to Balloch [desired destination]!  In five minutes!!  I am never this lucky!  That's right...I'm never that lucky.  Fifteen minutes later, I saw the small print that said the bus only ran that route until 27 September - it was 1 October.  Of course.  So I went back into the little village I'd just passed through, found the number for the singular taxi in said village, and got a ride to my hostel that cost me more than my round trip bus ticket.  Grrr.

And then.  I'm standing outside of this hostel that looks like a castle, wearing Keds and definitely not walking clothes (tights and a skirt - I thought I was just going to be on the bus), all soaked because it is still raining, ready to drop half of this crazy-heavy backpack of stuff...and there's a sign on the door saying the hostel is closed between the hours of 10 and 3.  It's 10:50.  OH.  Okay.  So after laughing at myself and standing there debating for a few minutes, I went into the woods, hid behind a tree, and changed clothes standing on my raincoat.  In the rain.  And then, slightly more appropriately dressed, I set off.  It was actually a fairly good day after that.  Lots of walking with a heavy backpack through incredible scenery and incredible amounts of rain.  I crashed into bed that night.

Saturday I explored Inveraray Castle, which was beautiful and historical and represented £30 million of amassed fortune by the Campbell clan.  Wow. and hiked up the hill behind it, which gave an incredible view.   I can't even describe it.  I learned a few things about Clan Campbell as well.  (Mom - ask me about it later.)  I saw the entire rest of Inveraray that evening - it literally took me ten minutes to walk slowly from one end of town to the other.  By Sunday I was tired of wandering around small towns and of walking in the rain, so I decided I wanted to do something inside for the day, which required going to a slightly larger town that had inside things to do.  Town of choice: Oban.  It turned out to not be very big and to not have many things to do inside, but by noon the sun was out and shining fiercely.  Oban is this adorable little port town, so I climbed a couple of area hills to get a good view - and it was a really good view.  Unfortunately, the second hill I climbed, though it was lovely with its Colosseum-like monument on top, was the site of my major disaster of the weekend.  Inside the Colosseum thing was a little grassy hill, which was beautiful...but it had been raining, and grass is exceedingly clever in covering up MUD.  I tried to walk down the hill...my foot slid out from under me and I found myself sliding on my butt alllll the way down.  It would have been almost - almost - fun, had I not ended up, predictably, covered in mud.  All over my shoe, up my leg, ALL over my backside, halfway up my arm...oh yeah, and completely covering my poor darling camera, which I happened to be holding in that hand.

That was the true tragedy of the weekend.  I let the mud dry, praying praying praying that it would be okay, and then this morning I gently brushed and picked and blew the dirt off all surfaces and out of cracks, and it worked!!...for half an hour.  Now it's giving me the same error message it did the last time I did this to it (at Big Break two years ago - I got sand stuck in the lens).  The end of that story was me replacing the lens for an inordinately high price.  I don't know what to do.  This is so NOT the time for me to be needing to replace my camera...but I can't spend the rest of the semester in Europe without a camera.  Plan number one is to find one of those pressurized-air things, like you use to clean keyboards, and try to blast the dust out of the lens area.  If that doesn't work, I don't know what I'll do next.  It pains me how AWFUL I am at holding on to ALL electronics.  Why why why??

I'm back home now, with my beloved flatmates, hanging out in our kitchen as usual, and it's surprisingly sweet.  What a weekend.  I'm happy!  Don't get me wrong!  It was stunningly beautiful, and I can't wait to salvage the pictures and show you.  But oh, what a weekend.