Hebrides Day 1: A Trip to Town

We woke up early, as we had been want to do in Scotland, and were served a traditional Scottish breakfast. Actually we’ve been treated with this basic meal everywhere we’ve stayed, many times to my chagrin. Here’s the massive breakfast: Toast and bad coffee or good tea with cereal or yogurt if we desire, followed eventually by a half baked tomato (I love tomatoes when they’re raw but when I eat these I have to choke them down) a few odd sausage links (I’ve always hated sausage links. I think it’s the casing that makes me feel ill, because I’m fine when it’s ground sausage), and egg (mmm) and two strips of what they call bacon here, but would be called ham in America. Their “bacon” is kind of interesting. I suspect it’s cooked but not prepared in the same style as American bacon, because it does bear a slight resemblance to American bacon in the taste. Still, I much prefer the American version.

After breakfast we determined that a trip to the shops of Sternoway was urgently required. My father needed a memory card reader to save his pictures onto his computer, freeing up space in his camera. After such an amazing week I was hoping for some internet access being that I had not yet booked hostel reservations, nor indeed found hostels, for my nights in Munich and Geneva. Hell, I hadn’t even figured out how I was getting from Edinburgh to Belgium once my family abandoned me. My mother, the grand charter of our expedition, wanted to stop at the tourist office. For the record, She really did plan it all without much assistance from the rest of us, except where she insisted on having our input. We’ve all been quite happy to sit back and enjoy the Lorraine Tour guide. And naturally, my brother just plain enjoys shopping, especially in odd places, so off we went.

The public library in Scotland offers free internet access – not an uncommon thing in America, but a saving grace here, where internet cafés charge two bucks for 15 minutes of access.

After we’d all done our things, we wandered the shops and happened upon a lovely little wool store tucked away, almost hidden, in an alley. All three males of my family bought ourselves Scottish-style (perhaps better known as Newsies style) wool caps, and I think we all love our hats (and I think my mother is jealous that they’re definitely a male-only look). I also found and purchased a green sack-pack I found. For those of you who have seen it, it kind of reminded me of the style of Grindcore’s hippy-sack.

The man who owned the shop was the most insanely friendly person I have ever encountered. He taked our ears off about things I cannot fully remember, such as American football, fishing, and where we should visit in Scotland. This included running up his stairs and grabbing some fishing rods he owned to demonstrate for my father and brother (the fishermen of my family) how to use them for fly fishing. He also ended up bringing down maps from his upstairs for him to excitedly show us places and routes he strongly recommended, some for fishing and some just for their beauty. He spent a great deal of time ranting about Harris, how wonderful it was, and how we had to go. It took me at least 20 minutes to make him notice that I had picked out and anted to purchase my green sack. He was quite helpful and definitely a character. He’s the reason we later actually went to Harris, though we had earlier decided not to.

As a last stop we picked up a few baguettes and hunks of cheese as a picnic lunch (some at St. Mary’s may be aware just how much I enjoy this particular meal) and picked up a variety of meat pastries and a couple of varied bottles of beer for a later picnic dinner. Food, caps, and sack in hand (that’s not what I mean, pervert) we departed for our second destination of the day, the standing stones of Calanais.