'My Journey Through Scotland' - Part Two: Kyleakin
Soon after we drove away from Inverness, the beautiful forests and waterfalls began to appear. I was blown away by how many waterfalls you can observe everywhere we went, as well as the deer. Our friend brought her best Scottish friend with us, who is also her neighbor in the village—a very cool guy, with whom they explained some words, customs, and plans they had for us. For once, we were invited to a typical Scottish dinner with the family of my friend's boyfriend. I was very excited about it; I wanted to experience as much of the culture as I could. The only thing that disturbed me a little, and what usually disturbs me, is very religious people. Extreme everything is extreme. They turned out to be okay, but more on that later.
Now we were on our way to the village, and it was getting darker and darker with no baggage. The company, which I was overall very happy with, promised to bring the baggage to where we were headed in the next couple of days. That didn’t sound great, but the baggage arrived by the end of the next day. To be honest, on the first day, the weather was so bad that we did nothing. We enjoyed our company and stayed with our friend in her boyfriend's Scottish house on the shores of Kyleakin. The house had this northern, slightly vintage style, and the Inner Sound of the sea and Loch Alsh were in front of us. The view was incredible, and whenever you were in the house, you could just dive into the most amazing views. Living next to water is a dream of mine, and here we were spending time in a new place, previewing what could be. She mentioned that there are seals here and there, and particularly one that we saw by the end of our visit often passes by the house, making sure that he is heard. I was ecstatic. Seeing seals was not on the menu, but hearing that they pass by the house we were staying in was more than I could take. I love seals, of every size. She also mentioned that there are otters playing under the house. Cuteness overload. Plus, the enormous supply of deer everywhere quickly made Scotland a must-see destination again. I saw a video of people chasing whales and orcas not far from us, but it is extremely hard to capture such a moment. You must be familiar with their patterns or extremely lucky to capture even a glimpse from afar. Still, I was constantly looking, expecting to see an orca every second. I didn’t, but I wasn’t disappointed. Beautiful, beautiful country that changed so many views before us everywhere we went. But like I said, due to the ongoing Scottish weather and our baggage being in Amsterdam, we went nowhere the first two days.
One of the things I love to do when experiencing a new culture is to explore the food, music, and language. I became more familiar with some Scottish words like ‘cheerio,’ ‘aye,’ and ‘loch,’ which sounded very playful to me. I was surprised to find out that some artists are actually Scottish. On this trip, I discovered that Amy Macdonald and Shirley Manson are from here. For both, it didn’t cross my mind that they were even from Europe, let alone Scotland. As soon as I left the country, I started to recognize how much Scottish culture I had been listening to and reading, yet I didn’t have a clue that they were from this lovely part of the world. And with that accent, some of you may say it’s impossible not to recognize it, but those artists never sounded like the Scotsman from ‘Samurai Jack.’ After I started listening to interviews with Manson, I couldn’t unhear it. Apparently, they lose most of their Scottish accent while singing, and while they are talking, it is inevitably recognizable. We decided to buy some stuff, and food is really one of the keys to a culture. The rituals revolving around the kitchen or the shop in that story are very interesting to watch and experience. Many of the sweets were very delicious; I remember buying almost every kind of sweet from there the first night. The shop was outside the village. The 40-minute walk was the shortest amount of time for shopping if you didn’t have a car. The bridge connecting Scotland with the island was so beautiful that during our trip we crossed it many times; no car or bike was another main reason. The buses were on a specific schedule, and it took a while to learn how to use them, but eventually, we got the gist of it. Scotland was unfolding before us, and we were not even at the beginning of our real journey. The places we saw in the following days were the actual reason I will visit the country again.
Our baggage arrived on the evening of the second day, which we spent in the house due to the rain and winter vibes. It seems like you have around one month of lovely weather, mate, and during the rest of the year, it’s cheerio, something between winter and something else. It is wet. Coming to another country to stay in one place and not being able to see what you were going for started to be a little scary. Although our friend made sure that we were okay and had everything at our disposal, the thought of spending another day in the house was driving me insane. So we walked around the village for a while and quickly went to sleep, taking the best showers and wearing our freshly traveled clothes. Tomorrow was coming quickly, and we realized that time here is about to speed up as the visit goes on.
Iliya Badev
(Those photos cannot express the beauty I saw, keep that in mind)
#myjourneythroughscotland
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