I apologize in advance for this post being borderline novel.
Continued from my last real post which was oh so long ago (light years in internet world)...we were in Lochmaddy on North Uist. The bad weather continued into Sunday (June 26). That morning we slept in because church didn't start until 12. Late! We walked there in the rain. I don't recommend wearing dress shoes in that situation. I was surprised to see a lot of cars in the small lot and on the street. We made it inside and were greeted and showed to our seats. There were over 50 people there so it was pretty full in the small room. This church was similar to the Welsh church we visited the other week in that there was absolutely no talking before the service started. Once it started, there was some singing of psalms, prayer, and scripture reading. Then the minister gave a message. They were having communion too so we thought we were going to get to experience that but when it came up in the service, they only passed the plate and cup to the pews that had white cloths on them, which was about the front half of the pews. So we didn't get to partake and were confused for a little bit, but we got to watch at least. Afterwards, something we noticed was that everyone got out of the church very quickly. No waiting around or fellowship at all. It was really raining by now and a really nice lady offered to drop us off so we didn't have to walk in the rain. Very thankful for that.
Sunday night, we went and talked with the man that the hostel keeper woman had told us about. She was very helpful actually because she called him for us and let him know about everything without us even asking! His name is Norman and he was great. The interview went well and then we just sat around and talked for an hour. He had a lot of stories! He was a military man back in the day. He also told us about this geneology place on Harris that we should check out. That was exciting to hear because in each new place we have a hard time getting leads on where to find people.
Sunday night, I got to finally talk with Emily! Shout out! I owe that to Skype, my long lost friend. But let me back track one day for a second. Saturday, I went to a hotel near us that advertised free wifi. We first saw this promoted Friday night and went and ate dinner there. Well, Saturday I went and used the internet again. After awhile the head lady person came out and told us we couldn't use their wifi unless we had bought something at their restaurant/bar and she would change the password on the network if we kept using it. It was quite scary because she sounded really ticked off. I understand where she was coming from, but I was just annoyed that they advertise it as "free" when it's not at all. Rant over. Anyways, that night I used internet to talk to my family. Shout out! I hope you guys had a fun reunion! I wish I could have been there! Sunday we went to the same hotel except we bought something right away to not cause any confusion whatsoever. That same lady was there though and was making me nervous but we made it through...
Monday, we went out and got our last minute stuff of Lochmaddy. I got some b-roll of the village and we went to the art center/museum/store thing to talk with the manager to see about an interview. He was more than willing! We did that and then also bought a few things from the store there. They have tablet there (which Scotland is known for apparently) and we got some vanilla kind. It's so awesome! It tastes like every good vanilla cake and ice cream mixed into one. Another thing about that place...it was called "Taigh Chearsabhagh" but every time I looked at it, my American brain said "cheeseburger," so that's what I called it to myself. And "taigh" is "house" so it was cheeseburger house! Far from it's actual purpose but amusing to me.
Monday night. Repacking. Ugh.
But the weather was clear all day so the sunset was pretty much awesome! I decided to run outside and get a timelapse of it. I set the camera up near a fencepost and got it going. It was going for a while and then out of nowhere this horse came running up from the field that the fence is surrounding. It came right up on the camera and us standing there and almost knocked it over so the timelapse was cut short but then we got to play with the horse so it was all good. And a little colt too! Oh and we saw two otters in the water outside our window later that night! OTTERS ARE SO CUTE.
Tuesday, we caught a bus to Berneray to get on a ferry to Leverburgh on the Isle of Harris. We found our hostel and we liked it right away. It looked so cool inside. I definitely took some pictures of it. But after that we went and walked around the village. They had a Co-op! So we felt like we had so much variety to choose from when we shopped for our food compared to where we had been before in Lochmaddy. That night, we walked around some more and finally got to experience true Scotland weather. What is that, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. That's when one minute it's sunny and bright and then the next it's raining cats and dogs. And cold. So naturally I wasn't dressed for the occasion and my shoes and jeans got soaked. Fun times. But it really was fun (minus the fact I was scared that my camera was getting soaked too) because we saw a bunch of sheep doing funny things. Like during the rain, they totally just stood there and stared, completely still as rocks...but still chewed their grass. It was a funny sight. And I got video of it so it can be a funny sight for you too!
Wednesday, we walked to Northton, which is about 3 to 4 miles from Leverburgh. That's where that geneology/exhibition/visitor center that Norman told us about is located. When we got there, we talked to the wife of the man who started this place (really she co-manages it) and she agreed to do an interview later that afternoon. We didn't want to walk an hour back Leverburgh just to walk another hour back to Northton so to waste time until then, we walked to a beach nearby. It was huge and the dunes were probably a mile wide. It was so crazy! And it rained on and off. That is the theme of this location, I think. Also, here we have seen WAY more sheep than on any of the other isles. My sheep picture count skyrocketed. And it doesn't help that all of their faces remind me of my dog. After frolicking in the rain and sand dunes, we came back to talk with the woman, Chris, and it went really well! She is a native Gaelic speaker and had a lot of opinions on Gaelic and its culture so I think it was worth the effort of getting to this place. After the interview we talked with her for an hour and swapped stories. It was a good time indeed.
That night we went for another little walk (this time hoping it wasn't going to pour like it did the previous night). Well, it didn't pour, but it did rain. But this time it was sunny while it rained. It was wet but it was still such a beautiful sight. Elise and I wished there was some way to capture that moment of being there for others to experience it. Pictures and even video don't do it justice at all. And for weather, the conclusion I've come to is always be prepared for sun, rain, cool, cold, and colder. Someone in the hostel said there's a saying here "there's no such thing as bad weather. Just bad clothes." True that.
Back at the hostel, we talked awhile with a couple from mainland Scotland staying there. For being just hostel-mates, I'd say we got to know them really well and I enjoyed being with them!
Thursday, we went to the elementary school in Leverburgh to see if there were any possible interviews of Gaelic teachers we could get. We didn't know, but it was the last day of school (gosh, I would have hated going to school until the very end of June) so there wasn't a lot going on which was good for us. We actually got to talk with 2 of the Gaelic teachers there and they both agreed to an interview. Success!
After the school, we were going to walk to some of the churches around the area. They have 3 within a mile of each other. As we walked up to the first one, a woman from out of nowhere came up and started talking to us and told us the churches were locked during the week and we wouldn't be able to get in. After we told her what we were doing in Scotland with the video stuff and just wanted to check and see if the churches were open, she mentioned that she was a Christian and that we should talk to a lady named Diane who worked at the post office who was also a Christian. So our next stop was given to us just like that!
We then talked to Diane and she agreed to do a video interview. Since we knew she was a Christian, a lot of what we asked her was more surrounding the religious aspect of Scotland and the Gaelic culture. We just sat in the post office and filmed her and then after it was over we just sat there and hung out with her until she closed. It was really fun to just hang out with her! She acted like we had known each other for years.
So Leverburgh was good for us and God definitely showed He knew what was up the whole time especially when things came together Thursday. And on the whole, our time in Lochmaddy really discouraged Elise and me with just the way things were happening so it was a very needed reminder of who is in control.
Friday was another travel day. By this point I think we were both slightly tired of these days (since we have like 10 of them!) but this time, all we had to do is bus travel, so that was a plus. The Isle of Lewis is the same land mass as the Isle of Harris so I'm not sure why they are called separate isles. You can google that. But anyway, we arrived in South Galson around 2. Our first impression wasn't a good one in terms of getting video footage because of how small it was. It is basically one street, about a half mile long of houses and then our hostel (which is a house). Not a lot to choose from. Then our attention quickly turned to food and where we were going to buy some for the coming days because we didn't see any place to get any and had no means of transportation except our own feet. We found out the nearest local grocer was in the next village, 3 miles away so we walked there to get some. Little geography tidbit: Harris is relatively mountainous and hilly. Lewis is the EXACT opposite. It is so flat and there are probably only 32 trees on the entire island. So as I was walking along that road to the store, the sight was crazy, especially for me, considering I'm from a part of America so different from this. I kept thinking it really looked like Davy Jones' locker in Pirates 3 except instead of sand on the ground, it is green and brown mush stuff.
A little later, the other people sharing our room came in and it was the same people we had roomed with in Leverburgh 2 nights ago! Small world! And small islands. They are a mother and a grown son from mainland Scotland. We had a TV (I had forgotten what that was...) in this hostel so we watched Wimbledon games all afternoon with them. Fun fact: I forgot that I really like tennis and need to keep up with it better and play more in real life. Back to blog: For dinner she made haggis and potatoes for her and her son, but she gave us some too so we could trhy. I decided to give it another chance to see if I really didn't like it or that other time was a fluke. It still had that same stale chef boyardee sauce taste though. So the verdict on haggis is (drumroll please): I can keep it down and would be okay if someone forced me to eat it, but I would choose many other things in place of it and would be fine never eating it again. After all that, we explored the beach area nearby. It's really beautiful. I would never think "beach" when I think Scotland but this trip has changed that definitely. At least the islands of Scotland.
Saturday, we had made plans to go to Callanish to see the standing stones there. They're older than Stonehenge! Look them up. Based on experience from last weekend (Saturday and Sunday especially are dead days unless you're a tourist), we were going to do a little sightseeing while still keeping an eye out for anyone to interview while there. So I figured out the buses we had to take and we set out. Our first bus was 7 minutes late however. Problem. That made us miss our next bus (and another wasn't going to Callanish for another 3 hours) so we went into a gas station nearby and got some candy to keep us busy for an hour. That's when the next bus to Stornoway was. So our plans changed to an afternoon trip to Stornoway. By the way, Stornoway is the largest town in the Outer Hebrides and at that time was our next (and last) stop. We scoped out the place so when we got there later we could know where to start. We went to the library (this is when I blogged my last post saying I was in the library).
Back in South Galson that night, we had a movie night and explored the beach some more. Only here you can watch 2 movies and walk around for hours, doing all this after 7pm and it still be light outside the whole time. But yeah one British channel plays a lot of movies so that's usually what we had on.
There was no church near us at all...well, in terms of walking distance. So Sunday we pretty much stayed in a lot of the day and worked on stuff. I did some video stuff and watched the Wimbledon final. I figured out Nadal reminds me of Taylor Lautner for some reason so that means I like him. Later on, Elise decided to go into the water at the beach because she told someone she would. Of course, that turned into me filming her getting into the really cold water. And this beach isn't a beach like what I'm used to. It was basically all rocks and stones in place of sand and there were a lot of rocks in the water too so when the tide is in, it's super rocky. So getting in the water didn't look like fun at all. But she did it!
Monday, we were ready to get some things done after being on hold for the weekend. We got on a bus to an area called Ness, a few miles north of South Galson, near the very northern tip of the island. There are about 3 communities really close together that we wanted to explore. First, we stopped in Habost at a small historical society museum. It was all local history of Ness and was really interesting to read about that. We even got complimentary tea (gross) and candy (yay!). After we looked through all the museum, we talked with the woman there which led to an interview! Once we finished there, we just wandered around the villages seeing what we could find. We came up on a sports center in Lionel and we talked to the lady at the front desk for awhile. Once she heard about us wanting to talk to people about Gaelic and that whole thing, she was on the phone calling everyone she knew that might be able to help! She was so willing to help! It was crazy! But she did call one man named Donald who drove right over and did an interview for us! And in his interview, he talked a lot about Christianity and I got the feeling he was a Christian from what he was saying. I was very happy we got to talk to him.
Next, in hopes of talking to more people, we decided to walk to a school nearby that had a historical exhibition going on. Well, God had other plans. As we were walking along the road, we passed a house where an older woman was gardening in her front yard (by the way, a lot of the houses here have gates or walls of some sort around their front yards). Her two border collies were out there in the yard with her too so I noticed that cuteness right away. As I have done with everyone here (because I learned really quickly this is just what people do here no matter what), I said hello and waved. Normally, people just wave back or say hi and leave it at that. This woman said hi and then some! Also one of the dogs jumped up on the gate to try to get us to pet him. So cute. But she asked if we were tourists and then we told her what we were doing there with Gaelic and stuff. Then within like 1 minute of knowing us, she invited us in for tea to refresh us on our way! We went in her house and she made the tea and gave us some cookies and cake as well. Then we sat around for about an hour talking. Even some of the talk was in Gaelic! It was so awesome! I didn't even notice (well, too badly) how much I hate tea as I gulped it down to not be rude. Being there definitely made Elise's and my day! After we left her house, we thought about how that would have been a great interview. But I was thinking, I know that is so trivial in the grand scheme of things. Even on this trip, video is secondary. Our main goal is always to share our lives with the people and be an example of Christ to others and I think us sharing this time together was a great part of that. Plus, she said if we ever came back we were welcome there. Pretty good deal if you ask me. AND I got my border collie pictures finally. Ryley will be proud.
One other thing about yesterday: I got to experience the wonderful thing known as the stinging nettle (something else you can google). It is this plant here in the UK that John first told us about in Wales. And the first thing he said was to stay away from it. Well, as you can tell from the name, it stings. I accidentally touched one with my leg (of course on the only day this whole time I decided to wear shorts). And it was insanely painful! It looked like 100 mosquitoes had bitten me in one area. I survived though. No worries. So I have that experience checked off on my life's to do list.
Tuesday, today, finally caught up! Today, we left South Galson and headed to our final stop, Stornoway. Stornoway is really not that big of a town at all, but compared to the other places we have been, it seems like New York City. Since we had already had a afternoon in Stornoway in place of the Callanish stones on Saturday, we decided to go see the stones this afternoon after we got settled in the hostel and got food. Even though they are just stones standing in the ground, it was neat to see them and all the history there.
Later on after dinner tonight, we were hanging around at the hostel and a guy came to collect our pay to stay there. It was slightly weird at first because we are already paid for and it was confusing but we worked it out and then talked with the guy about what we were doing here. After learning about our interest in Gaelic, he stopped us and told us he had just the guy for us. He got out his phone and called him right then! And then the man he called said he would be over in 5 minutes! Completely crazy! Things are just falling in our lap now! We talked with him and went to a pub next door to talk some more. He is totally a Gaelicaholic. I just made that word up. It's fun to say. But I think it sums him up. He is also a storyteller so that's an interesting twist. He offered to be a tour guide of sorts around Stornoway tomorrow and he works at the Gaelic radio station and invited us there too. I think he is going to be awesome to say the least. Things are going well for our last few days and God has definitely provided us with opportunities that we couldn't even have imagined and for that I am and will always be thankful. He's way more creative than I am anyway...
We'll be here in Stornoway until Friday morning. Then we'll travel by ferry/bus to Glasgow and stay there Friday night. Saturday to Monday, we'll be in Manchester for debriefing with all the video teams and then home sweet home!
If you have read this far, I commend you greatly! And you deserve a hug from me. You may cash it in the next time you see me.
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