Last week's roundup

I've been something of a slacker in the past few days about updating my blog. Well, it hasn't entirely been my fault.

From Wednesday through Saturday, Ella and I were on the oh-so-lovely Isle of Skye, just off the western coast of Scotland. It was incredibly gorgeous - sunny, cool, and truly photogenic. We stayed just outside the little town of Broadford, which is really one street. That's large by Skye standards. Broadford isn't the most happening place on the island, but our B&B in Harrapool was pleasant and inexpensive, and I highly recommend it. What I don't recommend is Creelers, apparently the best restaurant in town, whose sign reads: "Gumbo Shack, Art Gallery, Tapas Bar". (It's a small island, you've got to consolidate. There was also a walking store that sold gifts and lingerie.) Creelers' food was fine, but I'm not about to pay £14 for a bowl of gumbo. No. Quite honestly, I doubt anyone on Skye would know a bowl of gumbo if it jumped up and kissed him.

Portree is the "capital" of Skye, meaning it has more than one road and all the buses pass through it. We took what was essentially the school bus into Portree every morning - there's only one high school on the island, so all the kids piled on and headed in - and then hung out near the pastry shop and cafe for an hour until we could pick up buses north in the 10 AM shift. We took one up to Dunvegan, which has a great little castle and a teeny town; after walking back from the castle, we had to stop a local to ask if there were anywhere we could get food, and she knew of one cafe. The next day, we took a bus on the Trotternish peninsula loop and got off at Duntulm Castle, which, though it was marked with the same icon used at Dunvegan, is little more than a pile of rocks in a sheep pasture. Uncertain what we should do for the next two hours, we decided to walk in the direction of the next bus stop along the one-lane road the serves as the only thoroughfare around the top of the island, passing through Kilmaluag, which is a nearly non-existent settlement with a charming art gallery and a Church of Scotland that alternates Sunday services with Staffin, some fifteen miles down the road. At least the weather was amazingly cooperative - the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the sheep were giving us strange looks.

I returned from Skye on Saturday night, but opted not to blog in favor of bed. Sunday morning was church - a whopping seven in the choir! - and then, about 1 PM, ResNet decided to die.

Grr...

Service was restored yesterday around 11 AM, after we were sent e-mails informing us that Internet service was down. Gee, geniuses, think we couldn't have figured that out on our own?

Last night, I went to the airport to meet Jackie, who had just come off YGC tour and will be living in Edinburgh all summer. As she pointed out, it's amazing to have never met someone and yet to know exactly who and what the other person's talking about. Considering that we know a large chunk of people by virtue of being in the YGC, we had plenty to talk about. I headed home afterwards to catch the last hour or so of Leigh's birthday party, which was complete with Chariots of Fire, an unopened 750ml bottle of Irn-Bru (have fun, Michael), chocolate cupcakes, pin the tail on the donkey with our faces on the tails, balloons, and party hats. After the movie, we engaged in half an hour or so of hitting the balloons around the room, and then Ian and I started fencing with balloons, which worked until mine decided to pop ingloriously. Ah well, he's the better fencer, anyway.

I planned to blog after that, but guess whose ResNet is down again?

Kate's had the brilliant idea to tally the number of hours ResNet is down, calculate the billing rate, and then submit a refund request to Accommodation Services. Not that they would honor it, but it might make us feel better. Jerks.