I’m in my second day on Skye now.
This is the best decompression from the city. It’s
like Western zen or something.  |
| Girl adventured across on the ferry! This is Jimmy. |
The first day I was here was an adventure. There were no
buses running from the pier, because it was Sunday, so the guy who works at the
ferry office was like, “oh, I’ll give you a lift. It’s just a couple miles. Let
me just get this next boat out.” So then I rode with him and a fellow named
Bob. We went through the village—it was either Sleate or Armadale, not sure—and
then I got dropped off at Sabhal Mor Ostaig (pronounced: SAHl-mor OH-steg).
I was there super early so the lady at reception, Ruth, let
me go to church with her. It was a tiny little Church of Scotland. Then we had
a “wee blether,” in which she taught me some beginning Gaelic phrases. I
quickly bought books on learning Gaelic.
I also did some exploring. It’s very quiet here, and not
easy to get places, so much of my “entertainment” has been exploring.
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| An Tur- the Tower- where the girl is staying! |
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| Footpath she found in the front of the school... |
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| ...that led down to this view. |
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| The church |
The first day of classes was definitely an adventure. In the Acting class, there are three
students and two teachers. The drama workshops we did would maybe have been
simple, except for the fact that I speak no Gaelic. There is one girl in the
class who is fluent, and another who is pretty intermediate. I had been told,
however, that the course was bilingual,
so it would be okay if I didn’t know any, and the instructors are incredibly
kind and patient with me. I’ve already started to learn a tiny bit. I’m also
getting better at simply reading the words and knowing how to pronounce them,
since they are not pronounced phonetically at all.
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| The view from her window |
In the evening there was a pub quiz at the campus pub. I sat
at a table with a lady named Lorna from Stirling, Scotland, a lady named
Monique from Switzerland, and a fellow whose name I didn’t catch from Dublin.
There is also a music course going on, so after the pub
quiz, people started pulling out fiddles and cellos and there was also a
bagpipe.
