The Cairngorms and Canadians

The Cairngorms are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland which became part of Scotland’s second national park (the Cairngorms National Park) in 2003. Canadians (specifically those hailing from Montréal) are a group of maple-syrup-drinking, poutine-eating, adventure seeking, lovely people–of whom befriended during my time in the land of Scots.

My friend Kate (who is from Quebec, Canada) has two friends in town visiting her this week. I’m lucky because they’re super adventurous and are down for anything–only thing I do not like about them is that they refuse to admit that field hockey is better than ice hockey. The first night they got here, even though they were only running on like 6 hours of sleep between the both of them, they came to the Ceilidh. The following day Kate and I showed them around the city, going to places such as the Castle and Calton Hill.

One super cool thing was that we went into the High Kirk of Edinburgh,  St. Giles. Inside there was a live orchestra playing the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean (one of my favourites). If you want to hear it watch this:

We then made plans to climb Ben Nevis the next day. Ben Nevis is the tallest mountain in the British Isles. Unfortunately, the car we were renting could not be picked up earlier than 8am and Ben Nevis is a 4.5 hr drive away. Oh and the mountain takes roughly 8 hrs to go up and down. Sooooooo that’s quite a trek. Therefore we instead decided to go to Cairngorms National Park instead and do a cool trail called Meall a’ Bhuachaille. Pictures of this hike show it under a beautiful sunny sky:

However, when we went it was super cloudy and insanely windy (you can see us holding onto our caps and leaning against the wind in the pictures below).  Thank you, good ol’ fashioned Scottish weather.

And of course the sun came out right as we got back to our car.

But that’s what makes it fun, right? It wouldn’t be Scotland without rain, wind, and clouds coating the sky. Even when I thought I was going to literally be blown off the top of the mountain I was loving it. Except for when Kate and I thought it would be a good idea to high five and our hands were so cold that I kid you not, no high five has ever been more painful… except for maybe when I challenged Flo to do a high-five like Todd from Scrubs and he met the challenge (Drew if you actually do read my blog like you claim to do you’ll text me about scrubs) (update: Drew never messaged me. I guess he doesn’t read my blog).

Funny points:

• Kate spilled her water bottle in the car and created a legit LAKE in the back part of the car. #neverforget