FIRBUSH!!!

This past weekend I spent up in the Highlands at a lodge called Firbush. This place was AWESOME! I absolutely loved it! It was all log cabin, super comfy and cozy. We left the castle around 5 pm and after we settled into our rooms we got a 3 course meal for dinner! Amazing! The first course was soup and bread, and we all thought that this was the main meal, so we were surpirsed that it was just the appetizer! Then the brought out salad, chips (our fries), ham and keish! It was really good too. For dessert we got this rasberry/blueberry crumble thing with cream.....sooooooo gooood! Then we cleaned the tables and met downstairs for a meeting about our stay here. Dennis, one of the directors, gave us a list of activites that we could choose from. Our options were for friday were high and low level climbing and cross country skiing. After we picked what we wanted to do we went and checked out all the gear we would need. After we all hung out downstairs and mike and Jesse F. ran the bar. It was pretty fun.
Saturday morning we woke up around 8 for breakfast at 8:30. The food here is great! They gave us food to pack for our lunches for that day too. After we had put on our hiking boots and gators and got our gear together we hopped in the vans and were off for the day. I chose to do the high level climbing and I'm so glad I did because we got to climb Ben Lawers, an actual mountain!!! They call them Munro's here, which means mountains that are over 3,000 ft. So I was pretty pumped! We had our rucksacs with our lunches, crampons, water/wind proof pullover suits, and our ice picks! We were ready to go!
We hiked up a ways until we were a little bit above 1,000 ft. It was just before we got into really snowy areas, so Libby and I decided we would rather put our pullovers on now before it the weather got worse. Our suits were all blue, and apparently we looked like smurfs, especially cuz I was wearing my white hat, but at least we were warm! We kept going until we hit the big patches of snow and then we went through some training in case someone slipped and fell down the mountain. It was super fun! Our suits made us slide realy fast, and it was just like going sledding! We first had to slide down without our picks and roll over and stop ourselves by digging our elbows and knees into the snow. Dennis said that sometimes the ice is as hard as wood, and you really can't stop yourself if you slip, even using the ice picks it can be really really hard because the snow is so hard. Luckily for us it was a lot softer. After sliding down a few times we got our ice picks out and Dennis taught us how to hold them and dig them into the snow a certain way to help stop ourselves. We were all having a blast, but we still had a ways to go, so we had to keep climbing.
We stopped at this big rock and sat behind to block the wind while we ate our lunch. The higher we went the more windy it got. Like this was pretty serious wind we were getting into! After we ate our lunch and kept going up higher, people were starting to get knocked over by the wind! It was so strong, and when we were getting up to our highest point it would blow bits of ice and ran so hard! There were times we had to hold our hoods and bend down and just wait for it to pass because you couldn't look up to see anything because you would get pelted in the face. I felt like I was training for Everest! haha There was a point where I realized how intense this was and then I looked at Megan and just started laughing! We were climbing a freaking mountain! I couldn't believe it, it was so exhilerating! What a rush!
We climbed to 400m short of the summit, and Dennis said we had to stop there. The conditions were getting a little too dangerous so this was as far as we were going to go. I was a little bummed, I really wanted to go all the way to the mountains highest point, but we still made it up to cloud level. I remembered when I was on the plane to Scotland and I saw these mountains and they were still brown and snow covered and I wasn't too impressed cuz I wanted to see more green rolling hills, but being there, I don't know how I ever thought that. It was so amazing! I also remembered taking off and what it was like when we were flying right in the clouds. I always liked that, it just seemed cool to be up in the clouds, and here i was again but I was still on land! It was the coolest thing! We tried to take pictures but it was really hard, cuz people would fall over, and we were trying to protect the camera's from the sleet and not let go of them. It was kind of funny, you know you are total tourists when you are on a mountain being blown over, and pelted with ice and you are still trying to take pictures.
We got to slide down half of the way, which was a total blast!!! That is seriously the best way to climb down a mountain! Next Dennis led us to a little cull in between two mountains and he taught us how to check if the snow is safe by carving out a 1x1m block and checking how solid the snow is. Then we went over to another hill of snow and Dennis showed us how to build a shelter if we got stuck there and had to spend the night. We all helped dig the whole and build it, but I also had time to build Herbert, my studly snowman! :) We made some snow angels too! The boys kept trying to kill poor Herbert and they killed Hector, Emily's baby snowman. But they stopped trying to kill Herbert after I made him look super cool. I gave him a face, tie, and top hat out of snow and then they were all sorry they tried to kill him, haha. Herbert turned out to be a super cool snowman. I'm going to really miss him, but he has to man the stand up there.
We visited Dennis's favorite rock, and then started the hike back down. The wind was so much more friendly at this height. The sky got a little bit clearer too, so we had a GREAT view! This was probably one of the highlights of my life so far. I loved every minute of it! It's definately something I would want to do again in the future.
Once we got back we hung our stuff up to dry, ate some nummy cake and hot cocoa that Dennis had put out for us, and then took a nice hot shower! Dinner was tomato soup, parsnips, some meat stuff which was actually really good, potatoes, fruit, and cheese and crackers. Then we got a drink at the bar and got ready for the Celiegh! A Celiegh is like a Scottish gathering where there is dancing and music. We did some traditional dances and it was a lot of fun! After that Dennis played some more recent songs and a little group of us had our own little dance before heading back downstairs to grab a nightcap before bed. We also played some bananagrams, which is a lot like scrabble. It was a nice way to end an amazing day :D

Sunday morning we ate breakfast again at 8:30 and packed ourselves some lunch. Then we went and started suiting up for some kayaking!We put on wet suits, cargouls, and picked out our kayaks and put them in the water. We practiced moving around in their little walled in bay. They also gave us these little skirt things that fit around the hole in the kayak so that we wouldn't drip water into our laps, so that was nice. We started playing tag after everyone made it in the water and it was so much fun! We had 3 people fall in and the water was really cold so I feel for them, but after the instructors got them back in the kayaks and they were moving around again they seemed ok. Dennis then said that statisically nobody should fall in now that three people already did, unless we were a particularly stupid group. So of course just a mere two minutes later two more people fell in! It was hilarious! After we were done playing tag, we paddled out to this little bay area and back. The scenery was breathtaking! It was so cool being out there! It was a good workout too, my shoulders were burning.
When we got back we changed and dryed off, then we ate some lunch and met back downstairs to choose another activity. You could canoe, orienteer, go for a walk, rent some road bikes, chill out, or go mountain biking. I had originally planned to do some mountain biking, but I was pretty tired, but then Emily came and talked me into going. Another workout wasn't going to kill me. I'm really glad I went too, it was really neat. Owen got us all bikes and helmets and then we took off. The first leg of the trip was a slow continuous hill, but I was already dying!The hills were not so much fun. We made it to this cute little cottage, and a we stopped up there cuz it had a nice view of the loch. Then we got to ride downhill (my favorite part!) through a pretty rocky muddy trail and it was a blast! I got totally splattered, but it was super fun. Owen took us to a few different places around the loch, but my favorite was this old ruin. The Campbell's were the major clan in the area so he thinks it might have belonged to them. It was kinda neat, cuz even though the Campbell's were involved in a really bad betrayal and massacre of the McDonald clan, that is my clan that I was assigned to in the house. Anyways, they had a holly tree up on this little hill where they used to hang people, and a pit right in front of the house that they used for beheading. They also had a mosoluem there too, and we climbed around the house a bit too. It was soooo old, but it was so neat, cuz it wasn't rebuilt or anything. This was the actual original and everything! I liked that.
We ate a good supper when we got back and packed up to leave soon after. I ended up sitting in the front next to Dennis and we talked the whole way back home. That was cool too, cuz he had a lot of neat stories about the job and the training he had to go through to get certified. It was pretty intense! I think he has one of the coolest jobs ever though! We had a really good conversation and we joked about me being their secret stowaway. I sooooo didn't want to leave! I still miss so bad and it's only been like two days! This was the first time I've really felt right at home since I've left the states. I'm so going back there someday! Especially since Dennis was telling me about their windsrufing camps they have in the summer! Windsufing!!! Ah! This place was meant for me! This was definately the BEST weekend ever!