Glen Affric Walk

I set out to walk through Glen Affric, the finest of all Scotland's glens, and while the walk was truly fine it was also truly wet. So finally, you get the whole picture about Scotland: sometimes it does rain here!

Click here for the map.

Happy Birthday Me!

I was DELIGHTED by all my mail! Thank you!

The Finest of All Scotland's Glens

Taken from walkhighlands.co.uk:

By common consent, Glen Affric is the finest of all Scotland's glens. It features a fabulous variety of scenery and is deservedly popular with walkers. The glen begins amongst the steep, bare mountains of Kintail far in the west.Further downriver is beautiful Loch Affric, at the foot of the highest mountains north of the Great Glen. The middle part of the Glen is a National Nature Reserve, magnificently wooded with Scots Pine - one of the last remnants of the original Caledonian Forest.

And this is where I am spending a few days with my boots, my backpack and a tent.

One-Day-One-Job Challenge - Day 2

On day two of my one day one job hunting challenge I applied for the first time for an applications engineer position. And the only reason that I did that was because it is in fact an

Applications Engineer (Infrared Spectroscopy)

A Short Dictionary of Scottish Hills

Sorted by height in descending order.

• Munro: The munros are Scottish mountains over 3000 feet (914.4 m) high. Nowadays, there are 282 munros, but that can change if heights are newly measured with modern and more precise technology. The name comes from Sir Hugh Munro who first listed them in 1891. People climbing munros to check them off their lists are called "munro-baggers" and their ambition is to climb them all because they are there.

• Corbett: Corbetts are hills in Scotland between 2500 and 3000 feet high, and there are 221 of them.

• Graham: Grahams are hills in Scotland between 2000 and 2500 feet high, and there are 224 of them.

• Donald: Donalds are hills in the Scottish Lowlands which are higher than 2000 feet. There are 89 of them.

All this and more can be found on my currently favourite walking website: Walkhighlands.co.uk.

Another Walk in the Pentlands

Should I ever need to remind myself again why I moved to Edinburgh, a walk in the Pentlands usually does the trick.

It was another fine hot Scottish summer day (20°C and sunny) and I took a few buses toward the south east corner of the Pentlands National Park. With good connections the trip should take a bit longer than an hour, but I missed the final bus by seconds and had no idea when and if there was another bus coming. Sitting at the bus stop and mulling over my options

One-Day-One-Job Challenge - Day 1

I do not love job hunting.

Five Magpies Are Sitting in front of my Window

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.

One-Day-One-Job Challenge

My job hunting progress has been slow and unsuccessful so far, as I have been enjoying life and living in Scotland. But as the summer is coming to an end, I am now committing to a new challenge: I hereby publicly announce my sincerest intention to apply for one job each working day until my savings run out and I need to go back to Germany and claim unemployment benefits. Wish me luck and stamina.

Winner

I won two tickets for a reading at the Edinburgh International Book Festival!

'Tis the Season

It's festival season in Edinburgh.

Festival Carnival

Every summer the craziness happens, Edinburgh fills up with people, rent and hotel prices sky-rocket, students sublet their flats and move to the countryside, tents, stages and arenas are set up all over the city for the Edinburgh Jazz&Blues Festival, the Art Festival, the Military Tattoo, the Festival Fringe, and the International Festival. This is a big deal here and affects everyone - even me who lives in the outskirts of the city and doesn't have much business in the centre.

When I had a dog

I once had a dog. I found him at a beach on Skye where he jumped around in the water barking at seagulls and then at his own echo coming off the cliffs. He was reasonably well-behaved, quite upbeat and self-sufficient. He drank water from the streams and ate grass. He liked watching me eat, too, from up close. He followed me along the beach, up the cliffs and across the heather. When I climbed over gates he found holes in the fence. Such a smart dog. I called him Go Away but he wouldn't listen.

Scraped Knees and Tetanus

I scraped my knee quite badly when my bike and I took a dip in the canal. I had always thought that wounds heal best when they are left to dry after cleaning, and form scabs which fall off after some time. But according to my mum, according to my paediatrician, it's better to leave the wound covered. This way, it will heal better and leave less scars. I can see that, since scab can rip and break (or get pulled off), especially on the knee. So I have been washing my knee once a day, putting some ointment on it and a bandage loosely on top (it's too big for band-aids). It looks like it's healing fine although it stays oozy due to the ointment. But I am sure all signs of it will be gone by the time I marry :)

More Phone Yawn

While I am waiting for my care package from Germany with a replacement mobile phone (my phone fatally drowned), I am now using my flatmate's mum's phone with extra big buttons. I love the big buttons! Also, I am experiencing life without 24/7 access to social networks, e-mail, and Google maps - interesting and not all bad.

Water Damage

When your phone takes a dip there is a great chance that it will survive it if you do things right. After serious water intrusion (in my case my phone was in my trouser's pocket when I fell into the canal, and it took me maybe a minute to get out) you will have to have it cleaned by a specialist to prevent corrosion, but that is actually not that expensive (GBP 20 in Edinburgh for an iPhone).

A Dream Come True

Have you ever felt really, really good after doing or achieving something that you have worked for or planned for a long time? I remember my elation when I submitted my PhD thesis and never had to look at it ever again - it was a huge relief and like a heavy weight taken off my chest. Or when I received my postdoc fellowship - I opened the letter right in front of the mailbox in the hallway and danced up the stairs to my apartment and couldn't wait to call and tell my parents. And when I eventually lived in Princeton, it was so cool, it sometimes felt unreal. And then all the things that happened last year when I was travelling and dancing and hiking, there were moments when it felt like a dream come true.

July's Giving Me the Blues

This month, I am giving the blues another try. Blues dancing looks great, feels really nice, and doesn't come easily to me. I find it difficult because the music is really slow, and it is harder to maintain balance with the body weight on one foot all the time. I have always meant to get into it, did the occasional beginners' lesson, and even went to a workshop in New York City once (see here and here), but never had access to regular, weekly classes until now. For three weeks now, I have been taking two weekly lessons plus social dancing, and I am going to a workshop this weekend. I thought that while I am still light-years away from my hard-earned lindy hop skills I can at least more or less follow most blues moves. However, today I was asked by one guy I was dancing with if today had been my first blues lesson, and by another if I even liked blues music...

I guess I didn't do too well after all.

I emptied my inbox

Feels good.

Isle of Skye

I had just gotten back from Germany last week when my flatmate invited me to come along on a camping/kayaking/hiking trip to the northwest of Scotland the same weekend. And along I came.

Edinburgh Life

I have spent a month in Edinburgh now, and here's what I have been up to:

My friend Kaitlin came up here from London, and we spent a few days hillwalking and whisky-distillery visiting in Pitlochry. The weather was decent, and Pitlochry quite charming. Especially, when the lady in the distillery who sold us the tickets for the tour recognized me from the pub where we had had a few pints the night before. I had asked for what I was always drinking - Guinness and Black - which sparked banter at the bar with several bar staff and locals who were making fun of people who ordered Guinness and Black, but mostly of the young man behind the bar who had admitted to this sin to make me feel better. Guinness and Black is Guinness beer with a big splash of blackcurrant cordial.