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Oban and McCaig's Tower (looks like the colosseum in Rome)

This weekend (10. - 12. March 2006) we did our first weekend trip with the International Society. We travelled to the West coast to visit the town (or should we say “village”?) called Oban ("little bay" in Gaelic), as well as the isles of Mull and Iona.

We left Aberdeen on Friday evening at 5 pm.

After an uneventful 4 1/2h bus ride and the threat of heavy snow fall predicted for Saturday, we finally reached the youth hostel in Oban.  We were really lucky that we only had to share our room with 4 other people (the other dormitories contained 10!!), but our room mates weren’t girls who came from Aberdeen with us. The 4 girls (2 Australians and 2 Americans) luckily were really very nice.

Mull

After everybody settled down, some of the boys of our group (Italians!) prepared pasta with fresh, self- made sauce (including an extra sauce for vegetarians *yay for Tina*) for the entire group (49 people altogether!). It was really chaotic and we ended up eating around midnight but it was worth the wait! It tasted really great!

The next morning, we had to leave the hostel at 7 am (what a shock!) since we had to catch our ferry 8 am for our 45 min transfer to the island of Mull. The weather during the transfer was really nice and the sea was very calm. Mull is really deserted.  There is only one doctor and one dentist on the entire island who care for the inhabitants by touring the island in a caravan staying a few days in each village.

Iona

Instead of being populated by mostly humans, Mull is populated by hundreds of sheep and even a couple of Galloway cattle, who involuntarily became heavily thought after photo models for some of us. During the one hour long crossing of the island we were able to find out for ourselves that besides those animals and the handful of people, there is truly NOTHING on this island.

During the approximately 10 min transfer to Iona, the sea wasn’t as calm as before, and the weather visibly worsened.

Iona is a very beautiful island. In the summer, the beaches look tropical! On Iona, you can really relax and enjoy nature without any contact to the outside world (no phone, no internet) Marko, the president of the society (an Austrian btw), then led us to an old, restored abbey where he had booked a short tour for us.

Duart Castle, Mull

After we had finished our tour around the castle (unfortunately we couldn’t go inside, because it was closed), the committee insisted on taking a couple of group photos. Now, the question was to find a way of taking a picture of the entire group without leaving someone out to take the picture and nobody else being around to take it.

unbelievable how much snow can fall in one night (about 30cm/12in from Saturday to Sunday)

The answer: take cameras equipped with an automatic release, put them on wall, set the automatic release, and try to run down the stairs as quickly as possible to rejoin the rest of the group posing there. Easier said then done!! Just imagine, 5 poor photographers, who would have reached the group just in time for the picture, if the wind had not thrown the cameras of the wall right before the photo was taken!!!! Luckily, thick grass buffered the fall of the cameras so that we were able to repeat the process several times without damaging the cameras. The funniest moment probably was when all cameras except Marko´s where thrown of the wall, and we still were hoping that it would finally work with his camera, when it suddenly fell backwards on the wall! We all burst into hysterical laughter because we thought that the camera had taken a picture of the sky, when Marko triumphantly announced that the camera had managed to do its job just in time. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to pose with the group in time, so the camera took the picture when he was in mid air, desperately trying to reach the group in time . After this more then hilarious photo session and a short visit to a local pub, we finally returned to Oban.

We met up with a Finnish/German girl called Marianne and a Norwegian girl named Ann-Kristin for dinner. We found a very pretty Italian restaurant, right at the sea, where we all had Linguini al salmone con gamberi (Linguini with salmon and fresh shrimps). After Dinner, we went straight to bed.

As it had snowed very heavily during the night, our plans for Sunday became uncertain. Finally, we decided to explore Oban. Unfortunately, there was not really much to discover, and the things we could have discovered were closed.  Therefore, most of the group reunited in the only open café in Oban waiting for the bus to return to Aberdeen, after they had finished touring the village, the castle ruins and the McCaig's Tower (which looks like the Colloseum in Rome). We finally reached Aberdeen at 5:30pm.

It really was an awesome trip!!