Home Sweet Home . . . if you like llamas

For my Homestay, they sent us to the small village, Glenfarg. It was literally a village. Stone houses, friendly people, one store, one hotel where the one pub is located, and one church. It was cute. Surrounded by mountains and sheep and llama. So fun!

Wendy, my host, lives in an old Barley Mill, which she rebuilt and revamped all by herself with her ex-hubby. Like the two of them (and then their children) lived in a camper on the land, using the stream to mix the cement and longs to roll stones. They even lived off what the land grew--chickens, eggs, veggies, and goat milk. Yeah. Wendy still has chickens who gave us eggs for our breakfast. It was intense. Hard core. Very cold. The house was heated using wood burning stoves. brrrrrrr! Yay nature!

Getting to Glenfarg was an experience all on its own. So my abroad group sent three girls from America out on our own to travel there by public bus. None of us were very familiar with the bus system. All we had was the bus time, money for tickets, and one line of instructions saying to get off at "Milnathorp, south street, opp the RBS." THAT WAS ALL. And I was the group coordinator. Great. So we blunder our way through buying the bus tickets. Then we are on the bus, cruising along. Everything is fine, until we realize that we should be getting OFF the bus soon. So the other girls and I are looking around us at the dark, snowy, unfamiliar Scottish country side. We see a sign: Milnathorp.

Okay. But the bus is speeding through. We see a town. We are literally on the edge of our seats looking for our only landmark the RBS. We see one, but it is not OPP the bus stop but next to one. Is that our stop? Are we there? How do we get the bus to stop?

We passed it. One of the girls I am with goes and asks the bus driver, tells him where we want to go. He has no idea what we are saying. She comes back then tries again the next time he stops. He finally figures out where we want to go and is like "get off my bus. we passed that." So the three American girls get off the bus. We manage to get on another bus, and finally end up where we were supposed to be. YAY! It was a disaster.

Not fun. Then we were coming back--again Bus drama. The bus was late. The stops mismarked. The town was a bit on the iffy side. Luckily, this time Wendy was there to help! So yeah . . . public transportation was not so much fun :)

So yeah--I experienced rural Scottish life. I bonded with some LLamas. I am a llama magnate. Walked the hills. Froze in my sleep. Not something I would want full time. . . I mean I feel self-sufficient when I manage to go to the grocery store. Growing my own food . . . a little too extreme for me : )