We woke up in Kirkwall, Orkney and realized we had a huge list of things to do and only one day to do them in! We had to be at the ferry back to the mainland at 10am the next day, meaning that day was pretty much it. So, we listed out everything and strategized. We decided to do all the things we wanted to do in Kirkwall before heading west towards the neolithic sites.
First we went to St. Magnus (which, funnily enough, means "Saint Awesome") Cathedral, which was first built in the 1100s (though many generations have added to it over the years). It was a very beautiful church, and a practicing orchestra really set the scene nicely!
We then went across the street to the Earl's Palace and Bishop's Palace, which were both built in the late 1500s. Funnily enough, the Earl and the Bishop were political enemies, which must have been super awkward given the proximity of their houses! Do you remember the castle in Scalloway, Shetland? This is the Orkney castle for the same guy.
Earls palace:
Bishop's Palace interior:
We were told by the very helpful lady working at the palaces that we needed an appointment to see Maes Howe, which is a neolithic tomb we wanted to see. She helped us get an appointment, then told us the tide times for the Bay of Birsay (more on that later). So, newly needing to get out of the city to our appointment at Maes Howe, we had enough time for one more thing. So of course, we decided to go to a Whisky distillery!
After buying some Whisky to bring home with us (which is currently in our forwarded checked bags - stay tuned for that story), we headed out of Kirkwall to Maes Howe. It's a burial tomb that was built over 5,000 years ago! It's an intricate and well-made rock structure built into the earth, so that all it looks like on the outside is a mound.
The inside contains a large central chamber with three smaller side chambers. It also has some of the oldest recorded carvings, as well as some of the oldest graffiti! Turns out the Vikings found Maes Howe and broke in to take shelter from a snowstorm, and left their mark in the form of runic inscriptions on the walls. Some of them pretty much literally say "Leif was here", which we found hilarious given that they are now an artifact in their own right. We weren't allowed to take photos of the inside of the tomb, as they are trying to preserve the carvings and conditions in low light.
After Maes Howe, we travelled less than a mile to the Standing Stones of Stenness, which are kind-of like Stonehenge but even older! There are also only four stones left standing, but they believe there were many more at one point.
After the Ring of Brodgar, we drove up to the northwest coast to the Bay of Birsay, which is a small nearly-island which can be accessed by foot only during low tide. But on the island is a Viking village, as well as some of the most amazing scenery we had this trip! It was amazing.
We spent hours just walking the coast of the island before we had to beat the tide back. And just to freak out our parents:
Remember how we said Sumbergh Head in Shetland felt like the edge of the world? Multiply that by 1,000 and you have the cliffs at the Bay of Birsay. It was absolutely amazing.
We then checked into our Bed and Breakfast, and then tried to go to the neolithic site of Skara Brae, only to find out that Morgan had read the hours posting wrong! (oops). It said they closed at 17:00, not 7:00, meaning they closed two hours earlier than we thought and we missed it. So, we decided to get some dinner and go to bed, and got up really early the next day to see Skara Brae before catching the ferry in the morning.
Skara Brae is considered to be one of the best preserved neolithic villages in the world, with one of the houses being so well preserved that they've closed it to the public to keep it that way. But this village, more than Jarlshof, really helped show what life was like. It's hard to remember that these people were huans no different from us! They were not cavemen, they had a sophisticated society and language and religion, and their daily life was not that different from ours. It was a beautiful site, and it was unfortunate that we didn't have as much time there as we wished.
Then it was time to rush to the ferry, and return to the mainland. Upon our arrival in Scrabster, we had what was supposed to be a five hour drive to Lanarkshire to see Morgan's friend Jennifer and her family, as well as our last Bed and Breakfast. However, a five hour drive became an eight hour one thanks to slow trucks and construction. It was a beautiful drive, but we arrived at Jennifer's two hours later than we expected (so sorry again, you guys!).
After a wonderful dinner with Jennifer and her family, we headed to our bed and breakfast. We got a little lost, and after being already hours behind schedule, we got there very late and kept the poor owners up waiting for us. They were so incredibly kind, but we felt really bad about it. Especially because we had to get up at 5:45 the next morning to make our flight. We wished we could have stayed there much longer, it was one of the most beautiful and accommodating of all the places we stayed (The Weston Organic Farmhouse).
Alright. Get ready for a long story about our trip home!
We woke up at 5:45, and our car was nearly out of gas (like, had maybe 30 miles left). We had to drive 20 minutes in the opposite direction from the airport to get gas, or we probably wouldn't have made it! We got to our plane right as they were boarding, and breathed a sigh of relief. We arrived in Paris without a hitch, to find that our flight to New York was delayed an hour and a half! We had to SPRINT through the JFK airport, and we juuuuust made it to our 5:40 flight to find that between the time we checked the gate at customs to the time we got to the terminal the flight had been delayed until 8:00. Okay, so we settled down to wait. Luckily, Tyler checked the board around 6:45, to see that the flight had been moved up to 7:00 and switched gates, all without any sort of announcement! So we moved to the new gate, and got on the plane about 15 minutes later.
The plane left the gate, and the sat on the runway. And sat. And sat. For three hours. It was horrible. You read those stories about people stuck on planes for hours but you can't imagine how bad it is until you live it. It was stuffy, and smelly, and people we getting antsy. Morgan started having a bit of a panic attack from feeling claustrophobic.
Thanks to the law about keeping passengers on the tarmac for too long, they had to bring us back to the gate after three hours. To our horror, they at first said they were going to sit at the gate, then go right back out to the tarmac without letting us off (apparently the law only says they have to go back to the gate, not that they have to let us off). But luckily they found out the toilets were full, so they had to let us off so they could empty them.
We sat in the airport in limbo for about an hour, before they finally cancelled the flight. They also cancelled all other flights that were going West due to an approaching storm, meaning the line to get rebooked was a nightmare. It came down the line the the next available flight to Syracuse was not until SATURDAY (this was Thursday night) and that they weren't doing anything to pay for hotels because they could claim the weather was beyond their control (sure, but the three hours delay was not because of weather, so we wouldn't have hit weather if we had left on time!). A small group of us from the same flight found out together in horror that we wouldn't get home for another 48 hours. At this time Tyler and I had been awake for nearly a full 24 hours. The thought of being stuck in New York City for two days was too much to bear. The group of us then decided that we would band together, and we rented a car!
We drove all through the night, getting the rental car around 1:00am (taking a bus to the rental place through NYC at midnight was...interesting). We finally arrived to the Syracuse airport around 6:30am. One of the people with us lives in Camillus (about 10 minutes from Skaneateles, for those of you who are't from around here!), so he was kind enough to drive us to Tyler's mom's house. We said hello to the dog, and promptly fell asleep. We had been awake for 31 hours at this point.
We are now in Skaneateles, slightly better rested. Tomorrow we drive home to Ohio. It has been a really long couple of days, but totally worth it for that trip. It was an incredible experience and we cannot wait to go back again.
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