Over the weekend, I took a little break from the usual uni life and traveled to Aberdeenshire to do a 15 mile night run. My friend who ran it with me lives very close to the race venue, so we got to stay at her mom's cottage for the weekend, which was very nice. They live in Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, which is about 2.5 hours on the train from Edinburgh. They are right near the sea, and the area is very pretty. The first day there, my friend, who sails, took me out sailing at Peterhead Beach. The last time (and really the only other time) I went sailing was in Seattle in July during a heat wave. It was about 95F. This time we were in Scotland, fairly northern Scotland at that, in October, and though we had wetsuits it was still pretty cold. We took out a little boat called a topper and I learned how to tack with some eventual success. We sailed for maybe an hour, then retreated back inside to change into dry clothes and warmed up with some tea. Lots of fun. We spent the rest of the trip walking around Ellon, which is a cool little town (with a good coffee place called the Coffee Pot), hanging out with my friend, sitting by the fire doing class readings, and, of course, running the Illuminator Night Trail Run.
We ended up seeing multiple towns, as we walked around Ellon, sailed in Peterhead, and ran in Aboyne, which is on the edge of the Highlands and the Cairngorm National Park. We were also near Inverurie, where my cousins live and which I visited two years ago. Though we were only there for three days, we saw a lot, and it was a great little tour of Aberdeenshire.
The cottage is north enough that, on Friday night, we saw the northern lights! It was only a thin green streak on the far horizon, but it was very cool. And I got my animal fix :)