Oban, the major points

Oban is a little town on the west coast of Scotland which historically played 2 roles: gateway to the western isles, and source of whiskey. Now it's added "quiet vacation town" to it's roster. It's get a couple of docks, a nice main road along the waterfront, 2 hostels, a legion of little pubs, and some hills. Two of the hills can be hiked up. Also, there's a castle nearby, which is more of a small fort, and which is pretty much falling apart.

For the sake of variety, we've broken the Oban entry down by subject matter rather than splitting it up by days. I'll be tackling the broad topics, and grizzo will handle the whatnot.

People:
We met a lot of people in Oban, strangely, but there are five that must be mentioned. The first is Jo. Jo was 50 feet in front of us on our walk to the hostel, and we all checked in together. Jo is a little older than us, and was teaching PE in England. Before she moved here, she taught in New Zealand.. but she taught English and Theatre. She recognized the oddity of the change in subject matter but didn't seem bothered by it. Anyway, once grizzo and I checked in, we gathered ourselves and headed out to a pub. Jo was taking her bag upstairs, and we invited her to join us, expecting a "no thanks," but were instead given orders to wait until she had set down her bag.

We had a couple drinks with Jo at the Oban Inn. She kept saying she was done after one, but finally decided to accept our offer to buy her a second. Jo had a lot to tell us about Scotland and was quite a character-- the kind we felt comfortable with right away. At one point a fellow came into the bar with two dogs, one of which had very wolfish eyes, and that black-over-white coat going on. Grizzo was at the bar ordering, and Jo and I were getting the look-over from this dog, held close on a leash by its owner. We started talking about how dogs were basically wolves, and joking that the dog wanted to eat us. Then the owner noticed his dog pulling at his leash towards Jo. He glanced up at her for half a second-- then, keeping his eyes locked on the bartender (who wasn't yet serving him) he took a few steps towards us and handed the leash to Jo, who accepted it grudgingly. The dog was quite friendly, but it should be noted that his owner said not a word to us through this entire transaction.

The dog-owner guy eventually retrieved his pup, reuniting his mutts. Then he stood at the bar for 10 minutes drinking his beer and (apparently) listening in on our conversation about traveling destinations. The fellow was clearly a little sloshed, and came over to ask us just how the heck we had managed to visit so many places. He was quite friendly about it, and grizzo and I later determined that his curiosity was more about why we would bother adding tiny Oban to a list that included (with grizzo, Jo, and I) many of the most popular destinations in the world. After he chatted us up and gave us some hell, he told us about the "locals pub" down the street that was open late (most pubs in Oban close at 12) and invited us to come by. We never did, but we probably should have. His dog never tried to eat us.

Amy was the young French Canadian girl who checked us in at the hostel. She had four very notable traits. The third was a fantastic gift for talking about just about anything for just about as long as you let her-- and this in her somewhat grammatically awkward English made stranger by learning the basics in Canada and practicing amongst New Zealanders, South Africans, and Australians while working at a hostel in Scotland to the point that her accent is some sort of unidentifiable mix. The fourth was a passion for whisky that one wouldn't expect from a young woman of whom most anyone's description would include the word "silly". Amy was a constant presence in the hostel and an often hilarious diversion from structured pursuits and conversations. And she could recommend a pub like nobody's business.

Jeremy began as "that one guy who's in our room that we probably woke up 3 times when we arrived." Jeremy was older, probably 40s, and, once we encountered him up and out of bed, a fabulous character. He was traveling alone, which always breeds talkativeness, and he was from somewhere southwest of London where he was a high school teacher, which means he had a fabulous accent. Jeremy was in Scotland because when he had visited New Zealand previously, everyone had said, "well, New Zealand's just like Scotland, why come all this way?" Rather than letting himself regret New Zealand, he instead decided to explore Scotland.

We visited with Jeremy quite a bit at the hostel, and on our last night in town went out to meet him at a pub with a fabulous whisky list. Over whiskies we discussed whisky and our usual drinks. Jeremy really loved talking about whisky, even though he usually didn't drink it, and was only diving in because he was in Scotland. He also told us that he was a cask-ale devotee, and described all other beers as "fizzy" and undrinkable. On account of his recommendation, we tried a whole series of ales (over our time in England) from casks, which can most simply be described as flat, warm beers which require more effort to pour. Despite that, we eventually developed a bit of a taste for them.

Jeremy also discussed his experiences with Peanut Butter, in the middle of recommending us to Marmite, which I don't even want to talk about. Anyway, his comments on Peanut Butter:
"You're supposed to be able to eat it with Jam, aren't you? Yes, I tried it. It's quite horrible, isn't it?"

We met one other British fellow, who's name we can't recall, when Amy brought the better portion of hostel guests to meet up with us and Jeremy at the pub. We didn't get to chat with him for long, but he was right on our page. He said funny things, had lovely stories and advice about traveling, and had sort of a wisdom about things that belied his age, which could not have been much beyond ours. Later that night as we all played Jenga at the hostel, he made a vaguely coherent rant about French Canadian independence by Amy somewhat enjoyable with a small volume of comments.

(most of these people appear in this image- Jeremy is next to Gabe, the unnamed British man in front of Grizzo, Amy front row left)

Things we saw:

Well, there's the cute little town itself, piled in around the distillery and the docks. We took a brisk 15-minute hike to this old decaying fort-- we just can't get enough of ancient large rock structures. Apparently some guy tried to build a weird tower on one of the hills of Oban, the beginnings of which can be seen from all over the city or hiked up to. There's a lovely little park area inside.

We also made it, sort of barely, out to the nearest major island, Mull (lots of islands to see). There we rode on the most ridiculous train ever over to a palace that we didn't pay the exorbitant entry for, instead taking a nice little walk through the forest. Later, we learned all about how whisky is made at the Oban Distillery. The photos, let me tell you, are much less exciting than the smells, which were incredible. Our tour guide was excellent and grizzo came out with a real sense of achievement.

There was another big hill with great views of the city, so we hiked up there just before sunset. It was pretty neat.