Today we went on a sightseeing, a bus trip around the southern Mainland, the main island of Shetland. The bus left shortly after line up at eight o'clock, so before that there was breakfast, dressing and packing of food. We gathered on the dock directly outside Gunilla before we all walked together to the bus, all the students and some of the officers. With everyone on the bus, we set off along the Shetland roads.
It is an incredibly cool and beautiful environment here. Shetland consists for the most part of green pastures that cover all the hills that the islands are made of. Because of this, it feels vast and that's what creates an astounding feeling. And as you then understand, it's not that big of a settlement, but something that there is a lot of are sheep. We searched and found out that there should be six times as many sheep as people here. And we could tell, because on many of the pastures you see lots of little white dots walking around, very cozy. Architecture, on the other hand, is perhaps not the Shetlanders' forte, at least not in my opinion. The houses are mostly rectangular stone houses and I'm not kidding when I say that I've seen a maximum of 10 houses here that have color other than gray or brown. It makes the residential areas a bit dull, but it can also have a cool effect in itself.
Back to the bus ride. The first stop on the sightseeing was Jarlshof, a historical place where people have been building, abandoning and rebuilding settlements, on top of another, for thousands of years. When we got there, we first got a small briefing about what Jarlshof was, and after that we got to go around by ourselves and check out the ruins. We got small audio-players where there was recorded material you could listen to depending on what you were looking at. It was great to walk among the ruins and you learned a lot. We all had a great time.
After Jarlshof it was off to a lighthouse, and it was probably my favorite stop on the tour. The lighthouse was at the top of a "cliff" and the bus stopped below it. So we had to go up and the environment you got to experience on the way felt unreal. It seemed like you were in a movie when you got to see the formations of the mountain where land meets water. There was also plenty of birds, which created an extra effect. We didn't go up to the lighthouse but the way up and back was enough.
The next stop was a beach, also incredible. The beach was sort of in between two bodies of water, so you had water on both sides of you when you stood there. It was SO beautiful and the surrounding green mountains made it that little bit extra. Some people swam there, but I don't think it was particularly warm. We ate the baguettes we had with us on the rocks, before heading back to the bus.
On the way to Jarlshof we had stopped at a place along the way that had a refrigerator for self-serving of cookies. Unfortunately, there were none then. But on the way back we stopped there again and noticed then that it had been filled up. So KiKi bought us some cookies that we ate on the bus and they were really good, thanks KiKi!
The last stop of the trip was at a monument in the old capitol of the shetland islands. A monument to the Norwegian fishermen who lost their lives in the Second World War. The bus then took us back to Gunilla so that we could be on duty for the rest of the day. It was a nice sightseeing!
Hilma
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