Level 1 completed, waiting for level 2, and employed

I was up to Kyleakin (link 1, link 2) today (near where the bridge from Skye to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland is) to visit the youth hostel there to see about a job for a couple of months. I'm going to start there next weekend as just a general assistant. It's a fair-sized hostel, about 70 beds, and besides the manager there's 3-4 other people working there plus a chef who does meals when there's groups that book it. Kyleakin's got a lot of hostels for a village of its size so it will be busy in terms of backpackers passing through.

I've also made some friends who will be at the Gaelic college as full-time students in September, so I'm determined that I will get down to see them and go to some of the ceilidh's even if I have to acquire a bicycle or hitch a ride.

This week at the college, the only language course on is the Level 2 class that I am taking. Instead of Gaelic learners, the place is filled up with over a hundred fiddlers here for a course with Alisdair Fraser, who is apparently well-known in the fiddle world. With all the fiddlers here, it means that the impromtu ceilidhs that get held each night are certainly going to have a lot of music. But since few of the fiddlers speak any Gaelic, it also means I don't get to listen into coversations that I may not understand but are good for picking up the sound of the language and a few words. I've been walking around all week hearing Gaelic songs in my head that I don't even understand, so just hearing the language is obviously good for me. So I'm missing that right now. Plus I can't really talk shop with fiddlers, so I can get left out in the cold in that sort of coversation. Once classes start tomorrow it should be better.