The first day was all about traveling. In order: Walk, train, bus, plane, taxi, train, walk (very little), and collapse in hotel. I flew into the Glasgow Prestwick airport, which is actually quite a distance from Glasgow itself. I had a bit of time in Glasgow before my train to Inverness, so I walked around the area near the train station for a bit. There was a huge square directly outside of the train station, and it was beautiful. I really enjoyed the architecture in Glasgow as well. There were lots of red bricks, and it just looked rather classical. I then took the train to Inverness, and found my hotel which turned out to be right beside the train station. I've become rather good at booking those kinds of hotels, and that means they're not difficult to find and they are near public transport :-).
My plan for my first full day in Inverness was to go to Loch Ness and see Nessie. The evening before, I had inquired about tours, and decided to take the one offered by Jacobite. The tour included a cruise on Loch Ness, and bus trips around the area. I found the bus station (just a couple of blocks from my hotel) and asked to book the tour. To my dismay, the tour was not operating for various reasons, and would not be on again until Wednesday, at which time I would be gone. However, the lady helping me was very nice, and suggested I take the public bus to Urquhart Castle (which the Jacobite tour visits), and then I could visit the castle and if I had the time, also walk to the village. I took her up on the offer (and booked a return ticket) and literally had to run out in order to catch my bus.
The bus trip was beautiful and full of different sights of the lake and the hills, with mountains in the background. We arrived at the castle, and I loved it immediately. It was built right on the lake, and it was in ruins. I think I actually prefer ruins to a fully constructed castle for some reason; maybe it indicates that the castle has a more interesting history. I bought my entrance to the castle and proceeded to watch the information video about the castle. Then it was time to walk down to the ruins. I climbed up and down and all around. It's hard to imagine just how long those stones have been there, and all of the things that have happened at the location. It was a good time of year to go since there weren't many people there. I could just take in the sights as long as I wanted without having to worry about someone else wanting to see the view from where I was. When I finished the castle, I followed a path that led down to the lake. I doubt people were meant to walk down that way, but there were no signs saying not to, so I went. I stood at the edge of the lake and watched out for Nessie (not really, but I did listen to the water hitting the shore and watch the gentle waves across the grand expanse).
Once I had explored as much as I could, I decided to continue on down to the village the ticket agent had mentioned to me. I got directions from the lady in the gift shop, and started on my way. It was a path that ran between the main road and farms. Once, all the sheep in a field turned to me and started "baa-ing."
I finally made it to the village after about 20-30 minutes, and decided I might grab lunch. Since my bus back was not for another hour and a half, and I would have to take the time to walk back as well, I stopped in at the visitor center (which also sold bus tickets) and asked if I could grab the bus from the village since it went through there. Since it wasn't tourist season the lady said I should be fine, and pointed out the bus stop to me. I walked over to the bus stop and saw that the bus would be coming 5 minutes after the original departure time from the castle. With all of that settled, I walked into a cozy diner and ordered a pizza. Around the diner there were maps of countries around the world, with different kinds of currency taped to their respective countries.
When I finished lunch, I decided to go look at some of the Nessie gift shops around. I found my mandatory deck of cards (my souvenir from most places, I might use them for something creative someday?) and I finished my search for Nessie. Not only was it a success, but I found 2 of her! Outside of one of the gift shops she had been petrified to stone and was lurking menacingly above my head. The other Nessie was being held captive in a pond, and I just happened to walk past because I saw other people walking around the area. If I had not found the second Nessie, I would have missed out a bit, but I also would have made the bus. When I was finished with this Nessie 2, I noticed it was just before 50 past the hour, the time the bus would be leaving the castle. So I started walking the not-too-far distance back to the bus stop. When I was still about 30 feet away from the bus stop, a bus comes barreling around a corner and doesn't even stop. I notice as it whizzes by (probably at the breakneck speed of 20 miles per hour) that it is my bus. But this can't be, my bus should just then be leaving the castle, not already be in the village! I recheck my watch, and it says it's 52 past the hour, then I remember: this watch is a little bit slow. I realized I had missed my bus, but just in case it wasn't my bus, I decided to wait at the bus stop anyway. And wait. And wait. At 5 past the hour, I check the bus timetables. The same version of the bus I missed wouldn't be coming for another 2 hours, and there is another bus that will probably take longer in just an hour.
As I was contemplating what to do, I walked into the post office/general supply store to browse around and buy a pen (of course, I forgot my pen in my back pack and had not transferred it to my purse yet). As I left the store, I bumped into a woman that looked awfully familiar, which was strange because I didn't know anyone in the country. I let out a startled "hello," and she looked at me rather oddly and then said hello back with a little sign of recognition. I walked over to a picnic table, still thinking about this exchange, and then realized that the woman looked an awful lot like the receptionist at my hotel. What a coincidence! Of course, I still wasn't sure it was her, and didn't have it confirmed until I got to the hotel later that day and she looked at me and said "Did I bump into you in Drumnadrochit?" I just affirmed it and walked up to my room.
But back to my extra two hours in the town. I decided to wait for the bus that would be in an hour. With my time, I wrote out a few postcards and sent them, and listened to some music. I didn't think I would have enough time to go through one of the exhibition centers, so I just waited. An hour came and went with no sign of a bus. When it was about 45 minutes until the next bus (the one that was on the same route as my original) would come, I decided to walk back to the castle just to be safe. I knew for sure it would be leaving from there, and I didn't want to chance it. I was also praying that it would be there, because I didn't know how I'd get back if it weren't. And it was still early enough to go into the castle and ask for them to call me a taxi (or let me see a phone book) if it didn't come. I was also cursing myself for not buying the opened ended ticket, because I would have to buy another ticket. The walk back was just as beautiful, and it turned out my fears were unfounded. The bus arrived, I explained about missing the earlier bus, and he still let me use my ticket, so I didn't have to buy a new one. He "Tsked" me teasingly, but it all turned out right in the end.
I just had dinner in the hotel restaurant, and luxuriated in having a bathtub that evening. The next morning I walked around Inverness. It wasn't very far to the waterfront, and I noticed a castle up on the top of a hill. I decided I would go visit it because it looked so nice, and walked up the hill. As I got closer, I realized that it was a castle, but it was still in use. The courthouse was being run out of the castle, and I didn't really feel like going inside in case it's only purpose was as a courthouse. I walked around and admired the view down to the river, and then walked around a tad bit more. I stopped off for breakfast, and then decided to check out some of the tourist shops on the other side of the river. I had to bite my tongue as I was greeted by a kilt-wearing employee in the first shop. Partly due to the fact that my friends had been making jokes before I left, and partly because I knew he was only wearing the kilt as part of his work uniform. I crossed back over the river on a pedestrian only bridge, and stopped at the center to check out the view. One of the passersby saw me and jokingly said to me, "Don't jump!" After walking around a bit, and through a church yard, I walked down the pedestrian shopping street and through a mall, with no real success of finding anything, not that I had anything to look for. I ended up in Marks and Spencer (a real UK staple from the sounds of it) and bought a sandwich and drink to have as lunch on my train ride back down to Glasgow.
I enjoyed my time in Inverness, but it was at an end. I walked back to my hotel, picked up my bag, and went to catch the train at the train station (which you'll remember was right beside the hotel). The train I took to Inverness had been at night and I had not been able to see the view as the train traveled the country. This time, I was traveling in the middle of a beautiful day, and I stared out the window for the majority of the trip. Watching the hills go by was enjoyable, and for a while the tracks stayed right by a river.
Back in Glasgow, I realized I couldn't find where I was on my map. I didn't see any tourist office in the train station, so I walked out to the square I had previously seen. Across the way, I noticed the word 'Tourist' on a building that was under construction, and as I got closer I saw that it was just what I was looking for. I walked in, and got the much needed directions to my hotel. Half an hour later I was in my next hotel room, and I waited around there until Anna showed up. We decided to go out for dinner, and walked around for quite a while. We ended up at a pub where she got her fish and chips and I snacked on appetizers. We also discovered Magner's Cider, which I've decided I like.
Emilie joined us at the hotel around midnight, and then the next day we were all ready to do a bit of sightseeing. The hotel again had a full scottish breakfast available for us (which included toast, fried egg, a potatoe patty, tomato, and bacon, along with cold items like yogurt or cereal). As we left the hotel, we asked the receptionist where we should go, and he seeemed to be an expert on these things. We packed up, and headed for the bus stop to take us to go see the cathedral. Unfortunately for us, we started to walk to get off the bus at the appropriate stop, but we were a bit slow and the bus driver shut the door and started going again before we got off. So, we had to take a bit of a detour and ended up a 10-minute walk away from the cathedral. As we were walking, we came across this massive building that looked older, but well constructed. As we were trying to walk through the grounds surrounding it, we saw a sign pointing to a morgue and realized that it was a hospital. It must be one of the most beautiful hospitals I've ever seen, at least from the outside. The red brickwork and the bevelled out windows were picturesque. As we were deciding which way to go when we came to a dead end, a woman asked us if we were looking for the front entrance of the hospital. After explaining our destination, she pointed us in the right direction to get outside of the fenced-in area of the hospital and around to the cathedral. While definitely not the largest or most impressive cathedral I've ever been to, this one was still worth the visit. Though I think I might say that because of the cemetery surrounding it, to be honest. The cemetery expanded up on to the top of a hill, and I wish I would have had time to walk there because I bet the view was astounding.
After the cathedral, we started walking back to the city center. We made our way to the main pedestrian shopping street, and we stopped to get the mandatory starbucks drink. Even though it was cold outside, I still got a frappucino. Once we were a bit warmer, we made our way to the next suggested sight, The Lighthouse. While I foolishly thought this was a real lighthouse, it was actually a fairly modern building. As you went up each level (on an escalator), there were different art exhibitions on each floor. One floor was a competition to create a useful product (book, clothes, farm equipment). There were also a couple of floors under construction, and another floor had stuffed animals and other things made out of socks, and they were arranged in such a way as to make the room feel alive. They were hanging from the ceiling, interacting with eachother, etc. Then, we finally made it to the floor that would allow us to go up the lighthouse. We walked up stairs for a few more stories, and got a spectacular view of the city. From up there, you could tell that Glasgow is an industrial city. While seeing the skyline was impressive, you could also tell that there wasn't much there that wasn't business related. We walked back down the stairs, and then took an elevator back up to the 'viewing platform' which was separate from lighthouse. The viewing platform felt like it was just a glass box suspended above the building, but that's probably just because there were windows on every side of it and the only way to get there was by elevator. There was also a maintenance door that opened out onto nothing, which freaked me out a little bit, but I'm sure whenever people use it they know what they're doing.
We then stopped off for lunch and avoided a bit of a downpour. Since we were close to the hotel, we went back to drop off our stuff and immediately head out again. Well, things did not go according to plan. We ended up reading and/or napping the rest of the afternoon. Since it was raining off and on the entire time we were there, I didn't feel bad about not going out and doing more. Finally, we got ourselves into gear and decided to leave. We ended up at a Borders book store, ordered coffee, and read and talked for about an hour. Then we headed to my destination: Snow Patrol!
We arrived at the concert hall (or so I thought), and as I looked around, I noticed that the crowd seemed way too young. And wearing too many cheerleading costumes. To me, it looked very "High School Musical," and our confused expressions attracted one of the information workers in the lobby. In fact, we were at the place for "High School Musical Live!" and we needed to go to another building to get to the concert. In the next building, I stopped at the souvenir booth and bought a coffee mug and some Snow Patrol pins for my friends that couldn't come, and then we proceeded into the concert hall. It's a good thing we got there when we did (which was still very early, in these terms), because we were in the front 1/3 of the area and in front of the center of the stage. By the time the opening acts began, the whole massive room was full. The opening acts included The Hazy Janes and Fanfarlo. They were both decent, but when you want to see a specific band nothing else will fill that gap. In a single word, the actual concert was awesome. They know how to put on a good show, and from the time I saw them in Kansas City I already knew that they knew how to do good special effects with lights. But since this was a much larger venue, they also had huge screens on both side of the stage, and thin screens behind them on stage. It was amazing. And even though there were so many people there, the audience was well behaved; no one really pushed or shoved, and it just seemed like everyone was just enjoying the music. At one point, the lead singer somehow made it to the middle of the crowd and played his guitar and sang 'Run' from there. I'm not sure how he did it without everyone screaming, but he managed. Here's a video the person standing next to him made: click me. The band did their 16-minute opus, The Lightning Strike, as the encore, and for that entire song they had a video playing that played on their new album's theme of origami suns, starting out with the big bang and the creation of the universe, to the evolution of the planet, all leading up to ending up at the concert, all in computer generated origami. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. Which I might, because they have now announced a tour date for Paris in June.
We made our way back to the hotel, by way of a supermarket to grab snacks for a late dinner, and crashed. Emilie escaped early in the morning to head off to London, and after Anna and I got up and ready in the morning we made our way to the bus station to go to Edinburgh. Again, I enjoyed watching the countryside roll by while we traveled, and in about an hour we were in Edinburgh. We walked around a bit to find our hostel, and dropped off our stuff. Since it was lunchtime, we left the hostel (which was very colorful, bright orange) and tried to find something to eat. We didn't have to go far as we ended up at a little cafe right across the street from the hostel that emphasized their smoothies and healthy food. It was just what we needed, not too heavy, but still yummy.
Our hostel, and the cafe we ate at for that matter, were at the bottom of a hill in Edinburgh, but it was parallel to the popular road in Edinburgh, the Royal Mile. We found some stairs up to this other road, and came out right beside a cathedral. Since it was massive, Anna and I decided to go into it to see what it was like. I was shocked as we walked through the doors: the entire place had been refurbished, and it had been converted to a coffee shop. I had heard about churches being converted like this, but had never seen it myself. In fact, the longer we were in Edinburgh, the more old buildings I saw that were being gutted, leaving the older facade, but the insides were being pulled out and being made new.
After the shock of that cathedral, we walked on up to the castle, which our friend Sarah, among others, had told us was the one 'must do' item in Edinburgh. The ancient castle was quite amazing. The castle was built into the top of a mountain, and there were huge rocks everywhere, jutting up out of the ground. There was also a spectacular view of the city from the height of the castle, including other hills outside of the city. Shortly after entering the grounds of the castle, we found a guided tour that was just beginning. It was interesting being taken around and told about the sections of the castle. It has a very long history, and it was worth the visit.
We finished up there and continued on down the Royal Mile in search of another recommendation from Sarah, Chocolate Soup. I asked for directions before we left, and it was pretty simple, walk down the Royal Mile and it would be on the left. When it felt like we had walked too far, I stopped off at a gift shop and asked if we were close to it, and it turns out that we had passed it. And, it wasn't on the left side of the road, it was on the right, and actually a little bit inset from the road on the other side of a Starbucks. The chocolate soup was very chocolate-y, and the ambiance in the establishment was very college-student oriented. It actually reminded me of the local coffee shops at home, the Mudhouse or even Potter's House. After this, we walked around into some of the local malls and also stopped by the tourist information center so that we could get information about going to the waterfront for the next morning, before leaving. Finally, we just went around to all of the little tourist shops, and they all turned into a blur since they had the same things, but unfortunately I didn't see any more employees in kilt uniforms. Anna and I rounded out the evening by grabbing dinner at a pub nearby. We were both craving chili, so that's what we both ordered. About 5 minutes after ordering, we were told that there was only enough chili for one order, so I ordered a chicken caesar salad instead, and we split the meals, which felt like a very interesting combination.
The next morning we packed up and started out for the waterfront. We had been given a bus schedule and I thought that the bus stop we were waiting at would be the right one to take us to the beach.... I was wrong. Due to time restrictions, I suggested we just hop on the 'Ocean Terminal' bus so that we could at least see the water. The ocean terminal was just that, an ocean terminal. Not much to see, but at least we saw the ocean. And, the main building also doubled as a mall, so we were both able to grab a cup of coffee. The downside to that story is that when we tried to get on our bus, the driver told us that no hot beverages were allowed on board. I asked how long it would be until the bus left, and he told me a few minutes. Anna tried to see if it would be all right if she put her drink into a bottle with a screw on lid, but he refused. We proceeded to drink our hot beverages as quickly as possible, and I even burned the roof of my mouth. There was not a trash can nearby, so I walked down to the tail end of the bus, poured out the rest of my coffee, and threw my cup away while Anna did the same. As soon as we turned to walk back to the bus, the driver pulled away. We tried to signal for him to stop, but he ignored us, and when he had to drive back past us (as he had to do a u-turn), he didn't look at us once. Very rude, but I guess that's life. Anyway, we ended up on a bus that was supposedly faster.
And that was the end of my journey. Anna and I took a bus back to Glasgow, and then I immediately took a bus back to the airport.
All in all, I greatly enjoyed my time in Scotland. While it was still chilly outside, I was fine most of the time, and I got to see Loch Ness, Snow Patrol, Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh... and the list could go on. Of course you can't know a country by spending so few days there, but I definitely felt comfortable and would go back in a heartbeat.
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