February Adventures: Part I

Hello world! Today, Sandra didn’t feel like writing the blog so I convinced her to let me write the blog while she cleans my room. Fair trade, right? So this time around we get to write the blog my way!

As ever, let’s start with the words of the week (American: Scottish)!  Plaster: Band-Aid, “J”: “Ji” (As in rhymes with eye), Factorizing: Factoring, and that’s all I can think of.

So, it seems like it’s been a month since we last blogged, and that’s a long time so sorry for the wait! We’ve been fairly busy though, as we visited Loch Ness last weekend and Sandra’s friend Kaylie came to visit us this weekend. The weekend before that we spent just walking around the city. It was a fairly uneventful weekend then, as we just wandered around and found where some nice convenient places are like a Hallmark store and I managed to find a comic book store too, so I guess that was a pretty big success. Other than our most recent trip and this weekend’s visits (which I will give more details on later) it’s kind of been same ol’ same ol’. Piping is fun, we’re learning a lot. My lecturer has been out for three weeks and his substitute was quite good, under his tutelage I’ve nearly even caught up to Sandra’s mad chanter skills! We’ve begun to play a few little songs, like Deck The Halls and I’m supposed to try and learn Auld Lang Syne but I can’t quite get it. We’ve also learned about Piobaireachd! I know, it looks like a funny word, phonetically spelt it’s Pibroch. It’s a style of song for bagpiping that’s played in competition and can last from 7-28 minutes! We also have been trying to learn a song called Going Home by ear and that’s proving to be both fun and difficult. All in all, our lecturer Finlay of The Finlay McDonald Band fame is quite a good teacher and the class is pretty fun. He’s also organizing a trip to one of the Highland Games in May for the class which should be an experience, too.

He also wants us to keep going to gigs, I can’t remember what he calls them. But going to a pub to listen to bagpipe music. He even told us he would be going to a pub called Bappity Bowsters yesterday to listen to some music, and Sandra and I planned to go but decided not to last minute, it’s kind of awkward to go and listen to music when you don’t really know what to order, and I’m not interested in going to drink so it woulda been weird. Going to have lunch or dinner is one thing, but it might have been weird to go just to enjoy a nice refreshing Coca Cola. So we decided to explore Buchanan Street first, and I found another comic book store! Another great success!

Now though, I’m being told I need to move on to “ranting about Inverness,” and boy will it be a rant. It cost us 55 pounds to go on this trip, which was a pretty decent deal considering all they offered, but it ended up being a huge disaster. We left Uni at 8 o’clock, a little after because no one is on time here, and headed off. We used Google Maps earlier in the week to know how long it would take to get there, and it’s about a 3.5 hour bus ride, and we figured 4 if we take the scenic route. We got there at 4. We made three stops on the way, and each one was equally frustrating. Our first stop was in a town called Perth. A nice place, had a shopping mall, an art gallery, a nice looking church. It would have been nice to spend a half hour there to look around. But it was POURING. And they gave us an hour and a half to explore. In the rain. It wasn’t quite lunch time, and they said this was a bathroom break and the next stop would be for lunch. So we wandered in the rain for a little over an hour, found a book store, took pictures of the city hall. It woulda been pleasant if it wasn’t raining, but it was raining, and cold, and boring, and a disaster. So we try to go on the bus a little early, we got there about 15 minutes early, figured we would wait on the bus, and the drivers weren’t there. Eventually they did come after we waited in the rain, and then after waiting ON the bus soaking wet for another 15-20 minutes for our trip organizer to arrive (because he got lost) we set off again.

Our next stop was in Pitlochry, which was even smaller than Perth with even less to do and even worse weather as now we had rain, colder temperatures and snow/slush on the ground. When we got there, we found we had a half hour to explore, and that and I quote “the only thing to see here is a dam and a fish ladder.” Well, that would have been great if it wasn’t the middle of winter when no fish would be out! And then after visiting it, there was no time to grab anything to eat so we went back to bus, and having been fooled twice, the bus drivers were still not early, and we still waited in the rain. When we finally got on the bus we waited again and set off late again. By now, Sandra and I are NOT happy campers, but we’re optimistic happy campers as we did come on this trip to go to Inverness and Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle which were still yet to come!

But, before we could get to Inverness, we had one more stop, at the ski resort Aviemore. There, Sandra went to use a public toilet, which they make you pay like 30 pence  for, and only take exact change. Now, as the story has been told to me, she did not have exact change, and then while looking for it, the guy working the counter next to the turnstile to get in just told her to go and not worry about it. So she went, and then ran as fast as she could when she left because she didn’t know if she’d have to pay for it when she got back out or not. Then we finally got subway for lunch, because the Fish & Chips shop had a 20 minute wait and we only had 30 minutes to visit this creepy doll-house village. Here wasn’t too bad, it was set in the mountains and  if it wasn’t so darn creepy it would have been pleasant because the sun had finally come out! We got back on the bus, did more waiting, and then left for Inverness finally!

On the ride there, they passed around a sign-up sheet for rooms in the hostel. Now, as per normal paper-passing rules, the paper was to go down the right hand side of the bus where it started, get to the end of that aisle, be passed left, and continue up the left in a giant U. But of course, even paper-passing protocol was not followed on this trip, and thus we had a hostel debacle. Just before the paper was to be passed back to us, the kid in front of us, who was a Canadian whose name will be left out in case he happens upon this blog, and he was horribly annoying and ignorantly insensitive. He actually brought up the topic of Tiananmen Square to the Chinese girl sitting next to him by saying “Yeah, remember that student protest in china? It wasn’t too long ago… they like brought in tanks and stuff?” Yeah, he was a complete fool. And he passed the paper to the left! And so it got to everyone but us. But then somehow Sandra managed to snag the paper before we got to Inverness and signed us up for one of the only double rooms on there, so we wrote down our room number and were pleased that the trip seemed to be looking up, phew!

When we get to Inverness, we all unload and go to the lobby of the hostel, where our trip organizer Hojatt begins to call out numbers for check-in, only we were apparently the only ones who wrote down our room number, as no one was listening/caring/coming up to get their keys. So then he had to start calling out names, which was even worse as he couldn’t even pronounce them. Luckily our room number was near the top of the list, so we got our keys quickly and left to drop off our stuff before our adventures in Inverness ( Sandra was even applauded by Hojatt for remembering the room number, but really, why the heck wouldn’t you???).

After dropping off our stuff, we grabbed a map from the hostel reception and set off for an exploration! Only to quickly realize everything had closed at 3:30 and we got there at 4. Castles, Cathedrals, a Museum, a Battlefield, all of these great attractions, and because of people not showing up on time, and visiting places that seemed just foolish, we missed visiting essentially everything there is to see in Inverness. And so, we resorted to just walking around all evening, exploring the new city we were in. It was pleasant, Inverness means “The Mouth of the River Ness” in Gaelic, so it was a town seated on the river that leads right in to Loch Ness, and there were castles and cathedrals and it was pleasant, but it could have been even better if we got to see what we came to see. But, we didn’t get discouraged, we had a McDonald’s dinner (because everything was too expensive and I don’t eat chili which is what Hojatt was so kindly making us for dinner for free at the hostel), and set to bed semi-early while everyone else went out clubbing – the only reason they came to Inverness it seemed like.

Then, in the morning, we went down for breakfast, where half of our group wasn’t awake and the other half was disorganized and eating another group’s food, checked out, and loaded on the bus, thinking this new day would bring better luck! Not quite. Our first stop was The Nessie Center, an exhibition center with lots to see and do regarding Loch Ness and more specifically the monster that resides in the waters. We were given two options, to watch a presentation lasting a half hour at the exhibition center or explore the surrounding area, but whatever you did, you had to be back on the bus in a half hour. So, being forced to choose one or the other, Sandra and I saw the presentation on Nessie, and it was very interesting. Did you know that you can fit the entire world’s population three times over in Loch Ness? It was huge! After finishing the presentation, we snapped some quick pictures on our way back to the bus and then after waiting again, set off for Urquhart Castle!

Urquhart Castle was incredible, the ruins of a castle sitting right on Loch Ness, a huge gift shop, another presentation to see, and we had one hour to look at it. We had more time in the pouring rain in boring ol’ Perth, than here! Heck, the total time we spent waiting for other people on the bus was more time than we had here! But, we decided it was best not to complain and to just use the time as wisely as we could. This though, was when we realized that we had definitely gone on the trip with the wrong kind of people. Because as we are marveling at the size of the trebuchet just outside the castle walls, members of our group ran across the grass and down the hill, tearing off their clothes as they did to jump in Loch Ness. Sigh. But anyway, we set out to explore the castle and it was magnificent! We may or may not have grabbed a little piece of it for my Aunt Susie, as requested. If you haven’t a Facebook and therefore haven’t looked at the pictures yet, click the links on the right side for Scotland Album 2, they should be available for everyone to look through and you’ll see how incredible the castle and the Loch really is.

After exploring the castle and getting some souvenirs, we went back to the bus and sat on there to continue waiting. Only this time, we had to have waited a solid half hour, at least, for them to round everyone up. Time that could have been spent exploring the castle, and that was pretty much the last straw when it came to our patience for this trip. We will most likely go back in order to do this trip right, but at that point we had given up and just wanted to get home – sadly, there was more left!

On the way back, we took the scenic route again through the mountainous highlands, and Sandra got some pretty amazing photos of the mountains, including Ben Nevis the highest peak in Britain, from the bus. We stopped at a monument for the Commandos of the British army in WWII, (which involved pushing Asians, who feel the need to take pictures in front of everything they see, out of the way). And then we stopped for lunch in Fort Williams, another town that is literally a parking lot and a road and not much else. But we had lunch in the gift shoppy area next to the bus and it was good, and then loaded back on the bus after our hour long visit there, and as always we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Until finally, after an hour and a half of waiting, we left with one of the buses about half full, because people had gotten lost in this tiny town, partly because of their own stupidity and partly because we are dropped off in these places with no directions. So, we left without half of the people from the second bus and set off, but of course after waiting all that time, we found them at the bus stop a quarter mile from where we parked and set off again.

We made one more stop, and I don’t even remember where, but because of all the delays, the main toilet facilities were closed, as with almost everything at this time of day, and so 80 girls had to use 2 toilets in about 15 minutes – yeah, not gonna happen. So more delays. Finally when we got back, Sandra and I vowed over pinky promises not to go on another weekend trip with ISoc again. A day trip, maybe. But relying on so many people with different agendas and everything to be on the same page for an entire weekend, when they are going to these things for different reasons than us, it doesn’t work.

Now here are some *exclusive* pictures, not posted on facebook, especially for our dedicated readers (and we realize that most of you are related to us and feel a familial obligation, but you’re special too). Enjoy!

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