Mac the knife swigs a can and sings the day away.

May 12, 2006

Missed a couple days, you'll soon know why.....
I'm currently leaving the Inverness Bus Station, on my way to Skye, after spending the last two days in absolute bliss. I'll start with yesterday, upon which I took a bus tour of Loch Ness onwards. Before we left, we did a little tour of Inverness, seeing the modern Inverness Castle built on a moraine left over from an ice field. In front of the castle is a staue of Flora McDonald who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie by smuggling him down river dressed in women's clothes. We stopped along the bank to look at some fake Nessie photos, then continued on and saw the Caledonian Canal which joins the North Sea with Loch Ness, and was built to extend communication lines in early days. Onwards to Loch Ness, which was worth seeing, but a bit boring. Wish I could have swam in it. Back on the bus, we stopped along the way to see a 76-yr-old bagpiper who played us a couple tunes in full-costume. I teared up hearing the eerie notes played amongst the backdrop of the massive Loch. Along the banks, there weren't many trees to see because 3000 years ago, in the Bronze Age, most were chopped down and used to make charcoal. We did a tour of the Loch, guided by an old guy who does sonar research and undersea exploration in search of Nessie. The bus then carried on to Glenurqhart and on to Corrimony Cairn. This was a mound of rock where evidence of charred bodies was found and dated to be 3000 yrs old. There were sheep in the fields beyond us with red spraypaint on their necks, and it turns out that those ones have grazed in fields still affected by Chernobyl, and they have to eat clean grass for 6 months before they can enter the food chain. We heard all about William Wallace aka Braveheart aka Mel Gibson, then we visited Urquhart Castle which was built right on the Loch and is a pretty amazing structure. From there we saw Glen Afrric, which is a wooded reserve and looks a lot like some of the back roads on the Island. Growing all over the ground was this plant called Bracken which has cyanide in the sap and can give you skin cancer if you handle it often. Saw Dog Falls, Benevean Dam, and some trails around Glen Affric. Then we headed home to Inverness. I stopped in Tesco for some mixer for my gin, but I picked up spring water instead of tonic water, fuckin eejit... Went back to the hostel and John accosted me, "We're cooking chicken! Come eat some! Smell the marinade!" He's great, a fucking riot the whole hostel is. I had already had a terrific Indian dinner in town, so I told him I'd taste it when it was done, and I poured myself a drink and sat down to relax. Some of the hostel staff kept asking me to stay and work there, apparantly I became very popular. I wish I could have... maybe next year. Anyway, so I got drunk while dinner was cooked, and listened to some retarded American tourists talk about birth control and Nick Lachey. After dinner we all went down to Hootenany's and Owen, who had been flirting with me constantly since I got there, piggy-backed me the entire way to the bar. He then bought me drinks all night and the big group of us got shittered and sang and danced and had a huge group hug, it was awesome. Needless to say, I spent the rest of my stay in the staff quarters where I got my own double bed, free reign of nice showers and all sorts of shit. They loved me! And I also got to know Owen really well, we had a blast, and we're going to keep in touch. He's from Edmonton of all places! Fucking Canadians, you can't escape them. We were goofing around the hostel the next morning and I ended up missing my first bus to Skye, but he walked me down to catch the next one and here I am. I left my fucking gin behind! FUCK!