Nessie Hunting

Prepare for a picture explosion! If you have slow internet, you might want to go get a coffee or paint your toenails or something. It's going to take a while. Nessie is a big deal, ya know. So anyways. I left Glasgow on Friday afternoon from here:Ah, Scotland. Yes, that is Gaelic underneath the English. It was actually a pretty decent day. And by that, I mean it wasn't raining. Which in Glasgow is considered a nice day. Now, because I'm a lame-o, I didn't take pictures during the train ride because I was sitting next to a really cranky lady. I didn't know you could reserve seats on the train, and I was apparently sitting in her seat. Instead of asking me nicely to move, she just sat down in a huff next to me and said "You know, you are in the wrong seat." Um... okay? I replied, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Would you like to switch with me?" She rolled her eyes and said "Uhg, no. I just thought you should know." Well excuse me, Ms. Cranky-pants. But really? If it was that upsetting, she could have just asked me to move. Goodness. Also, during the course of the train ride (about 3.5 hours) she drank two small bottles of wine...

SO! I arrived in Inverness around 6:30pm. Because it's such a small town, I just walked to the hostel, which was about a 10 minute walk. I checked in, and was pretty surprised at how quiet it was. I was one of three people checked into the whole hostel. One was my roommate, an elderly woman from Aberdeen traveling for a fiddle and accordion concert. Awesome, right?! I never caught her name, but she was very nice. She told me about a few other hostels I should check out. One is in a castle! Here is one side of the room (it had 6 beds total):
And this is what I picked up from Morrisons (a supermarket) while exploring the town:
While on my Morrisons trip, I walked around town a little bit. It's a really cute, pretty town. It's on River Ness, which eventually empties into Loch Ness. I was standing on a bridge here:
This bridge, to be exact:
After my excursion, I went back to the hostel, drank bad wine, ate cookies and read trashy magazines. Then I got up bright and early for a day of Nessie hunting. I went to the Inverness Bus Station to catch a bus to Drumnadrochit, which is a tiny village on the Loch.

The town is about 14 miles from Inverness, right down the Loch. So it was a really nice bus ride. This is on the smaller end of the loch. Yeah, it's huge. 27 miles long in total. And up to 900 feet deep at the deepest point (YIKES).

Whoops, this is out of order. This is Inverness, right on the river. Pretty, yes?

So here is the infamous Loch Ness! Gorgeous. It actually really reminded me of Northern Minnesota. This area that I was overlooking is the deepest part of the loch. So... if Nessie was going to be anywhere, she was going to be here. :)

This is the village of Drumnadrochit. It was hardly even a village. More like a tiny congregation of sheep farms. And a gas station. Sure was pretty though.
You know you are in the highlands when the Gaelic comes before the English on signs.
And here is Urquhart Castle. It's a very, very old castle (well, mostly ruins now) on the edge of the Loch. It was totally magnificent and really fun to be able to walk around on the ruins.

This was part of a living chamber. Um... looks cozy... NOT. I hope they had carpets.

Looking down the loch. This is what the occupants of the castle would have woken up to every day. Yeah, I was totally jealous.

Although I wouldn't have been jealous of their windows. I could have laid down comfortably (well... somewhat comfortably) between the inner wall and the outer wall. It must have been 6 feet thick.

This is inside the visitor's center for the castle. The sentiment still rings true today.

And this I took just to prove what a lovely day it was. I could see the moon!! It's that wee little speck in the middle of the branches. It turned out to be a lovely day for an outing. It was SUPER windy, though.
Here is a little video clip I took when I was on the castle grounds. Sorry for the bad sound, it was SO windy! My hat almost gets knocked off at one point. :)

So that was my adventure to Loch Ness! I went back to the hostel after all my wandering about and just took it easy for the rest of the night. I was tired. I was now one of two people in the hostel, as my roommate had moved on. Which meant I had the whole room to myself! They had totally wonderful showers, so I just showered, ate cookies and drank tea. It was a nice relaxing night.

The next day I headed for home. Got lunch at a diner in town (it was an American diner, I almost had to eat there) then hopped on the train and got into Glasgow in the late afternoon. And here I am! It was a great weekend. Because I don't have classes on Mondays, I got to take today easy. Got my hair cut again (it's the same shape, just a lot shorter) and cleaned up a bit. I left my room a bit of a mess on Friday. Tomorrow I have classes again, and I'm kind of looking forward to getting busy with school again. I have two essays to work on, so plenty to keep me out of trouble.

Love from Nessie! (and me)