15/2/09 You're Up: Glasgow and Loch Ness

I set my alarm for 6 and kept hitting the sleep timer until 6:09. Then I must have just turned it off and went to sleep until 6:50. I got Kim and Heidi up and I went to shower. We got all our stuff together and went to find the bus station. The bus was going to leave at 8:20 but it said we had to be there to get tickets 15 minutes early. Well we didn’t see buses anywhere, we even asked some people. We finally found some people standing around and since people don’t exist in Glasgow before about 10, we asked if they were going on the tour. They were, so we hung out there and waited for the bus to come and were able to buy the tickets on the bus.

The bus itself was much smaller than I expected, like a small airport shuttle bus, there were maybe 15 people on the bus. The driver, Frank, was awesome. He had a deep Scottish accent and would give us all sorts of stories and info as we drove. We drove for a little and stopped at a small café and I ordered, yes, tea and a scone. It was again very good.

The bus took us up into the Highlands, which would have been worth it in itself. We literally went through snow-capped mountain ranges, something I was not expecting at all. It was gorgeous, like a national park.

After a couple hours, we got to Loch Ness, but unfortunately not by Urqhart Castle, which I really wanted to go to. Loch Ness is huge, and we were sort of at the tip of it. The lake itself is incredible, surrounded by mountains and very clear (although incredibly deep). I walked out onto a stone dock and looked for Nessie. I didn’t end up seeing her, although it wasn’t for lack of looking. We walked down to a little beach (if you could even call it that) and I put my hand in the water as bait. No luck. I’m glad I went, just bummed that it wasn’t by the castle like I’ve always pictured it.

We went to a little restaurant and I had a veggie burger (they didn’t have a Nessie burger, I checked) and apple pie with ice cream. I don’t know what it is about Europe, but they just don’t make apple pie well, it feels very processed or something.

We got on the bus and headed up through the mountains again, and I fell asleep. When we stopped we were let off the bus, and none of us were really sure where. It was a place called Pitlochey, a quaint Scottish town with small brick houses with smoke coming out of the chimneys. I have no idea what we were supposed to do there or look for, so we just sort of wandered around the town for 45 minutes before getting on the bus again. I feel asleep for must the ride back.

Even though Loch Ness was a disappointment (but something I’m really glad I did) it was worth it just for the views from the bus of the mountains. I felt like I saw real Scotland, and it was an adventure. Plus we would have done about nothing in Glasgow, so everyone was pretty happy with it.

Back in Glasgow we didn’t know what to do. We walked around for a little and stopped in a café and ordered a Pizza al Funghi (with mushrooms) and the waiter gave us a lot of attitude for just ordering one pizza. We weren’t really all that hungry anyways. Well they brought us a pizza with all sorts of stuff we didn’t want on it, including seemingly an entire pig. So we asked for another one, and the guy didn’t seem too pleased. Eventually we got the right pizza, which was good. We got the bill and were charged with neither of the pizzas we ordered, so I brought it to the guys attention and he said we could take a pound off (we really should have been able to take two pounds off, but at this point I wasn’t going to keep fighting. So I just basically paid was all the coins I collected, including a ton of two pence coins which are huge and worthless.

We wandered for a little and then went to the train station because my ticket was on a bus leaving at the exact same time as everyone else's by the same company going to the same place, but a different bus. So we tried to find someone to switch, and actually was able to pull it off. The best part is on the ticket for the name I put Dr. S. Bolohan.

The bus was a lot nicer and I managed to sleep for a lot longer than the first trip. I was pretty tired when I got back around 7 though.

In all, Glasgow was fun. It was nice to travel with people and the bus tour was really good, but not for the reasons I expected. Since I probably wouldn’t have done anything extraordinary around London this weekend, it was a good time for sure, although I don’t really anticipate going back to Glasgow anytime soon.