Made it to Edinburgh... finally!

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Greetings from bonnie Scotland!!!
We have had a crazy couple of days, although it has been a blast. After I wrote last we ordered some traditional fish and chips for supper and went to bed - I have NEVER been that tired. We went to bed at like 7:30. Worse than mom!!! 😊 The next morning we ate the rest of our fries for breakfast and sat with a very friendly Swiss guy who asked "do Canadians always eat chips for breakfast?" Yeah, it was funny. After that, we check out of our castle and took a very crazy cab ride down to the shore of Loch Lomond to this place called Sweeney's Tours, and hopped on a boat which took us on a really neat tour around the loch. We passed a whole bunch of big castles, including one which has been converted into a hotel and where Sean Connery frequently stays. SEAN CONNERY!!! Cool. Loch Lomond is in a part of the country called the Trossachs, and it is without a doubt THE most beautiful place I have ever seen. After that we hopped on a train for our first long voyage to Inverness - we got a bit confused and took a train which had a one hour stopover in Aberdeen, but it worked out fine because Aberdeen was amazing - every building there is so old and gothic and dark. It was very neat. We checked out this ancient graveyard with actual tombs in it instead of plain gravestones - creepy.
Due to our accidental stopover, we didn't get to Inverness until like 8:00, so we walked to this little Chinese food store and bought WAY too much food - but it was the best Chinese food I ever had, totally beats the Regent (even the Dim Sum, and thats a hard act to beat!). We stayed in a place called Bazpacker's Backpackers in a double bed. I have a cold (dammit) so I had a bit of a rough sleep, but I managed ok. We wanted to get up early so that we could have some breakfast and go on this tour of Inverness which takes you around on a bus and boat, but we got up too late (the alarm didn't go off... at least I didn't hear it go off... ???) so we woke up at like 10:00 and the tour left at 10:30. So we were running around like madwomen trying to gert everything settled, we checked out as fast as we could and booted it down the road to a pay phone, and my little zip-off bag was falling off so Sarah was trying to fix it as I was trying to call teh tour place then Sarah cut her thumb on some glass and I dropped all my money on the ground and well, needless to say we didn't make the tour because we had to first aid Sarah's thumb. Its okay now, she has a Harry Potter bandage on it.
Since we missed our tour, we dejectedly walked down to the local McDonald's for some breakfast. I know, I know, I shouldn't be going to McDonalds in Scotland and instead I should have haggis for breakfast or something. But I couldn't help it, a sausage mcmuffin was calling my name. We sat around trying to figure out what to do, and while we were sitting there looking out the window one of those huge red double decker busses passes us with a big sign on it saying Inverness Tours on it! We ran to the train station and dropped our bags off (you pay this guy 3£ and he keeps your bag for like 24 hours) and hopped on. It was a great tour. We sat on the top deck and this recorded Scottish lady's voice came on and talked about everything that we passed. We though that the only big thing about Inverness was the Loch Ness Monster, but we were way off. We learned all about the battles with the Jacobites and Bonnie Prince Charlie and we passed by a battlefield where you could see the lines of both sides. The really cool thing about the tour was that it stopped at every tourist attraction, so you could get off and look around and another bus would be back in about 1/2 hr and the Scottish lady's recording would start right where you left off. So the next tourist stop was Cawdor Castle, and we just HAD to stop there. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen! The castle is just massive, and we went on the tour inside it and they had it all decorated like it was when the Thanes of Cawdor and their families lived there, with the drawing room and kitchen and even a very creepy dungeon which apparently was where they put people who tried to steal their sheep.
Inside the dungeon also was this tree which the whole castle is built around, and the story was that whoever had first built the castle (I forget his name) heard a prophecy that he should let his donkey roam around and where his donkey rested, he should build his castle. So he did, and his donkey rested underneath a tree, and he built the castle around the tree (which is obvioudly still there). It was quite cool. Also, the grounds of the castle were amazing. It is built right beside a river and it seriously looks like a rain forest in there. Then there are two gardens on either side - one of them was a hedge maze! How castle-ish is that? The other one was full of flowers and cool hedges and we were in there for a while - Dad, you would have been taking pictures like a madman! We then proceeded to feed the ducks, who were very friendly (Sarah mostly fed them because they kind of freaked me out when they eat right out of your hand).
We got back on the bus and it started raining again. About the rain, it is the weirdest thing. It rains for like 10 minutes, then the sun comes out, then it rains again for 10 minutes, then the sun comes out, ad nauseum... Sometimes it even rains when the sun is out, so it's hard to dress for the weather when you have no idea what it will be like in about 3 minutes. Anyhow, we went past the North Sea and looked for dolphins and porpoises and seals, but didn't see any. Darn. We also stopped at Fort George, but didn't get out - we took some pictures though. By time we got back to Inverness, we felt that we had had a totally productive day.
However, we also realised that we had not yet seen Loch Ness, which was basically the reason we came, and our train was leaving at 6:30 for Edinburgh! After some consideration, we decided to take a bus to Loch Ness and take a later train. Before that, we went to this store called Marks and Spencer's which is the greatest store ever! You can buy anything in meal sized packages - like little pizzas and cheeses and yogurts. So we got some lunch to take with us and took the bus (which was quite nice - like a Greyhound) to a place called Urquart Castle which is on the shore of Loch Ness. It was an awesome castle (we didn't go in because we were short on money for the day) but we had a great view of it - it's actually not a whole castle because the Jacobites blew it up, but it was very interesting all the same. Loch Ness was amazing - it is just huge and surrounded with hills and castles. We didn't see Nessie but not for a lack of trying. We stayed there and had a late lunch overlooking Loch Ness and basically just relaxed - the arch on my right foot has been hurting for a while, so i need to rest it every now and then. We got back on the bus, got to the train station, called our hostel to tell them we would be late, and got on the 8:00 train to Edinburgh. The train was long (seemed longer because it was dark out so we couldnt see the scenery) and we finally got to Waverly Station in Edinburgh at 12 midnight, hopped in a taxi and here we are at Argyle Backpackers. We were in a 10 bed mixed dorm room, but when we got here only one guy was sleeping in there. So we went to bed, but around 2 in the morning (I don't know exactly when) about 4 drunk Scotsmen came piling into the room. It was quite amusing to listen to actually, because they were honestly trying to be quiet but without much success, they kept laughing and bumping into things, and even when they finally got into bed, they kept saying things like "i want to go drink more", and "shut the bloody hell up". Haha... Scotsmen are great.
Sleep was good, we had showers today (the last place had co-ed showers, so needless to say, we decided to remain stinky) and the people are really nice. The lady that works at reception stayed awake until 12:30 to let us in, even though the place closes at 11:00 last night, so that was really cool of her. We're going to do some laundry today because we have basically been wearing the same outfit for 4 days (no wonder noboyd sits next to us) and we want to go check out Edinburgh castle, and maybe take the City of the Dead tour (eek!). Having a marvelous time!
Well, we will update soon! This place is great because it is quite cheap to use the internet compared to some places, so probably tomorrow!
Cheers!
Jackie

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