Fàilte gu Inbhir Nis

For the last part of Chris-Anne's visit (after a couple of days of work for me and independent nosing around for Chris-Anne), we decided to head up to the Highlands so she could claim she'd seen most of the country. We decided to base ourselves out of Inverness because, one, castles nearby, two, Loch Ness nearby, and three... did I mention castles? We're suckers for pretty history. And as the northern-most city in Scotland (and the entire United Kingdom at that), our other option was picking a tiny town with minimal bus service. So, Inverness it is!

Plus, going up to Inverness meant that Chris-Anne could get the train ride she'd been hoping for for the entire trip. It's cheaper to take the bus to Edinburgh and to Glasgow, but I'm not sitting on a bus all the way to Inverness when there is a comfortable and frequent set of trains that leave from both Leuchars and Dundee.


Going from Dundee to Inverness, you have to switch trains in Perth -- which also means navigating the M.C. Escher like staircases in the Perth station to get from platform to platform.

One of the awesome things about heading into the Highlands is that all of the location signs and most other signs go bilingual -- both the English (Inverness) and the Scottish Gaelic (Inbhir Nis) in an attempt to preserve the native language of the area. While there are no longer any monolingual speakers of Gaelic once you hit school age, the language is experiencing a renaissance in an attempt to preserve its every day usage.


Overlooking Inverness, and the River Ness which runs through it.

By the time we got into Inverness and checked into the hostel (we're young, we're cheap, and since all we were using it for was a place to store bags and lay a head down for a few hours each night, a hostel is the perfect choice) we'd missed a lot of the last buses out to any of the historical areas outside of town, so we set about walking around the city itself and exploring picturesque Inverness.


Overlooking Inverness down the River Ness, from the lawn of the Inverness Castle and the Flora MacDonald monument. This is also the official ending point of the Great Glen Way.


It was crazy windy, and I couldn't find my hair tie at the bottom of my purse, so all of the pictures we have include me attempting to hold my hair back.


A better view of Inverness Castle from the opposing bank of the River Ness. While this is a modern (and by modern, I mean from the 1800s) structure and now houses the court house, a castle/defensive structure has stood on that spot since the 1057, and associated with the scandals and murders surrounding Macbeth and Malcolm III.


Down by the River Ness. I love a pretty walk, and after sitting on the train for a couple hours, I want to move around. Chris-Anne, on the other hand, has about reached her walking around limit and votes to head back to the hostel for next day planning and finding food.

We ended up staying at the Inverness Youth Hostel which, while a bit of a walk from the city centre, was lovely. It's a new building, and we ended up in a four bed dorm room with lovely people. On the downside, there was apparently a whole bus load of French teenagers on what we're assuming was a field trip of some kind also staying with us. Thin walls + idiot teenagers = it's a good thing I remembered to bring ear plugs. But it's apparently a universal truth -- teenagers are loud and idiots everywhere. Which is kind of comforting knowing some things stay the same. But if people are ever in Inverness, I'd totally recommend the hostel. Even with it being a 10 minute walk from the city centre -- you pass right by a Morrison's, which makes it easy to pick up food and drink on the way back in.


Our dorm room at the hostel. Chris-Anne and I were the last two in, which meant top bunks for us. Not too keen on the top, but beggars can't be choosers.


Chris-Anne with the spread of bus timetables as we attempted to plan out the next day.

The general consensus was to get up early and head out to Culloden Battlefield the next morning to take advantage of the gorgeous day that it was forecast to be. And after a day long of traveling and walking Chris-Anne all over the city, and even with loud teenagers in the new rooms over, we crashed just as soon as heads hit the pillow.

Glasgow a-go-go

Spent the day in Glasgow, after once again missing the bus that we intended to get on. I swear, with Chris-Anne here I've apparently lost all ability to read a bus timetable. This has never happened! It was only once she got here and I had to show off my ability to get us places in a timely fashion that it all went downhill!

But after that got sorted out, we made our way to Glasgow. Considering that the only 'big city' in Scotland I'd been to was Edinburgh (unless you count Dundee, but we only go for the Primark...) Glasgow was quite the different flavor. Less historic, more architectural, more industrial. Honestly, coming out of the bus station and on to Buchanan Street it looked remarkably similar to any other big city I'd been in. Tall buildings with shopping and food, busy roads, and... that's about it.

And the rain -- oh the rain. The cold and the wet and the windy. Which, I know, Scotland.

But it was a day in a city I'd never been in, so that's a win right there.



Chris-Anne wanted to go to the Glasgow Modern Art Museum. She is an artist. I can doodle squiggles on a napkin. Which, apparently, qualifies as modern art. I don't get modern art, I don't understand art that's just supposed to make people uncomfortable (like some guy dressed as a piece of luggage and sitting on a shelf at his own party while people sit around him going 'what is going on?'). I like my art pretty. But I'm a good friend and a good sport. Even if it took us forever and a day to find it.

The trade-off for me is that I wanted to go see Glasgow Cathedral. I'm a sucker for an old cathedral or castle, and Glasgow is one of the delightfully old ones with amazing stained glass. According to its website, "The first stone built Glasgow Cathedral was dedicated in the presence of King David I in 1136. The present building was consecrated in 1197. Since that same period the Cathedral has never been unroofed and the worship of God has been carried out within its walls for more than 800 years."


It's also apparently one of the few (or the only) ancient cathedral in Scotland to survive the Protestant Reformation unscathed. With that in mind, I find the statue of John Knox looking down from the Necropolis on the hill by the cathedral amusing.


The main window, but only a taste of the amazing stained glass throughout.




The relics of St Kentigern (better known as St Mungo, patron saint and founder of the city of Glasgow). Sadly, the first thing that popped into my head was 'oh, isn't that the name of something in Harry Potter?'


Outside, we decide to walk up the hill to the Necropolis because we both kind of have a fascination with old graveyards. The Necropolis is a Victorian cemetary dating from 1833 and anyone who was anyone within Glasgow society was buried there during it's time.


There are many opinions on where the name Glasgow came from, but many scholars argue that it means 'the place of the grey rock' (instead of the more common 'the dear green place') and it refers to Fir Park, also known as the Glasgow Necropolis.


On a clear day, like the day became once we got out of the museum, you can see far across the city from the grey rock. We would've lingered longer, but after getting stuck in Glenrothes the day before, I'm not taking any chances on waiting for the last bus.


So we head back down, hang out with the pigeons in St George Square for a while, before hopping the bus back to St Andrews. And collapsing because boy were my feet tired after the past couple of days!

One of Those Days

Even days that are on a whole good can be 'one of those days'.

Chris-Anne and I decided to go back into Edinburgh today for a proper visit, since when we wandered around she was coming off of 24 hours of transatlantic travel and it was rainy. Today was supposed to be gorgeous, and that made it the perfect day to wander around.

That perfect day started off with both of us ignoring the alarm clock for an hour. Which put us on the later bus than we'd intended.

No worries, so we're an hour behind. It's all good.

It's all good until the kid behind us makes the comment that he's 'not keen on transport'. Okay, sure, not everyone likes being on a bus for an hour and a half. Apparently he missed the memo that if you get motion sick, you should take a pill, sit in the front, and have a plastic bag with you as a courtesy to other passengers. Because no one likes it when you vomit on a bus. Especially when it goes between the seats and gets on my arm. Win.

After that 'but at least it makes a great story' start to the day, we make it to Edinburgh Castle, which was one of two things that Chris-Anne just had to do. Which, I love the castle, so I'm always up for exploring it.


Chris-Anne looking fashionably nonchalant beside one of the cannons.


Since it's Mother's Day here in the UK, they had costumed actors all through the buildings, which was pretty cool. Here in the Great Hall, there was Queen Mary and that Protestant rabblerouser John Knox having words.


And with a beautiful day, we climbed to one of the high points to get a shot overlooking New Town. It was ridiculously windy and cold at that point, though.


Which meant that we decided to take pictures of each other taking pictures and being cold. Artistic, no?


With all of that walking around, Chris-Anne's next statement was 'we need a pub'. A good seat and a good drink sounds like a plan to me, especially with the second thing that she wanted to do coming up.


Ah, this one will do.


The delightful mix of exhaustion and excitement.


With our whistles whetted, we move on to the next thing she requested -- Chris-Anne wanted a ghost tour. Apparently Edinburgh is one of the most haunted cities in Europe, and that's too much to pass up for her. Me? Never a huge fan of something to intentionally scare me. But Chris-Anne wants to go down in the vaults, so why not?


Why not? Vaults are small, and stone, and underground, and dank, and dark, and did I mention small? Oh... did I not mention I'm slightly claustrophobic?

The tour was slightly cheesy, but the feeling of being in a small space was enough to make me uncomfortable and give me the heebijeebies. Fresh air for the win, after that.

But at least we still had plenty of time to catch the last bus back to St Andrews.

Oh, wait, here's the other part of that 'it makes a good story' time. Apparently they've changed the Sunday schedule without changing the time tables in the bus stations, or indicating the new start date on the web. So what nine of us thought was the bus to Glenrothes to connect to get into St Andrews turned out to just end in Glenrothes. With the nine of us standing outside in the cold and realizing there's something wrong when no bus comes and a look on the web on what is indicated as the unchanged normal schedule (last updated Dec 2009, my ass) now indicates that this was the last bus to Glenrothes and the last connection to St Andrews left an hour previously.

It cost £35 between me and Chris-Anne to get a taxi from Glenrothes to St Andrews. Color me unamused. I'm sure that someday it will be a funny story, this trip to Edinburgh, however, tonight I want nothing more than a sandwich and to curl up in bed.

Tomorrow we're going to Glasgow... surely the travel gods have to smile on me more this time...

Fife Coastal Path

Chris-Anne and I decided to explore a bit of the Fife Coastal Path -- which runs from the Forth Estuary in the south, to the Tay Estuary in the north and stretches for 150 kms. We explored just a tiny, tiny part of it, including the bits within view of St Andrews and down to the spindle, which is a rock formation that looks similar to a sewing spindle.

Again, as soon as we walk outside the beautiful day turns into something infinitely more gray and cold. We're pretty sure bad weather is following Chris-Anne through her vacation.


In case you were wondering... yes, it was still incredibly windy.


The beach past East Sands along the coastal path. With the tide out, the rocks are strewn with moss and the green is both surprising and amazing.


Chris-Anne indicating St Andrews in the background.


Contemplative on the beach.


I'm a fast walker, so inevitably I'm the first up to the top of the hill. The seagull approves.


I'm much less contemplative and much more 'ooh, look at the pretty' out in the wonders of nature.

Visitor From Home

Being on spring break has been a lovely reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the regular semester -- even if I know it goes into hyperdrive as soon as we get back. But one of the best things about spring break?

A friend from home coming across the pond to visit!

My friend Chris-Anne decided to grace me with her presence as she's killing time before becoming a productive member of society again. And what better way to kill time than to come and visit bonnie Scotland? Nothing, I say. We need to figure out what's up for the rest of her visit, but today we wandered around St Andrews and I introduced her to my cute little burg.

The cute little burg that had been sunny and warm for the past 2 weeks straight. As soon as she lands? Cloudy, windy, rainy, and really really cold.



Did I mention windy?