I'll take the high road...
Culture shock!
I've spent the last few days on a bus trip around the Scottish highlands. Small group of people, small bus, small towns. Suddenly I've reappeared back in Edinburgh, walked into a crowded internet cafe full of people using Skype to call relatives overseas, and I've spent half an hour finding tomorrow's target (Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham - via Edinburgh and East Midlands airports, and the Broadmarsh bus station) in Google Maps. Life certainly moves at a faster pace in the cities...
Of course, three days aren't enough to really see the highlands - instead, I've been scouting for places to put on the Must Come Back To list. Unfortunately, it's a very long list. I could happily spend months in the mountains of Glencoe, even if it does rain virtually all year. I scrambled around on rocky trails and shorelines whenever the bus stopped, wandered through ruined castles, and learned a lot more about the long and bloody history of the highland clans.
I swam in Loch Ness, as the water was warmer than the wind and rain outside. I met a battered looking backpacker who managed to "fall off" Edinburgh Castle the night before the bus trip, bouncing 140 feet down the cliff to crash into a spike-topped iron fence - winding up with only two lots of stitches and a few bruises. Two nights later he was dancing (on one leg, mind) in an Inverness pub.
I've also been complimented on my "very good english" by a local in the Oban Inn, who apparently thought we spoke something different down in the colonies. It's a strange place, but it's the best sort of strange. I hope that I'll be back in the hills before too long.
Tomorrow: Edinburgh Airport by 6am, then through Nottingham and on to Oxford, all by public transport. Wish me luck.
I've spent the last few days on a bus trip around the Scottish highlands. Small group of people, small bus, small towns. Suddenly I've reappeared back in Edinburgh, walked into a crowded internet cafe full of people using Skype to call relatives overseas, and I've spent half an hour finding tomorrow's target (Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham - via Edinburgh and East Midlands airports, and the Broadmarsh bus station) in Google Maps. Life certainly moves at a faster pace in the cities...
Of course, three days aren't enough to really see the highlands - instead, I've been scouting for places to put on the Must Come Back To list. Unfortunately, it's a very long list. I could happily spend months in the mountains of Glencoe, even if it does rain virtually all year. I scrambled around on rocky trails and shorelines whenever the bus stopped, wandered through ruined castles, and learned a lot more about the long and bloody history of the highland clans.
I swam in Loch Ness, as the water was warmer than the wind and rain outside. I met a battered looking backpacker who managed to "fall off" Edinburgh Castle the night before the bus trip, bouncing 140 feet down the cliff to crash into a spike-topped iron fence - winding up with only two lots of stitches and a few bruises. Two nights later he was dancing (on one leg, mind) in an Inverness pub.
I've also been complimented on my "very good english" by a local in the Oban Inn, who apparently thought we spoke something different down in the colonies. It's a strange place, but it's the best sort of strange. I hope that I'll be back in the hills before too long.
Tomorrow: Edinburgh Airport by 6am, then through Nottingham and on to Oxford, all by public transport. Wish me luck.