Today is the day I begin the rest of my adventure...by myself! Although I was sad to see all my friends and my companions leave, I wasn't sad enough to get up at 3am and see them off, and as sad as I was, I was also excited because I DIDN'T HAVE TO GO HOME YET!! Yay, me!
MY ninth day seemed like the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime! I got up at my leisure and then proceeded to demonstrate to myself how resourceful I was...The day before, I had made myself a roll with some ham in it as a later snack to see if anyone would notice, and today, the hunter/gatherer phase of the trip was for real...I had 3 more days to spend in Scotland and we were entering the extreme low-budget, all on my own portion of the trip, so it was completely necessary to cut corners where I could. From the breakfast bar, I stashed away one banana for each remaining day, another ham sandwich (which would be a bacon sandwish to these folks, all I know is that it was pork product and it was delicious!), various fruits, some nutella packages, condiments, and whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time =) The rest I would augment later...
Next, I went down to a little bargain store, the kind of which take the form here at home of, like Big Lots, not quite a dollar store, but definitely not high quality stuff. My goal was to buy a bad large enough to carry the things I had thusfar bought, in addition to whatever else I might buy, preferably either on wheels, or with a shoulder strap or put together in a way that I could easily carry it with the other stuff that I had to carry. The next dilemma was to figure out if I could walk to the train station, or if I should splurge for a cab. I had previously walked to the station, but wasn't sure how it would work with luggage, then decided I was going to find out, proclaiming the motto "that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger" as I went. In all honesty, it wasn't a trial at all to get down the hill to the train station. I figured I'm smart and resourceful, I can do this! It was raining off and on, but that had rather been a constant from the beginning of the trip. The rain never bothered me, I had the coolest rain coat EVAH!
I hauled my considerable crap to the train station, found the appropriate train to Inverness, and said down to read for awhile. It was a pleasant wait. The train station was dark, but had lots of glass to let in what light was available. There might be train stations like that on the east coast, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen a train station like THIS on the west coast. I've been to bart stations before, and those are sort of the the same as far as the tracks go, but the age of things in Europe, I do not believe can be rivaled in our corner of the world. Because of this, it also seems that many things in Edinburgh and around, almost always seem to be in some varying stage of remodel, repair, updating or maintenance. It's interesting to me how people just continue about their business and walk around the barricades, over the puddles, and in front of the cars to get where they are going =)
The train ride was pleasant. The seats are generally comfortable, they have these cute little carts like airline carts, but made from the train. This was such a novelty to me, I bought a bag of chips from the guy just to say I had =) I cannot accurately explain the absolute beauty of the Scottish countryside. It changes as you move into the Highlands, but ALL of it is stunning!
When I arrived in Inverness, that was probably my lowest point, and the point at which I really wondered if I could do this alone traveling thing while at the same time realizing that I had precious little choice about any of it. In the end, there was simply no choice but to pull myself up by my boot straps and find out where the fuck I was, where the fuck I was going, how the fuck to get there, and not kill myself with 150lbs of luggage anywhere along the way =)
I wandered around in circles for a good, long while. This is the point at which "alone" came home to me. I looked weird, with my braids that most of these folks assume are worn only by black people, so no one was going to approach or talk to me willingly. I couldn't find a map of Inverness that seemed easy to read that I could orient myself too. I walked down to the bus station, but couldn't make out which buses went where in relation to where I was staying at the hostel, then turned around and went back towards the train station. I got frustrated. I hemmed and hawed. I ALMOST cried, but I didn't do it.
I gave in. My goal had been to be completely independent, but in the end, I spent the money and took a cab to the hostel. I am actually glad I did, because I don't think I ever would have found it otherwise! I am glad I chose the hostel that I did because, as noisy as it was, I think it was MUCH more quiet than the one that was smack dab in the center of town, that I passed by later that day...
From moment one, I loved the hostel. I was placed on the second floor. I bought internet time, got my key, and was thankful to be what would be my home for the next few days. I made my way to my room and although it had two beds, there was no one else in there with me, for which I was thankful several times during my stay. I asked if the hostel had previously been a camp, or a school, which is my impression of American hostels, but the lady told me that, in fact, this had been built as a hostel, and it was easy to see that.
It was still early in the day by the time I was mostly settled, so it was time to decide what to do. In exploring the hostel, I discovered....LAUNDRY FACILITIES!! I actually packed VERY light for this trip, compared to my Paris trip, but I was still looking at over a week with the same clothes. The prospect of clean clothes was VERY appealing. It was also early afternoon, so seemed like a likely time that the facilities might be free. I bought my soap disks, which looked ALMOST like urinal cakes, but smelled better =) I got my stuff washing, looked around, and read for a bit. Communal bathroom not my favorite, but the hostel didn't seem anywhere NEAR capacity, so waiting a moment or two was tops for my time there, and it seemed reasonably clean.
After laundry, there were some items that still needed to dry, so I went up to my room and draped them all over the furniture to ensure everything would dry. It was nice to smell everything clean, though! At this point, I wanted to head in to town to buy more food and have dinner before it got too dark. I had been brought to the hostel on a major street, so figured if I stayed to that, I could be fine. I should mention here that while I had done my laundry and gotten settled in the hostel, at some point in the afternoon, it had begun to rain. Rain has never bothered me, so I thought "there's nothing for it, it has to be done," donned my little blue rain jacket and began my walk! I walked to the Center of Inverness and loved the little town. Now it was getting on to dinner time, maybe 6 or 7 at night, and it seemed that most things were closed. The shops and such were open, but there weren't a huge number of people milling about. I walked down some of the side streets, trying to familiarize myself with things. I asked a couple of locals for a suggestion on a good place to eat, and they recommended a pub. At this point, I was somewhat stymied because I passed many restaurants, but nothing I saw on the menu's sounded good. I was afraid to eat any sort of ethnic food except for Indian. I passed an Indian restaurant coming in to town, but have a thing about stopping the first place you see =)
I ended up in the pub, and ordered Haggis! I was determined to try it while in the Highlands, and this seemed like the perfect time. When I asked the waitress for her recommendation, that's what it was, so I figured "What the hell?" It was REALLY good! I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, and then walked back towards the hostel, but stopped in a grocery store to get basic supplies for two meals a day, figuring I would eat one to two meals of my own, then eat dinners out. Seemed like a good plan =)
The grocery store was interesting. There probably wasn't, but it seemed like there was a huge amount of prepared food. Salads, and I mean green salads and different food salads like orzo salad, which I got some of, pasta salads, just different types of food. It's strange to me that hardly anything in the UK that I saw is sold by weight. In the US EVERYTHING is by weight, but there it seemed to be by individual item. I think that's probably more realistic =) So, I managed to get food for two or three days for less than 10 pounds, which I thought was pretty good. This included basically eating out once a day and eating the other two meals at the hostel. Of course, with my scores from the lovely hotel in Edinburgh =)
It was a little bulky getting everything in my backpack, but I managed, which was awesome. Now it was dark and still raining, and I decided to head back to the hostel. I walked back by the same route I had come down on. I had a suspicion there was a much nicer way to walk, but after our experience in France, where we turned up a side street and got impossibly lost, I didn't want to have that experience by myself, in the dark and rain in Inverness. I did find the better route the next day in the daylight though, and it was lovely!
Sleep that night was somewhat elusive. I was excited, I was by myself, but apparently, the Inverness hostel also rents to elephants, as it appears they were square dancing above me throughout the night. At some point, though, I believe exhaustion won out and I drifted off to the sleep of someone about to continue her adventure of a lifetime....
~Peace.
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