April 20 day trip in the highlands

Up at 630 this morning, got a solid 2 hours of sleep. We have to be at another hostel in an hour for our day trip. I was in such a hungover rush I forgot to brush my teeth and put on deodorant. Luckily our bus was only 1/3rd full, our driver was hilarious and very knowledgable. It was a full 12 hours on a bus but we made a lot of stops, so it wasn't so bad. Luckily I found some spray deodorant at the second stop, but after applying it my under arms were on fire! It felt like I had hot coals in them.

The highlands are awesome, they look just like BC but the buildings are different and the roads are insanely narrow. We pass oncoming semis with just inches in between. There's a few Canadians on our bus, a family from Slovakia and we talk to a older guy from NYC. He's here on business and took a few days extra for himself.

Our first big stop was Loch Ness, it looks like the Shushwapps and the water is ice cold. There isn't much mention of the monster though, I figured there'd be some lame stores selling Nessy stuffed animals. But just one statue.

One of Scotland's biggest disadvantage is that it's incredibly to tell if a pub has decent food. They all look identical inside and all serve the same dishes. So Bryce and I got stuck eating a terrible steak pie and shit looking burger.

On the way back we stopped at the commando memorial, the UKs largest mountain (which was pretty weak compared to anything in Banff), a memorial to David Stirling the creator of the SAS Britains special forces. Our last stop was easily the coolest, in the middle of this tiny village is the castle from Monty Pythons Holy Grail. We stopped and circled the walls quoting the movie. I guess they host parties inside in the summer.

We were originally going to go to Belfast tomorrow but neither of us want to be stuck on another long journey. So we booked an extra night. We'll probably just look at how to get to Northern Ireland tomorrow, and do some laundry.