I checked out of the hostel in Inverness and put my nags in a locker at the train station. Half a block away, I remembered that I needed my sunglasses and film today, but my extra rolls were locked up. I decided I could manage one day without my sunglasses, and fortunately there was a drugstore nearby where I was able to get two rolls of film. Then I had to decide which Loch Ness tour I wanted to go on. I decided to do the longer one- "Gordon's Loch Ness Tour." But it wasn't led by Gordon, and I forgot the name of the guy who did lead it. The other people on the tour were a couple from London, another from Australia, and a guy from Washington, DC. The first thing I learned was that Inverness means "on the mouth of the River Ness," and there were several Inver___ towns around the loch.

From the bottem end of the loch it is possible to see all the way to the other end of it- some 33km, I think. There was a "big" dome-shaped mountain covered with snow that was very pretty. I forgot the name of it, but it means something like "mounded rock" or "dome mountain." It's not actually that high, but after four months in France, it was enough for me that it looked like a real mountain. Loch Ness is on a fault line: on the north side is sandstone and on the south is volcanic conglomerate. But there's not any earthquake activity.

We stopped at a little stream and walked up to an overlook. It was a nice little hike- but most of the forests are man-made! The Scots pine used to be used for ships masts, but were all cut down for coal during the Industrial Revolution. There is only one Scots pine forest left in the world. The rest were all replanted with trees from North America. There was a large rock/ small mountain that had been a Bronze-age Pictish stronghold. In one place, a forest was allowed to keep growing past its maturity to provide protection for a new, young forest on the other side of a stream.

Moving on, we stopped at the highest point of the road and got out to take pictures and play in the snow. I was lucky- just seconds after I took a picture, the clouds moved off and the mountain was no longer purple. On the way down we saw some red deer- the largest deer- up to their knees in snow. At least one was an alpha male from the way the group (herd?) was acting, but it was hard to tell which one. The zoom function on my new camera definately came in handy.

We followed the old military road (from the time of the Jacobite rebellions) down, and passed a norrow bridge with the mark of the military engineers for the keystone. (I'll have a picture as soon as I get them developed.) We were able to see the abbey and town at the top of the loch from above. We ate lunch in the town- I had broth, toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, and a traditional lemon dessert. I had thought it was a warm dish- but it was cold! Afterwards I wandered around a little bit and took some pictures. There was a pair of swans swimming in the loch, and I got a guy who walked by to take a picture of me standing on the end of a pier-like thing. (He liked my camera too!) Around 1800, canals were built all the way across Scotland. And beside the start of the canal locks was a plant Nessie and baby Nessie.

Loch Ness doesn't have any islands, but leaving the town we saw a crannog- man-made island. It was perfectly round, covered with trees, and only a few meters from the shore. It was a monk that actually confirmed that it was man-made. There was a little cove with waterfalls and another military bridge and a little hut from Victorian times (where the women would talk and sew while the men fished). It was also really pretty. I especially liked the mists halfway up the mountainside. This was where I finished off a second roll of film for the day. The tour guide said that this was the "traditional" image of Scotland.

The next stop was an overlook of Urquhart castle, which wasn't actually in any major battles. It is in an excellent defensive position, though, and just a few meters off shore the lake bed suddenly drops down to thousands of feet deep. And we can't forget the hairy cattle! They were wild until just a few hundered years ago and used in much the same way as the Plains Indians used the American Buffalo.

The last stop was the Monster Exhibition. What I liked the most was the display on all the weird kinds of animals that are (or were) real. Once again I got a guy to take a picture of me, and he actually thanked me for letting him take the picture! I also got some souvenirs- a t-shirt with the Scottish flag and Nessie, and I smashed a penny!

It was already dark by the time we got back to Inverness, but I had just enough time to get my stuff from the locker before catching the last bus to Glasgow. The bus ride was long and I tried to sleep most of the way, but it didn't work too well. It took me a long time to find the hostel upon reaching Glasgow. First I couldn't find the right bus number, and when I finally did, it was going the wrong way. So I ended up just walking, except I missed the sign for the hostel, overshot, and ended up by the transportation museum. But it only took a single backtrack to find the hostel and now I'm going to sleep!

Top 30/12/99
Well, I didn't get much sight-seeing done today. Not that I could have seen much anyway. It was rainy & cloudy & bleah. But first I had to take care of my train tickets. I decided to leave from Edinburgh, so I don't go home with this bleah-ness hanging over me. That means I have to catch a bus from here (& I decided to stay for Hogmany because Glasgow has a bunch of free "stages" that you don't need a ticket for) at 6:30 in the morning on the second of January. But that's okay, I'll probably be sleeping in the bus station anyways as there are no rooms available. But I can leave my bag at the station and get it back before I leave, so I won't need to be lugging two bags all over Glasgow for the next day and a half.

Once I finally got some time for myself, I decided to go see the Museum of Transportation, since it was the only thing I knew where it was. Turns out it wasn't the Transportation Museum, however. It was the Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery. The first display I saw was Stormtropper armor right next to 16th century armor. Once again my goal to avoid all things SF-related had failed! There were several displays of this type- old armor, clocks, headrests, etc. next to very new stuff. This was in conjunction with a display on design that had some really weird things. There was a spill table and a Japanese sleeping chamber barely big enough for one person to lie down in. Also on the main floor was a display that had Bronze-age British Isles stuff down one side and Egyptian, Greek, and Roman stuff from the corresponding time periods down the other side of the room. Upstairs had the art gallery and a display called "Wee (and not so Wee) Beasties." It was bugs and sponges and other invertebrates. One of the weirder things was some kind of rope-like body decoration from Equador made of beetle exoskeletons.

In the evening, I decided to try and find the location of the "stages" for the Hogmany part, but didn\t get that far. What stopped me is that I finally found a pair of knee-high brown boots. I have been looking for about 3 years- ever since I borrowed my mom's knee-high boots which were too small (& orange!). So when I finally found some I had to get them, even if Mom is going to kill me for how much they cost!

Top 31/12/99
So far this day was pretty lazy & relaxing. I was going to sleep in as long as possible, but my stomach was protesting so I got up at 7:30 and went to breakfast. I was feeling kind of sick though, and coldn't eat everything. But there was some plastic wrap, so I wrapped up my rolls and took them with me. I then went back to sleep for half an hour, then took my time getting dressed and ready for the day. It turned out that neither of my jeans could fit over my new boots, so I pulled out my running pants (which have zippers on the bottems of the legs) and had to totally repack. Again.

After I checked out of the hostel, I took a slightly different route back to the center of town and the bus station. On the way I composed a poem and sat down in the middle of a pedestrian bridge to write it down.

After dropping my one bag off at the bus station for safekeeping over night, I went looking for where the bus tour of Glasgow leaves from. It leaves from George Square, which was one of the Hogmanay Stages, and the only thing in Glasgow named for George III. Glaswegians don't like him because he cost them the tobacco trade with America. But it's still the city center for Glasgow because the city counci building is on one side of it.

The patron saint of Glasgow is St. Mongol (sp?) which means beloved friend. This is odd because he came from the east coast of Scotland, and at the time Glasgow was founded, the east & west coasts were enemies. (There's still a bit of rivalry today.) Along the river Clyde is what's called the Merchant City. In addition to trade, Glasgow was a major ship building, shipping, and industrial center. Many famous ships were built in its shipyards (but not the Titannic).

There are 3 universitys, many museums, and 73 parks in Glasgow. Because of all the parks, it is called the "dear green place." There are also a number of different types of museums, and the only opera house in Scotland.

By this point I was a little tired of the whole tourist thing, so I hung out at the Border's bookstore for a couple of hours, then went to Pizza Hut to eat. I didn't buy any books, though. But I did take advantage of the warmth & dry of Pizza Hut to write. There were some cops standing around outside & I drew some characatures of them as well.

Top Hogmany 2000 (6pm 31/12/99 to 6am 1/1/00)
For three hours I killed time walking around the city center of Glasgow, figuring out where all the stages were. At 9pm the party started, and this was the second place my desire to avoid space during vacation failed. The theme of Glasgow's Hogmanay was space related, with "Hogmanauts," or street performers dressed up as what might have been meant as the aliens from ID4 (Independance Day). Several times between dinner and when the bands started playing at 9:30, I had to sit down on my backpack and give my feet a rest, but once the bands started I did not sit down again until they left after midnight. Most of the night I was dancing at the Ceiledh stage, but when the band took a break at 10:30, I went over to the Heat @ High Street stage that had a pyrotechnics & fireworks show going on. When I went back to dancing at the Ceiledh stage, a girl in the crowd noticed my skirt and commented that she liked it (I was wearing the one I bought in Inverness). And then an older lady noticed when I had made a circle of the dance floor and commented on it.

A few minutes before midnight, the band had to leave, so we just had recorded music for half an hour or so. Not that it made a difference. When the countdown came on, I counted right along with everyone else and kept on dancing. A short time after the band came nack, the played a set of slow songs, so I went & sat down. Then some cops brought a drunk over to give him a talking-to, so I went back to the dance "floor" just as the band finished. But there was a large group with plenty of enthusiasm & energy left which started doing the hokey-pokey. The girl that liked my skirt and the older lady were in that group, and they invited me along for their continuing celebration. It turned out to be an extended family & some friends. I went with them to a nearby apartment and we kept dancing, mostly to music from the 1960's. The party broke up about 5:00 am. One family offered to let me sleep at their house, but that didn't work out and I ended up going to the bus station, where about 20+ young adults were stranded.

Top 1/1/00
I spent most of the day in the bus station trying to rest. I did fall asleep for a little while and missed the chance to call home at midnight for them. I tried about an hour later and couldn't get through. Then I tried to sleep some more, but whenthat didn't work I read some of the only book I got for Christmas. Around 2pm, in spite of the fact that my feet were still hurting, I decided to go for a walk. Although most of the stuff was still up from the party, I was able to get a picture in George Square of the young Queen Victoria. I was bored, and since I couldn't call home before 4pm, I sat on a bench in Buchanan Street to write. Unfortunately I wasn't getting any inspiration, so I pulled out my coloring book instead. I got that thing several months before leaving for France, and it has come in very useful. Eventually I got the idea to describe what I could see - make a word picture of Buchanan Street, basically. By the time I finished that it was 4pm, so I went back to the bus station (it was warm!) and called home

Surprise! Mom wasn't mad at me for getting my boots. Then I read some more until some cops came along to lock the bus station up. I did one more check of my bags to make sure I had everything, and discovered my train tickets missing! I tried looking for them at the Pizza Hut and the bench where I colored earlier, with no luck. So I came to the Central train station, but of course no one was there. By this point I was worried that if I spent another night on the street, something else might go missing. So when I saw a Quality Inn (cheep hotel) in the train station, I decided to stay there for one night. After getting a room, I called home (again) to let my mom know what had happened. And since the room had a tub, I took a bath. It was a huge tub.

Top 2/1/00
I had been told that the bus to Edinburgh would be on a normal schedule, but it turned out that it wasn't. So when the train station opened at 8:00 am I got a new ticket from Glasgow to London. This turned out to be the same train I had originally been scheduled to go on from Edinburgh to London. Some guys with newspapers sat down next to me and shared their papers with me. The picture of the day was of the queen and the British prime minister & his wife singing "Auld Lang Syne." Appearantly you're supposed to cross your arms and hold hands with the people on either side of you, but the queen hadn't crossed her arms. When I got to London, it was hot, at least considering that I was wearing several layers so I wouldn't freeze upon reaching Strasbourg. I was able to get a ticket to Paris, again on Eurostar, that enabled me to get there in time to catch the last train to Strasbourg. The stupid thing about French trains is that people smoke in the non-smoking cars, but not in the smoking cars. I was able to catch a little sleep on the last leg of my journey, and arrived by in Strasbourg safe and sound early Monday morning.

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