Zoom zoom!

I would just like to preface this entry with two bits of wisdom. One. If you are traveling through Inverness make a point of staying longer than just one night. It's not a huge city but it has a lot to offer in the way of history, sight seeing, and shopping. Two. Driving in Scotland is not for the faint of heart. Having said that it was literally the most beautiful drive I have ever been on. Now if only my husband knew how to drive a stick shift so I could have been in the passenger seat haha. If you find yourself driving in the highlands remember two things. Keep breathing and you really aren't driving all that slow but the Scottish drive at ungodly speeds on their single lane roads that are nothing but twists and curves. Finally be prepared to stop repeatedly. Either for you to calm down after narrowly avoiding going off the road when you let someone pass, or just to simply take in the breathtaking beauty of the Scottish Highlands. 

Inverness we arrive.

It was a really long trip from London to Inverness. The train ride was decent but by the time we were on the bus I was ready to pass out. In fact I did pass out for about an hour and then Tim was shaking me to wake up as we were pulling into Inverness. Our hotel was adorable. We were booked into the Glenmoriston Hotel which when you first walk through the front door has the appearance of a five star hotel. Upstairs the room was complete with tartan throw blanket and pillows but what I was most excited about was the tub. After dinner at Wetherspoons I sat and luxuriated in a hot bubble bath. In the morning we pick up the rental car to drive up to Bettyhill! Not gonna lie I am utterly terrified at this notion. 

This photo above is the view out our window the following morning. I highly recommend the Glenmoriston. The staff are friendly and your reservation comes with free breakfast and it's not just cereal. 

Onwards to Scotland!

This morning was our last in London before heading to Scotland. We repeated our motions from our dry run and got out to Kings Cross by about 945am. With our train leaving at 1145 we decided to get some breakfast at Fullers Pub there at the station. When we walked in and got seated we were two of their five guests in the whole place. They came and took our drink orders and then proceeded to forget and ignore us and seated and served and took meal orders from about four other couples in our area. It wasn't until I was like, Helloooooooooooooo that we got attention. The other couples that ordered right before us had their food within fifteen minutes. We didn't get our food until after I went up to tell them we were leaving we would pay for our drinks but our train was due any minute that they instantly showed up with our food. We quickly scarfed down our breakfast and left thinking it was like transport in the United States where you have to be a minimum of a half hour early. Nope. We didn't need to be ready till fifteen minutes before hand. Oh well. We are now on the train headed to Stirling where we catch the bus to Inverness! 

A fabulous Italian dinner and a bust of a gay bar.

While in Soho we stopped in at a little restaurant called Made in Italy. It was small, quaint and definitely a romantic atmosphere (despite the couple on a date next to us that didn't seem to be going very well). It had a traditional fire brick oven which they cooked our delicious Italian pizza in and cheap wines. I give Made in Italy five stars. After our fantastic and filling dinner we decided to pay a visit to one of the highest rated gay bars here in London. G-A-Y bar to be more precise. Honestly I was rather disappointed. It was neat looking yes and filled with people from every walk of life, but it was overly loud with tv blasting as high as they could for the Xtra Factor which was on tv last night and people loudly trying to be heard over the music and tvs. There wasn't even a dance floor. But at least we didn't have any issues with the bouncers not letting us in as that was one of the reported complaints of people who have gone to this bar. But we still had a wonderful night overall.  

Americans are such prudes.

After our short visit to the British museum  we walked through Soho. Soho is also the center of gay life here in London as best I can tell. Specifically Old Compton road. From the burlesque shows to peep shows, gay bars (one of which is actually titled G-A-Y) to sex shops; it was abuzz with life and filled with more people than we had seen since the circle lines and district lines closed down tube service for two days. Being in the neighborhood I decided to take Tim to his first European sex shop. I have been to many during my previous travels ( you wouldn't believe the things they sell in German sex shops) and so it didn't even phase me, but Tim looked like he was ready to run out the door! The doors to the shop were wide open and they had large windows displaying their goods to the whole street. It was definitely something he wasn't used to, but it was clean and the staff were all super friendly and seemed as if it was second nature that they worked at a shop where they sell dildos and leather bondage gear. Americans are so prude when it comes to things of a sexual nature in comparison to the culture here. We don't even have tv shows where you can get women naked. Lol. 

A continued day of botches

So to continue our day of mishaps we figured since we were here an extra day we might as well try to squeeze some extra sights into the schedule. We hopped back onto the bus after watching some British tv for a little while to go to the British Museum. Only to get there and be told that they were closing and pushing people out the door. This was one of those exasperated sigh moments. I checked their website literally four times and it said they were open till 8pm. So I wasn't really sure why they were suddenly closing. We were told that we could walk around for a few minutes but that we wouldn't be allowed into any of the galleries. We managed to squeeze our way into the Egyptian gallery but only to be ushered back out into the main hall thirty seconds later. Oh well. What we did manage to see seemed pretty nice. I suppose it's something to do in the future. 

Successful dry run

Yesterday we woke up early, packed our bags, dropped the key into the mail box for check out, went to breakfast at the Shakespeare, and hopped on the train to Kings Cross Station. Only to get to Kings Cross Starion and realize that the date wasn't October 26th it was only the 25th. We had packed up and left a day early for our train to Scotland!! So back onto the underground we went and made our way back to our apartment. Luckily the key was sitting on top of a pile of mail and Tim was able to grab it from the mail box. With that successful dry run we'd made it all the way to Kings Cross and back and still had a half an hour before our train would have left!