{"id":10258,"date":"1998-06-20T22:46:41","date_gmt":"1998-06-20T19:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=10258"},"modified":"2016-09-04T20:38:07","modified_gmt":"2016-09-04T17:38:07","slug":"in-which-i-discover-pubs-inverness-to-kyleakin-isle-of-skye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/in-which-i-discover-pubs-inverness-to-kyleakin-isle-of-skye\/","title":{"rendered":"In Which I Discover Pubs — Inverness to Kyleakin (Isle of Skye)"},"content":{"rendered":"

10:16 AM<\/p>\n

From where I\u2019m sitting, Inverness is rather bonnie! Actually, I\u2019m on a bench on the bank of the river Ness, in a green, \u2018parked\u2019 area. \u2018Downtown\u2019 is only a few minutes away, but you\u2019d never guess it. I can\u2019t believe how clean the river seems. Parents allow their children to play in the water, so it can\u2019t be that dirty. To get here, I had to cross the suspension bridge again. They\u2019re fun!<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t believe the number of Australians and New-= Zealanders I\u2019ve met! I usually have at least one<\/em>\u00a0in my room. Last night, we were two in the room, and she was Australian. Haven\u2019t met many Canadians since Glasgow and Edinburgh\u00a0; there was an Albertan in Aviemore.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t get over how young the Scots marry and start their families! I\u2019ve seen couples barely out of their teens with wedding bands and the stroller. Since there are many<\/em> such couples, I assume it\u2019s the norm. Personally, I\u2019d rather live<\/em> first!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to keep exploring until about a quarter of 2. Haggis should be picking me up at 2:30. It looks like a long <\/em>bus ride to Skye (arrival time estimated at 6 o\u2019clock). No worse than yesterday, I guess!<\/p>\n

\"map\"<\/a><\/p>\n

8:46 p.m.<\/p>\n

On the way to Kyleakin, we made an hour long stop at Eilean Donan castle! It\u2019s very<\/em> beautiful. Unfortunately, the guides are cold and unfriendly. They lack the passion required by the job. There was a cool \u2018recreated\u2019 kitchen complete with mannequins. It was creepy but well done!<\/p>\n

Speaking of creepy, this youth hostel is almost terrifying! I\u2019m just getting this bad vibe about this place. At first, I thought I might just be homesick and lonely, but I met up with some very nice people and the feeling didn\u2019t go away. I\u2019ll spend a night here and if I still feel weird in the morning I might ask for a refund and go elsewhere. There are lots of cheap places around here. What I hate is not being able to pinpoint the origin of my \u2018bad feeling\u2019. I can\u2019t tell if it\u2019s about things coming or things that have already happened. Anyhoo, I feel creepy.<\/p>\n

I hiked up to the ruins of an old (13th<\/sup> century, destroyed late Middle Ages) Scandinavian fortress. The hike up is unbelievable, there\u2019s no real path. You really have to play \u2018mountain goat\u2019 to get up and down. (This was when I discovered that I am essentially immune to the greatest deterrent to Scottish tourism: the midge. I\u2019m told I could market my blood and make an easy fortune! Those bugs are worse than mosquitoes, which love my blood. I\u2019ll never know why the midges left me alone, but bit the people with me to pieces, but I\u2019m glad!)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing tomorrow. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a tourist information centre here. I would like to go on a trail ride; I\u2019ve seen several advertised, only they\u2019re further \u2018inland\u2019, I think. I\u2019ll see how complicated and expensive it is to get out there for day trip.<\/p>\n

10:46<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just spent the last hour at a pub with a Swedish girl I met and about 7 strangers! This was the first\u00a0time I\u2019ve been to a pub. It helps that I can actually drink<\/em> now, not just a few sips but a whole beer and actually enjoy<\/em> it (I had a Guinness. Boy is it good\u00a0<\/em>!). The only thing is I\u2019ll stink of cigarettes tomorrow. The music was a little loud, but nothing like school dances. Considering the wallflower I am, I rather had a good time. I guess the beer helped! Now, I know what a pub\u2019s like. Imagine going back to North America and telling everyone I never even set foot in one!?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10:16 AM From where I\u2019m sitting, Inverness is rather bonnie! Actually, I\u2019m on a bench on the bank of the river Ness, in a green, \u2018parked\u2019 area. \u2018Downtown\u2019 is only a few minutes away, but you\u2019d never guess it. I can\u2019t believe how clean the river seems. Parents allow their children to play in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[674,673,18,3,56],"tags":[853,663],"class_list":["post-10258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kyle-of-lochalsh","category-kyleakin","category-scotland","category-travel","category-uk","tag-accommodation","tag-castlesfortresses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}