Bagpipes, Kilts, and Celtics.

December 21, 2008

I woke up relatively early the next morning (especially early for the long adventurous night I’d had just hours before) and got ready for the day. After I’d packed up I made my way down to breakfast not really knowing what to expect but surprised by what I saw, at least at first. At first I noticed a table with three sets of juices set out, three different cereals, some milk, and a weird oat cake looking thing, and a bowl of yogurts on ice. I gawked at first wondering if that was all, thinking about the price I’d paid and how stingy that had seemed to me. But then one of the very friendly staff passed by asking if I wanted coffee or tea and showing me the breakfast menu. At first I wondered if I was going to be charged extra for ordering something on the menu but something told me that wasn’t the case. So I ordered scrambled eggs and bacon but noticed the other options including French toast, and a “Scotsman breakfast.” Along with hot cereal and several other items which eased my mind some. I was also served two pieces of toast cut into halves, one wheat and one white, and two types of jams as well as butter. I took my time thoroughly enjoying the lavish breakfast and eating as much as my stomach could hold which included a yogurt, a bowl of cereal, both pieces of toast, the eggs, the two pieces of ham like bacon, and an oatmeal cake covered in jam, and two glasses of orange juice and a cup of tea. I left stuffed to the max and on my way to check into a hostel which turned out to be right down the road. I checked in and stashed my stuff. By the time this was finished it was nearing the afternoon. Not having much of an idea of what to do and slightly exhausted I decided to spend the day just self traversing the city and not call my mom’s work friend. I quickly found a shopping center which distracted me for several hours.

It was around this time that I also discovered that there were no phone companies in the UK called Moviestar which is the phone company I’d gone with in Spain, thus I would not be able to call anyone anyways because I would first need to put more money on the phone as I had run out on my last minutes during the last day in Spain. So I then set about finding out how to solve this problem. Noticing I was picking up a signal from two other companies I decided to talk with them first. They first store told me the only way to do it would be to go to the post office and “top off.” I asked where that was and quickly followed the man’s directions. Either his directions were poorly directed or my ability to follow directions was poor because twenty minutes of searching wielded no results. Not that it mattered much anyway since the mail was shut down on Sundays; I had just wanted an idea for the next day. So I went back to the are where the hostel was (a very central location, probably the exact center of the city of Inverness and conveniently located right by a big shopping plaza and mall) and go to the other cell phone store and see what idea they had to offer me. The second one told me I could do the same as the first or I could get a new SIM card for free and a new number for the UK and then add money to the account. So I decided to go with him on the second choice as the first was proving to be more difficult then was necessary. So he switched the SIM cards, turned the phone on, pressed a few buttons on the keyboard to the computer and sighed. I knew immediately something was wrong before he even spoke. But when he did he told me that the phone must be locked and in order to switch SIMS I needed to first unlock it. I sighed and asked if they were able to unlock phones and he said no. Defeated I decided to give in for the day and walk around a little, get some food, before heading to the hostel for the night.

I ate a wonderful meat pie at a little pub alongside the river. And spent the rest of the night relaxing in the common area of the hostel chatting online and with a few of the other occupants.