dreaming you're out in the blue

I was back home for less than 24 hours before leaving again. I managed to pack in time to be on time – except that I didn’t bring Lumpy, and then when we were leaving I knew I needed him and asked to go back. So then we drove very fast to get to the train station on time. But we made it.

Standing at the platform, wearing my purple tights and holding my heffalump, I was happy. So happy that as I looked up at the sign saying that the train was going to Inverness, I got tears in my eyes because I was finally, finally going.

They made an announcement that all the seats on the train were reserved, so if you didn’t have a seat reservation then you should figure out a different way to travel (I’m paraphrasing). I and the couple I was standing near were glad we had seat reservations. So was another young man who was also going to Inverness. I thought it was unfortunate that he was not riding in the same coach as me.

When the train arrived I went aboard and found my seat.

It was at a table, but someone was there already – a high school girl of about fifteen, sitting next to a boy of her own age, and chatting happily with the other two people across from her at the table. It seemed dreadful to make her move – I hate it when I’m with people and having a nice time, and then have to be separated by some circumstance, because then they go on having fun without you and you feel horribly out of things. So since the seat just behind was vacant, and it was already past the stop where whoever was supposed to have that seat was supposed to get on, I sat there. The girl was very thankful. It meant not having a window seat, but the seat was facing backward anyway, so I just knelt on my seat and looked over the back of it, as though I were six years old. But nobody seemed to care, and I liked being able to see. Actually, it was kind of funny – I was looking out the window with so much enthusiasm that people kept looking out to see what I was looking at. So I hope I made them appreciate the view.

This building made me think of legos:

We traveled right along the coast – it was so exciting to see the sea!

And then after a while I heard a lady at the table say, “We’ve just crossed over into Scotland.” It was so interesting because the coastline seemed to change suddenly right there from a flat coast to rocks and cliffs.

The views were very lovely, to see all the hills and valleys and sheep, although it is still March in Scotland as far as the progress of spring goes, so in a lot of places, especially as we got farther north, things were not very green which was slightly disappointing. But still, sometimes I would see views and think, ‘this is what the world is supposed to look like.’

And it’s lambing time so all the sheep have the cutest little baby lambs that all run away from the train so funnily.

At Edinburgh, the girl got off, so I joined the table in my proper seat. The people were quite friendly and made good conversation that didn’t feel too much like small talk. It was the high school boy (also about fifteen, I think) next to me, an lady I think in her mid-fifties across from me, and her daughter (at least I think it was her daughter, although I can’t remember if she ever said that), about sixteen or seventeen, next to her.

The daughter was very shy and almost never spoke, but the lady and the boy carried on conversation nicely. The boy was going to a boarding grammar school in the north of Scotland, and it was so interesting to hear him talk about it. It sounded like great fun.

There’s another school fairly near to his, who they compete against in sports. He says that his school is much better.

“They’re rubbish at rugby, they’re rubbish at football, they’re rubbish at cricket…”

He got off at Perth, and then it was just me and the lady and her daughter, so then I had to talk a little more. Or, more accurately, listen more, since the lady was doing most of the talking. I had no objection to that, however.

While we were stopped at a station near to Inverness, it started snowing! And there was snow all around on the mountains, and it was quite grey and fierce and wintry.

The lady and her daughter got off a few stops before me. It was about six o’clock, I think, when I arrived in Inverness.

It was quite exciting to see signs that were in Gaelic as well as in English.

I had the address of the hotel I was staying at, the Royal Highland Hotel, and I walked up and down the road that it was on, which was the same road as the station, but didn’t find it at first. The road was narrow, full of gray stone buildings. The strangest thing was the way that the city just suddenly ended, like it was at the edge of the world.

Then coming back to the station, I looked up and suddenly realized that the Royal Highland Hotel was right there attached to the station! I felt very silly, but at least I got to walk around Inverness a little bit…

I went inside. It was very posh. I was rather awed.

I didn’t have any trouble checking in, and went up some side stairs to the second floor where my room was. The stairs were very cool.

Beside my room door were these stairs, which I went up just because they were cool.

There were just more rooms at the top, of course.

My room was also very posh.

There was a spider in the tub. Which is not posh. I put it out the window.

And the bathroom had a hot towel rack! And one of those awesome shower heads that makes it seem like your in the rain or a waterfall.

And a really pretty sink. Wyvner liked curling around the hot water tap.

I did feel a bit alone in the hotel room, not having my laptop with me. I was very glad that I had Lumpy, and Katrina’s story to read.

I slept very well in my fancy little bed. I set the mobile phone alarm for 8:30 so that I would have plenty of time to get up and get breakfast – hot Scottish breakfast! – before my train at 10:30. I actually woke up a little before the alarm, so that was nice.

I turned on the television to try to find the weather so I would know what to wear. I didn’t find the weather, but I did find children’s television programming in Gaelic. That’s much cooler than the weather. So I watched that while I got ready.

Going down, I found cool steps to the first floor,

and then I found the way to go down the grand staircase to get to the lobby. I felt like Cinderella walking down it, as though everyone would be staring at me. But there weren’t very many people in the lobby.

The breakfast was completely amazing. I did feel like a princess eating there with all the different food and little pots of jam, and they brought me tea and toast. And I like haggis and I like black pudding and I already knew I liked English sausages. I stuck the little jam jar and the little honey jar into my purse.

Then it was time to go and get my things out of the room, so I did.

On the way down I noticed that the tables in the lobby have chess boards on them!

And I got to the train in plenty of time.

I found my seat. It was at a table, but at a space between windows so there was a space of wall breaking up the view. So, when the train was moving, and no one had sat at the table across the aisle in the seats facing frontward, I went and sat there, across from a man facing the other way, who said he didn’t mind if I sat there. He was grey-haired but not balding, and about Papa’s age, I’d say. He had a kind, handsome face – good looking but without arrogance, which is rare in men of that age. A countryish sort of good looking rather than cityish.

That was the beginning of a very lovely ride. The man, whose name was Stewart, was from the Orkney islands, and very friendly, and talked just a perfect amount, and told me about the things we were passing and what they were and their history. He was coming home from Belfast, where he had been playing guitar. Oh! And he has a daughter named Joanna!

The lady with the snack trolley came by and I got a bottle of orange passionfruit J2O. She was a nice friendly snack trolley lady who actually stopped and smiled and asked if we wanted anything, unlike some of them who go by rather quickly looking as if they very much hope you won't ask for anything as it would be a great bother to them.

Later when it was early afternoon, the man bought me a raspberry and honey porridge oat bar.

“It’ll make you strong,” he said. And it was very good. Just a little bit sweet and full of substance. I can never find granola bars like that in America. They’re always too much sweet and not enough substance.

We went up into the middle of nowhere.

Stewart said that the train would split before Thurso and one coach would go one way and one the other, but when he asked the snack lady about it – because there hadn’t been any announcement – she laughed.

“They haven’t done that for years – decades even!” So that was amusing. Instead, the train just goes to Thurso and then backtracks to go on to Wick.

I was sorry to say goodbye to Steward at Thurso, which is where he got off. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was getting to the islands, as the main ferry had gone off to Norway to fetch people stranded because of the volcano…

After he and a few other people got off, it was only me and one other lady who were still on the coach. She was from John O’Groats, so we chatted a bit. She told me I could get the bus from the high school to get there from Wick.

When we got off the train, she pointed out where to go to get to the high school. But I didn’t think to ask how far it was, and it was farther than i thought, so when I came to a sign saying there was an information place down the road, I turned that way, but it was kind of far away and I never did find it. I did find a little shop to ask directions to the high school at, though, and I bought a kinderegg there. Except it wasn’t a kinderegg, really; it was a different brand. But it had Peanuts toys, so I had to buy it.

I found the high school – I had to go back to the railway station where I started from, and this time go far enough down the road to actually get to it.

I don’t really like Scottish junior highers any better than American ones. They’re just as likely to look at you like you’re a weirdo. I did stuff Lumpy into my backpack, though…

The hills had mostly flattened out – it was just grass and sheep and scattered houses. It felt far off and wild – not wild like jungles, but wild like the edge of the world.

I was glad when we got to John O’Groats. I got off where there was a post office, to ask where Hamnavoe (the B&B where I was staying) was, and also where there was a public toilet. They were in opposite directions, but I went down to the bathroom first. It was at the “city centre” which is where the John O’Groats hotel and the few shops and things are. There is not much there. Five or so rather small buildings of shops, and then just houses scattered over the land, and that’s all.

It felt like the edge of the world, for sure. Looking down the road, and it just ending into water. When you can’t see very far before you hit sky in most directions, it’s an odd feeling.

I looked around a bit after I’d used the bathroom (which cost 20p. It’s weird how many bathrooms charge you money in the UK.)

I was sick of carrying my backpack around pretty soon, though, so I walked on up to Hamnavoe. It just looked like a house, but there was a sign in the window saying what it was.

When I opened the door, Gordon, who runs it, came right away. He is a large man with a grey beard. He gave me a choice of two rooms, and I chose the one that seemed more decorated for a man than a woman because it had a better view of the sea…

I ditched nearly all of my stuff, and walked down to the city centre to get supper because I was very hungry.

The café, Journey’s End, that I had wanted to eat at was unfortunately closed, as were all the shops. So I walked up to the Seaview Hotel, which Gordon had said was a good place to get supper and was open until eight o’clock.

The dining room area had no one in it, so I didn’t want to make the girl working there bring food out there just for me, so I ate in the bar area. It was difficult because my blood sugar was low so I couldn’t think at all, and I was feeling extremely shy, so walking in there and figuring out where to sit and how to order when there were about four guys at the bar looking at me was nerve-wracking and I felt so silly.

Fortunately, one of the men was Gordon, so that made it a little less awkward because we could talk to each other and not be strangers.

I couldn’t decided whether to get the steak and ale pie or the pork and apple casserole, so I asked Gordon and he said the steak pie, definitely.

So that’s what I got, and I sat in a corner of a booth with my book of E. Nesbit fairy tales, and I ate it. It was really, really good, and came with potatoes and vegetables, and I ate every bit.

When I came up to the counter to pay, the two young men at the bar talked to me a bit, just small talk kind of questions, but the food hadn’t gotten itself into sugar in my blood yet so I didn’t know what to say except short answers. Afterward, of course, I thought of what I was supposed to say. I swear, half the time having conversations for me is like being in a play in which I always forget my lines until after the scene is done.

I was glad to get back to Hamnavoe, and since there wasn’t anything to do since I felt too tired to walk down to the water, I got ready for bed even though it was only about eight o’clock. I was feeling slightly freaked-out lonely. Which was weird, as it was a completely new feeling for me. But then I found a couple of old and dear friends – what book should be laying on the nightstand but Fahrenheit 451? So I enjoyed the company of Montag and Clarisse and read the whole thing straight through.

And also opened my egg.

Then I had a worried fretting time, because I was thinking of how one thing I really wanted to do in Scotland was wander through hills, and as awesome and beautiful as this place was, there were no hills. And this was distressing me. I tried to think of how to get to hills, but I didn’t know how, and there was no way to get information – I had a couple brochure things but they didn’t have anything useful. But I finally made myself go to sleep and hoped that tomorrow morning I could ask Gordon if there was a computer I could use so that I could look things up.