Day Sixteen - Highlands to Edinburgh

Today was the last day of my bus tour, alas. We spent most of it on the bus, with a brief stop at Eilean Donan castle (which I considered to be a disappointment when I learned that it was reconstructed in the early 20th century, although they did a fairly faithful reproduction and it's quite lovely), and a lunch break at Loch Ness. I did not see the monster, unfortunately, but I did have a nice moment of serenity while sitting on the rocky beach looking out over the water. I also thought fondly of Tammy's irrational fear of the monster, but was still careful not to actually touch the water.

I'm not going to write a long post tonight because I need to get up v. early so that I can go to the airport for my flight to Amsterdam and Walter. The pictures I posted below will have to tide you over until I write a longer post via blackberry tomorrow night. However, I will say that my hotel experience tonight has been quite entertaining -- Kim, Darragh, Jenni, etc., would be amused to know that I'm staying in a brand-new Novotel for the second time in my life (the first being our week-long trip to Hyderabad in August 2006). And while this one is somewhat to be preferred because the staff aren't knocking on my door every five minutes to see if I want a newspaper, in other ways it's shockingly similar. The staff is all v. eager to please, but don't quite know what they're doing -- I went downstairs to ask if they have a hotel guide (like the book that tells you how much calls cost, when room service is served, etc.), and they didn't know what a guide even was, let alone whether they had one. And the room is trying so hard to be stylish that some of it, particularly the bathroom, is incomprehensible. But on the whole it's nice, twice as big as any of the other rooms I've had, and less expensive than my hotel in London, so I'm willing to put up with the endearing trainee-mode staff.

Now, after a less than stellar blog post, it's time for bed. But first, happy birthday Michael! For those of you not in the know, Michael is my brother, and he's another year older today. Whether he's another year wiser, I will leave up to him to judge. But hopefully he's out having fun tonight!