Aberdeen, Edinburgh
... and Points Between
really didn't do much with this day, and if you've
read everything so far, you'll know that this is saying quite a bit.
The problem was that while I could think of quite a few places I'd like to go, none of them were readily accessible by train on a Sunday. Meaning that my choices were either to stay in Aberdeen (a rather despicable proposition), or find some other large city to hang out it.
Mainly, I was kind of concerned that after having paid so much money to get there (or, at least having promised American Express that I'd pay a bunch of money), I felt like I'd be cheating myself if I didn't at least find some excuse to get a bunch of pictures.
Like I said, I could have hung around Aberdeen, and at least gotten some pictures of what insufferable yuppie jerks everyone seemed to be, but the mere thought made my skin crawl. Once again, given my rather ho-hum reaction to haggis and black pudding, saying that something makes my skin crawl really is saying quite a bit.
So, I called a taxi to come rescue me from this hell hole. It took
about a half an hour for the taxi to show up. In the meantime, I got a couple of
pictures of the hotel and surrounding area.
Neat, huh?
Sitting in front of the hotel, the most exciting thing to do was watch people pump gas at the gas station next door to the hotel, or stop to drop off mail in the hotel's mailbox.
Which is not to say that it was such a bad way to spend my time, as this sort of boredom was precisely what I was looking for in Scotland.
The taxi eventually arrived, at something like 10:30 AM (again, the
picture at the right was taken well after sunrise, even if it doesn't look like
it), and whisked me off to the Aberdeen train station, albeit taking the normal
set of detours necessary to help feed the driver's children for the week.
But, getting to the train station was only the first part of a solution to my problem. The second part was deciding where to go once there.
Aside from the difficulty finding a Sunday train, I did have quite a bit of freedom here. My BritRail pass allowed me to climb onto any train I wanted (excepting the sleepers), without making a reservation or anything. I'd just show my pass to the conductor as he came by to check our tickets (and curiously, they'd always respond with "That's lovely."), and go anywhere they could take me.
The schedule did show quite a few trains leaving for some fairly interesting places, too, such as Fort William or Oban, but the trains were infrequent enough that I ran the risk of getting somewhere that I wasn't going to be able to get back from in any timely fashion.
So, while I was deciding, I figured it'd be a pretty neat idea to try one of England's sleeper trains. I went to the ticket counter, paid what amounted to enough money to buy a night's sleep in a mediocre hotel, and got a reservation on The Royal Highlander running that night from Aberdeen, arriving in London Euston station Monday morning.
Anyone watching this would have concluded that I made this reservation specifically to put an even larger constraint on my travel plans for that day, because it was precisely the effect it had. This meant that I had to be back in Aberdeen in time for the train to leave around 11:00 PM.
So, I did a lot of head-scratching and came up with a plan that was so mindlessly stupid that it'd take me about three screen-fulls of mealy mouthed rationalization and apology before I'd admit to it.
What I decided to do was take a train down to Edinburgh, get a bunch of really cool pictures of the scenery on the way (because I didn't really get a chance to get any on the way up), find a curry there, then catch an evening train back to Aberdeen. I figured if I couldn't get back to Aberdeen in time, I could always try to pick up my reservation on the sleeper at Edinburgh, since it was supposed to stop there, too.
So, this got me onto an train (around noon) heading to Edinburgh,
presumably with interesting scenery on the way. I say "presumably,"
because I slept through most of it.
I was awake for enough of it to be taking pictures, however I soon realized that there are only so many pictures of foggy golf courses, foggy swamp land and foggy grazing land, before they all start looking the same. Or, at least it was all starting to look the same to me, which is probably why I slept through it.
This left me in a bit of a quandary, because I had to figure out some justification for the day. I eventually decided that I was on a mission to find some curry. If there wasn't any decent curry to be found in Aberdeen, I might as well try to find some in Edinburgh. After all, it is a big town.
I think the operative phrase here is "fat chance." I just
didn't know that yet.
I did find my way in to Edinburgh rather uneventfully. It was a nice busy metropolis, which is precisely the sort of thing that I really hate. I had a 50 pound bag to carry around because "for security reasons," all the luggage lockers had been taken out of service. So, after standing around looking stupid for fifteen minutes (something that I'm told I do exceedingly well), letting the bag dig a groove into my shoulder, I caught a taxi and asked to be taken someplace where I could find a good curry.
This prompted the taxi driver to participate in a protracted discussion with the other taxi drivers, amid a swarm of frowns and shaking heads. See, it was Sunday, and unbeknownst to me, restaurants just aren't in the habit of being open on Sundays in Scotland.
The driver took me to one agreed upon possibility. From the taxi,
it looked promising, because there were all sorts of people going inside. So, I
heartily waved off the taxi driver (after paying, of course), and dragged me
(and my bag) inside.
So sorry; just open for a private party.
I ended up taking a taxi back to the train station, where I bought a slice at Pizza the Hut, and drank another coke. Things just weren't going the way I wanted them to.
I just got back onto the next train for Aberdeen, and hoped for the best. Ironically, the buffet car in the train was selling microwaveable servings of pre-made chicken tikka masala, so I had one of those. It was ok, meaning better than most Indian food in the US, and worse than anything served in a restaurant anywhere in the UK (assuming I could find one of those places). It might have been even better if it hadn't taken me 20 minutes to get the plastic shrink-wrap off the top of it.
This got me back to Aberdeen, having eaten too much uninspired food. I found the well-hidden first class lounge for the sleeper train passengers, and sat around reading books for a couple of hours. As with any other place on the island, the heat was set on "heat stroke."
Well, the high point of the day was definitely getting
onto the sleeper train. I've loved this sort of travel ever since I first tried
it in Canada, and it certainly hasn't
gotten any worse since then.
This train had a rather marvelous first-class lounge in the back with at- table drinks and food service. Naturally, I had to avail myself of both, even though I was stuffed from all the junk food I'd been feeding myself all day.
This was really a shame, too, because they had haggis on the menu. All I really had room for was a smoked salmon appetizer, and a can of fermented cider. If I had my druthers, I would have probably spent the whole evening in the lounge car. For starters, the staff was friendly, and even more importantly, not one of them asked me why I was touring Scotland in the middle of winter. It was a pleasant change.
But, I was there for the sleeper car, so it seemed reasonable that I should get some sleep. I retired to my room and spent half the rest of the night opening the window shade, then closing it, then opening it again. When I finally stopped that, I settled down to the sounds of the train tracks, and the sounds of all my neighbors doing exactly the same thing with their window shades.
Perhaps the best part of taking the sleeper train was its lack of televisions, with the corresponding lack of British TV to subject myself to. Perhaps the most surprising part of taking the sleeper train was the fact that there are any two points on the British mainland that are far enough apart to warrant an overnight trip. Maybe the train was just doing 20 MPH. I didn't care, 'cause I was having fun.
It was just too bad I hadn't left room for haggis.
Follow me on a low-speed tour of Southern Wales.
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