Nessie hunting!! I'm in Inverness Scotland right now, got to make this short because I need to get cycling! 25 miles to go today.

Spent the night in Dublin Airport on Thursday, got to Glasgow on Friday morning. On my flight I sat next to a super friendly Irishman on business in Scotland and a med student from New Jersey. It was great to spend pass the time talking about traveling with them, as we had an hour long train ride after the 50 minute flight. I was pretty beat, not much sleep in the airport.

Katie and I went to the Kelvinhall Museum when we got to Glasgow, probably the strangest museum I've ever been in, the exhibits went from Scottish art to Ancient Egypt to stuffed animals to paintings by Dali... a pretty random collections. We got to see an organ recital though, which is just as awesome as it sound... haha. They said some organists play Led Zep or Queen but ours stuck to the 'real' classics and not classic rock.

We grabbed lunch at a cafe, I opted out of the sheep stomach stuffed with sheep parts, went for sausage and potatoes instead. Mashed potatoes never tasted so good! Three months without is toooo long. After lunch we went to the transportation museum where we hopped on a tour group led by a Scot. He's retired and has lived there all his life so he was a great guide. There was a reproduction of the 'old town' which he was telling us all about the owners and how they've changed over the years. He's a sailor and was a great guide in the Ships area where they had models of all the ocean liners and vessels. I never knew how many ships that called in 'Liverpool' or 'London' were really built up there - all the Queen Mary/Elizabeth's started there too.

Next we went to the Cathedral, really beautiful but covered in soot from the industrial revolution so it looks creepy. There was a wedding going on, our guide knew the bag pipe player so he said to go watch it, but the bride was late so they had changed the schedule and we didn't get to see it.

I met up with Niall to get the bike after that, its a Specialized Sirrus hybrid bike, so it has a wider tyre -- spelled like that. I hopped the train up to Inverness (got the bike on NO PROBLEM!) Talked to a man who owned a mountain bike shop so I'm stopping over there on the way out to get some maps, etc. Also talked to a couple biking down from Inverness around Loch Ness, seems like a popular thing to do!

Got a good night's sleep last night, and at breakfast I made a friend who went with me on the walking tour. Greg came in full 'belted plaid' and was a great guide, I guess he does pro storytelling around Scotland.. he's pretty upset at with the local government because they have a lot of sites closed to the public, like the coffin they used duing the cholera plague that had a trap door so they didn't have to touch the bodies and could use it more than once for mass graves, and the tower in the castle that they used for hangings after they banned public hangings, and the jail cells under the city streets would have been cool to see too. But we got a lot of history about Scotland so that was fun.

I grabbed a taxi to the harbor for my boat ride around loch ness, uneventful unfortunately I didn't see Nessie :( but the castle was pretty cool, unfortunatley they blew it up about 300 yrs ago to prevent anyone from taking control of the lake, otherwise it would have been an awesome place. I met some guys studying in Aberdeen on the tour, they gave me a ride back to the city and we got some Arabic tea.

Now here I am, still swaying from the boat ride - its pretty windy out there and I still feel the sea legs, ready to start the first leg of the journey.

Cheers!