Inverness, Scotland

During my remaining time in Scotland, I decided to do a little more exploration of the country on my own, and took a train up to Inverness, a romantic little city in (or near) the Scottish Highlands, and just fifteen minutes North of Loch Ness and Castle Urquhart. I stayed at a little backpacker's hostel by the bus stop, where I met some wonderful people: a German girl doing a bike tour of Scotland before she returned to the Continent to go to Grad school in Environmental Sciences, an Australian punk-rocker who owned a video-streaming company and had been in Europe on business streaming some event or something, and another Canadian, from Niagra Falls, who had quit his job in teaching in search of personal fulfillment, and had taken a new one checking quality levels in the wine coming out of Ontario wineries. Inverness seemed to operate on the sort of pace I'm used to. I never felt the need to rush anywhere, never felt hurried or hassled. I went on a wonderful run along the river the first day I was there, and ate supper by the river each night. My second day in Inverness, I took a bus down to Loch Ness and the castle, which were beautiful as well.