EU Trip - Scotland

We were greeted by rain when we landed in Edinburgh – the best small country in the world. We took a taxi to our first pit stop, The Globetrotter Inn. It is a cute little upgraded youth hostel. We were a little worried because a youth hostel brought an image of bunk-beds and common toilets to us. But since we had inquired earlier and confirmed that our room will have a double bed and an 'en suite' we were confident that we would have it. As promised our room had a double bed and and 'en suite' and nothing more. That means no toiletries in the bathroom. Thankfully I had taken every scenario under consideration before we packed and so we had all the necessary stuff. The youth hostel was on the bay and hence had mind blowing views. The land was covered with lush green grass and wild flowers, the little houses around had beautiful flower window baskets and hangers, there were fruit trees and flower trees laden with produce and we could see land, water, forest and mountains all in one glance. It looked like the land of the gods. Heavenly. All our travel fatigue was lost after seeing such beauty. We left the hostel a couple of hours later and took the hostel shuttle to the Edinburgh downtown. The downtown was a different kind of beauty. It is on the top of hills with valleys having train tracks and gardens. The Princes Street is the main street and has the best views of all the historical buildings, gardens, Castle Hill and Edinburgh castle. We walked along the street for a while soaking in the views and then headed for dinner to a nearby Burger King. Henceforth, we would goto a McDonalds or Burger King in every country we visited to get a ballpark figure of the cost of food in those cities. We spent around 20 GBP at the BK for dinner. That was expensive by US standards but was not wallet emptying. We returned back by the shuttle and called it a day.
The next day was our GreyLine tour of Loch Lomond, The Trossachs & Stirling Castle. It was scheduled to be at 9:00 am from downtown. We were so tired and jet lagged that we woke up (inspite of the alarm) at 7:30 am. The next shuttle to DT was at 8:30. We got ourselves together and made it to the shuttle. We fought with traffic but missed our tour bus from the planned location. We were not going to miss this tour. I took the back pack and ran through traffic hoping to catch the bus somewhere praying that like us it must have stuck in traffic somewhere ahead. Poor Anant ran after me with Aarnav in the stroller. I kept on scanning all the white buses that I could see on my way and finally after 10 mins of sprinting I found it. It had stopped at a traffic light. I ran across the light and banged on the door. I could tell that the driver was startled but he did pull over for us. We got into the bus after apologizing for being late and thanking him for stopping for us. I still cannot imagine how Anant dodged all that traffic while pushing Aarnav in the stroller. We would not have made it to the bus if either of them would have given up. Kudos to you both! I love you guys.
The tour was fabulous. The Trossachs, Stirling castle, the boat ride on Loch Lomond with its pristine views of mountains, castles tucked away in the thicket, the green of the grass was just so serene. We had a simple lunch of lentil soup, bread and some sausage at a local restaurant and returned back refreshed. After a quick dinner on Princes street again we returned back to the Inn. The next day was our trip to Inverness.
We got into the bus on time for this one and traveled through the beautiful countryside to Inverness. The Town is very pretty, green, hilly and laid back. Our B&B was fabuloso and walking distance from downtown. We dropped our luggage in the B&B and then headed by taxi to Clansman Hotel harbour to hop onto the boat ride on Loch Ness. I had already raised Aarnav's excitement telling him that we may see 'Nessie' the monster in the loch somewhere. We took the ride on the Loch and I was surprised to see that 60% of the people on out boat were desi's. Not used to seeing so many desi's in Colorado. Reached Urquhart castle and spent sometime roaming around it. Anant wanted to read about the history of the castle, but surprisingly we could not find a sign or board anywhere stating any. We then had a quick bite at the visitor center and returned back to the city. We spent sometime walking around the Main street market and shops. There was a stunt show going on in downtown with a man lying on a pin-bed and a lady attempting to stand on his abdomen. But all the ppl watching the show looked shady so we did not spend too much time there. We saw the Inverness castle, some kilt stores, some bagpipes and headed for dinner in one of the 5 Indian restaurants. We had some exquisite Vindaloo and returned back to the B&B satisfied. After some movie watching on our Huge LCD TV at the B&B we packed and caught some z'es. The next morning we had an elaborate and delicious english breakfast cooked by the B&B lady and headed to the airport to catch our plane to London. The airport ppl were genial and again most of then were desi's.