I left the majority of my things at the hostel and, figuring the best way to keep myself awake to kick jetlag in the butt would be to do some hiking, headed up to Loch Lomond, visited the information centre, and grabbed groceries then a bus to a historic town called Luss.
From Luss I went up the Beinn Dubh – a hill that is 657m high. It overlooks Loch Lomond and had some great views in all directions. I also came near a bunch of sheep – fuzzy friendly looking creatures that they are. Over the first third of the hike the sky gradually cleared into a beautiful blue sky. Doing a loop route, I couldn’t resist the urge to run near recklessly down part of the hill, splashing in a hidden mud puddle, but only falling once I later slowed again to walking.
After climbing over a few shady fences, I was happy to have my tetanus shot up to date. I finished the route by following a road for about half an hour back to my starting point, then hung out at Loch Lomond for a few hours, enjoying the wonderful weather and even having to reapply some sunscreen – this is not the Scotland I was promised! I felt like I was beating jetlag – I rarely felt tired, even having been up for more than 24 hours.
On the bus ride back to Balloch I started struggling to stay awake. On the train to Glasgow, I think I failed in that regard a few times and was quite tired. After I finally went to bed late at the hostel, I stayed in bed until about 2 PM the next day – it seems my strategy to beat jetlag worked! – more or less, at least.
The next day showed little productivity. I hadn’t been able to get my wifi working the night before – in Canada and the US 802.11 wireless networks are limited to channels 1-11 while in Europe there are 13 or 14 channels – the additional channels operating at a slightly higher frequency where operation is prohibited in Canada and the US. Since my hostel’s wireless network was on channel 13, I had no luck – even once I screwed around a lot in the driver settings and the registry. I ended up purchasing a USB wireless card for 10 GBP which solved the problem – figuring I might run into the same issue later.
Saturday I headed to Edinburgh and visited the Edinburgh Castle, then headed to a pub for Haggis. The Haggis was good and there was entertainment – someone at the bar making Chewbacca sounds to the chagrin of all, before (and after) being told that Chewbacca is dead and to shutup by a mid-aged Scottish man in a pink shirt. Very drunk at 6 PM, he wandered around, stumbled down some stairs, then ran into a lady at the bar before trying to hit on her. Full of haggis I wandered back to the train station, diverted to Calton Hill, then boarded a train back to Glasgow.
Fortunately, both the cold and the ear infection are clearing up nicely – though I’m confident the antibiotics I took for the ear infection have thwarted the plans I had to donate blood, which I am unable to do in Canada until CBS modernizes its donor policies.