Hannah meets Nessie

I got a week and a half after my aunt left, and then my dad and his girlfriend came for a visit. I'm quite popular apparently, either that or everybody was just waiting for an excuse to come to Europe. Either way, they got here on Thanksgiving. Poor things were very jet-lagged. They spent two days in Aberdeen and we did a couple of rambles about so I could show them the town and the uni's campus in between classes. Then on Saturday we headed to Inverness, which is the city close to Loch Ness (where the Loch Ness monster aka Nessie lives).

But to get to Inverness we rented a car...to drive...on the wrong side of the road...in a car that had the driver's seat on the opposite side that it does in the states...on the tiny streets...with manual transmission (also now on the left because of the driver's seat being switched). It was a wee bit scary...actually no, it was a lot scary. But my dad handled it fairly well, and we didn't die, so that was good. I only almost peed my pants a couple of times. Also I have to say, my least favorite thing about roads in Scotland (besides the fact that they are very small and twisty) is that they have a lot of roundabouts which have no rhyme or reason to them seemingly - it's basically just EVERYBODY GOOOOO!!! Seriously, there aren't any traffic lights, and when there are they aren't for the traffic circle, but rather for the pedestrian crossings. It's very scary. And stupid. But if that's the worst thing I've found about Scotland, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Anyway, it took us quite a long time to get to Inverness, and then we realized that our hotel wasn't in Inverness the town, but rather just in the area of Inverness, and was really in another 'town' small village/location/area thing. It was right next to the Loch, about 20 miles outside of the centre of Inverness. Now that road was the smallest, most winding, longest road I think I've ever been on. Plus it was a two way road. It was pitch-dark. And it was raining. Needless to say, that was also quite scary. Oh and on one side there was almost a sheer drop for a lot of the journey. So yeah...But we got there and had a very interesting dinner at the hotel. I didn't think it was bad, I kinda liked it actually, but I think I've been in Scotland a little too long. The other two didn't seem so keen on it.

The next morning though when I woke up and saw the view from our hotel, I thought all the scary was pretty well worth it:

View from our hotel

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeep...oh and a little cute village

We headed down the Loch to Fort Augustus which is at the opposite side of the Loch from Inverness. Along the way we stopped at the Falls of Foyers, and took a mini-hike down to see some of the Falls:

Pretty mini-waterfall

 The view on the hike down

But it wasn't until we got further down that we saw the big one:

This ain't no sissy waterfall.

Oh, hey look who's here!

We then continued on to Fort Augustus. I have to say, I'm a very big fan of the highlands, they are beautiful. Aberdeen is in the highlands as well, but not as far North as Inverness, which is where you get even more giant hill/mountain things. Needless to say then the drive was beautiful as we drove down along the Loch:

If you look closely you can see a little waterfall on the side of the hill.

Such fun colors

Loch Tarff. When the road breaks away from Loch Ness, it passes this Loch.

Fort Augustus is another cute little town right on Loch Ness.

Fort Augustus:

I FOUND NESSIE!!! Oh wait...no. That's a wire statue...oops...

We took a short boat cruise on the Loch. It was interesting to hear about some of the history, and about how deep the Loch is, which is 755ft at its deepest. The second deepest in Scotland, and holding more freshwater than all of the lakes in England and Wales put together, just to give you an idea.

Looking out at Loch Ness

Many of the areas around the Loch are unreachable, and so many wild animals live in this area including wild Goats.

Loch Ness.

Oh there we go, there's Nessie. That's better.

We headed back to Aberdeen, slightly less terrified of the driving. And that was the end of my travels with them. It was short but nice, and I think they had a good time after getting over the jet-lag, car issues and food.

That's all for now. I'll be doing another post about the everyday things soon, since they have been focused mainly on traveling lately. But I've run out of time for tonight - I have to actually go and do a little schoolwork. Imagine that.