The Grumpy Traveller

I'll get to the last of the Orkney pictures in a bit. That is, I'll organize and plan tonight and post tomorrow. This post is all text. I'm having a vent.

Who makes a tourist office without public washrooms? And then points you to the nearest really groody public washrooms two streets away that should be condemned? Do they want me to ever visit again?

(Lerwick's tourism industry, apparently. We're now in Shetland, btw.)

That made me really grumpy.

But I admit, I was primed and ready to find something to get upset about. It had been a long time getting to Shetland. Maybe I just don't travel well. I'm good once we get where we're going.

Yesterday, we had to be out of the Avalon House by 10am. I suppose we could have asked for longer (they were really nice) but we didn't. We had to turn the car in by 11:30 am. We had luggage. And the ferry terminal not only doesn't store luggage earlier in the day, they don't even open until 9pm.

The ferry leaves at 23:45pm. Yes, that's a quarter of midnight.

So what did we do with ourselves? And our luggage?

Well apparently, Bob's Taxi will take luggage for storage. They call it "left luggage". That was great, and we used them to get to the ferry terminal at night.

Then we just had to entertain ourselves in Kirkwall for.... oh... 10 hours or so.

There was an hour in the post office shipping back two weeks worth of finding new books in Scotland. We shall not mention that episode again. There was lunch to be had, and some history to explore. Shopping happened, some gifts might have been bought. This is a lot of walking around. And still.... we had more time to kill.

Discovered that the public library had internet access and while I didn't really feel a need to connect, it was at least a way to pass the time.

Then there was dinner, and still....

Then there was a pub, and it was only Thursday so not a big party scene... we listened to the locals play bingo. Perhaps we should have joined in.

And then finally, there was the ferry. Straight into the room, which was _small_ with twin beds. It was a surprisingly sound sleep, given the ridiculously hard bed and no husband to fight over the bed covers with, but still, too short. The captain work us all up at 6:30am to prepare to arrive in Lerwick.

In Lerwick, where the place we were to pick up the keys for the next accommodations didn't open until noon. At least we got the rental car in reasonable order and had a place to put the luggage.

So we wandered around Lerwick, entertaining ourselves, and encountered the tourist office. I think I needed a nap at that point.

Now the bright side is, the place where we're staying turned out a whole lot nicer then imagined and we have a kitchen. I promptly went grocery shopping and we've just now finished a box of Kraft dinner.

Comfort food.

Karen