Well, this will probably be my last entry on this travel blog. I have been home now for 3 days and I went back to work today. My last week in Europe was busy. I spent a night in Athens airport, a night in inverness, a night on the Caledonian sleeper train to London, two nights at Jackie's house in Inverness and a night at Gatwick airport.

I am just outside London today, staying at Jackie's house until my flight back to Canada. The last few days have been quite a rush getting from Nissiros to Athens, Athens to London, London to Inverness and then back to London again.
I've spent too much time sitting in airports. Coryna and I also tallied up our hours of sleep and in three days I had 13 and she'd had 31 1/2... Guess who felt better...

Just arrived in Rhodes today an hour or so ago. We got off the 14 hour ferry ride a little disoriented, but were met by an american girl who works at one of the hostels in town and she checked us in for tonight.
The hostel (Mike's and Mamma's) is really nice and really clean. Mike is the owner and is very talkative. He made us tea and gave us some greek salad on arrival. Our room is nice and the beds look very comfortable.
The ferry ride was great. We got to the port at 5:30am to make sure we got on the 6:30 boat and watched the massive ships dock. Then we slept for the first six hours of the cruise before going up on deck to relax in the sun.

Ok, I will write a bit here about the trip so far. I went to glasgow with Laura and stayed with her family just outside the city in Coatbridge. We did a bus tour one day and saw most of the sights, the cathedral was fantastic and we went a modern art gallery. Then we went for a 'green car tour' courtesy of Laura's dad and saw some of the rough area's of the city including the Bar-L prison and Sighthill as well as some gangster's houses which stood out from the other council houses by the high tech security cameras and elaborate stone work on the front of the house.

Not much is happening in Inverness lately, so Laura and I went for a drive around the Loch. It took us about 2 1/2 hours, but we stopped a couple times along the way.

Well, I am at Stanstead airport now in between flights. I have a 10 hour wait, but the airport is alright... I had a great time in spain and really enjoyed the heat and sun, not to mention the calamari. I met up with Jackie in Malaga and we spent a day on the beach and wound up with rather painful sunburns. The old town in Malaga was quite neat except for low hanging electrical wires that made my arms tingle and my fillings hurt when we walked past them.
We spent two nights in Malaga, I spent the first in the airport because of my late flight, but the second was much more comfortable at the hotel. the spanish food was fantastic and I may have eaten my body weight in squid and churros. The markets in malaga were excellent as well and I bought a carrier bag of fruit for €5... very nice!

Had a lot of rooms to clean today. We had a group in from Belgium last night and did some catering again. I was in the process of folding a blanked today when I heard the gentle hum of bagpipes wafting in the air. The pipe band of the school next door was practicing, and out on the field, the football teams were playing. It was a very scottish moment. I dont think I have mentioned the school beside the hostel before, but it is full of very rough children. The only thing I ever see them do is play footie, beat each other up and stand around smoking. The scariest are the ten year olds with ciggies hanging off their bottom lips, swaggering around the school yard yelling threats to their teachers. The teachers are very nervous, harrased looking individuals. I passed one while walking back to the hostel one day and tried to make eye contact and smile, but I think he mistook me for a student and almost walked into a hedge to avoid me.

Ok, I've booked my flight to spain! I fly to Malaga on March 3 and meet up with Jackie. Then after a few days of sunshine and relaxing I fly back north. I am flying out of Jerez on the 7th, so we will be doing a small amount of travelling through the very southern tip of spain. Should be lovely! I am excited.
We have had blizzards galore here last week, I think it snowed every day, but now the snow is all gone, and it's actually sunny here.
Hostel life is getting crazier...we had a woman escorted off the premises by the police this weekend... but everyone is still alive.
Valetines is coming up and I think a bunch of us from the hostel are going to go to G's night club for their valentines bash. Should be fun. They play good music there anyway.
Ok, thats it for now. Things are quite unexciting here at the moment, but the soaps are good... Oh dear...
bye!

So, for all your gazing at inverness needs, here is the inverness webcam!
Just go to http://www.camvista.com/scotland/highlands/icastle.php3 and check out the Inverness castle. I live on the Castle side of the river, about 15 minutes walk away from it, and coryna lives about ten minutes walk from the castle on the webcam side of the river.

So I was planning on going to Glasgow for my days off, but then it snowed! We have had a small blizzard yesterday and so I stayed home to enjoy it rather than going south to freezing rain and slush. Last night we (me and the other girls at the hostel) made snow angels outside. How picturesque. The snow was melting quite a bit this morning however, so the angels dont look so great today.