July 6, 2010

6a .m.-9p.m.

Awoke at the 6 a.m. wake up call and tried to sleep in, but due to the noise through the walls and hallways, I couldn’t. The bed was interesting in that the comforter was nice and thick and the pillows nice, but the mattress was covered in plastic. So every time you moved, you made the mattress make a crackling sound. The hotel offered a laundry service where you can have a bag of laundry cleaned, so I left a bag to be picked up when we return to the hotel. We had breakfast at 7 where you could order what you wanted. They had waffles for the first time since leaving London so I ordered waffles and scrambled eggs. The ladies at my table started to laugh when they brought out my meal, the scrambled eggs were covering the waffle like whipped cream! I shook off the eggs of the 1/4th section of waffle that they gave me, and then had to ask for maple syrup to be brought out. We left for the Orkney Islands at 8:00. The Orkney Islands have a very few towns with the largest having only 7,000 people. We got quay side in John o’ Groats and left the bus and boarded the ferry about 9:00. The crossing was easy going with heavy clouds and bits of sunshine. The trip took just under an hour which was good since I was beginning to get queasy.