Saturday, 18 April 2009
Scotland – Day 5 – Inverness to Home!
Sat on a gradually filling stationary train in Aberdeen station, waiting to get back across the boarder, feeling very annoyed.
The good soul that I am offered to do a final mystery shop on a restaurant in Aberdeen, one that I shall not name. I’m going straight to the point, the food was absolutely dreadful! You wouldn’t feed what I had to your pet’s parasites.
I stomached a poorly prepared burger that tasted as though it had just come out of a microwave, Rustlers style. The cheese wasn’t melted, and I counted 14, just 14 undercooked chips. The bun was white and dry, and had about three fields of flower poured over it. This, plus a lager, came to £7.
I honestly don’t know who would willingly buy what I ate about half an hour ago for such a price. I bought a burger like this in Leeds, with the same disappointed result. I learnt my lesson and will never go back to the Oak for food. However, this was worse, as my hopes were high and I was bloody hungry!
I checked out the toilets as part of my mystery shop, and found one of the two cubicle doors was missing; figures.
Right well sat on this train I’ve begun to wonder what I have learnt on this trip. I suppose the main one is don’t go to Shetland or Isle of Lewis for a city-tour holiday. Don’t get a ferry unless the sea is very calm. And finally, don’t go to Aberdeen for anything, or you will end up with a pie that tastes of the inside of a particularly inflamed bunion staring up at you from the table.
Also, I have leant that public transport actually works, as long as you prepare and book and check and double-check about three weeks in advance. One good thing I have learnt is that you can get stuff for free, as I have been paid for this ‘holiday’. However, I have also been taught, through a long lecture by Henry the Stornoway B&B man, that Scottish pubs are notoriously unruly and should be utterly avoided.
If asked again if I could do a grand tour of Scotland, I’d have to seriously contemplate it. The pros are that I get time to myself to relax where possible and explore a bit. The cons are that there’s the risk it goes tits up, the meticulous planning involved beforehand, and the enormous weight of a backpack attached to you for five days.
As for public transport. I don’t think I fully appreciate it when it’s good. When it’s quiet. When it’s efficient. However, when you have two and a half hours of utterly shite music being played behind you on a crammed train from Edinburgh to Newcastle, sat next to a guy who seemed adamant to drink his way through the entire Magners orchard, who stank of a very heavy smoker.
When public transport works like a charm you barely notice it. It’s when you have to mix with nobheads that the brown stuff hits the whirly thing.
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