Reunited with my Girlfriend, Lisse and Claire

Day of arrival:
The 14th of October was the day that my girlfriend and two other friends would visit me. They'd stay for four consecutive nights, where due to a fully booked hostel, they'd have to sleep in a tent for the two first nights.

I'd already gotten their schedule and had planned to pick them up from the train station in Aviemore, completely unbeknown by them. I left my evening shift a bit earlier than was probably allowed, but in the name of the greater good, I allowed myself this little misstep.

I took the bus from the village and got off at Aviemore where I had little over an hour to kill. First off, I went to find a place where I could have a small and cheap bite to eat and still be able to linger there so that I wouldn't have to stay out in the freezing cold.

I got to the station a few minutes before their train was destined to arrive, at that time I hadn't yet completely lost faith in the Scottish public railway system. Miraculously only one or two minutes behind schedule, the train arrived and the hardest part begun: finding them in a massive throng of people that all had to exit the train. I was assisted by the fact that they were pretty much the only people who'd appartently decided to sit in the first coupé and therefore was able to spot them with ease.
For the most part they'd not noticed me, aside from Claire, who'd understood that I was there mostly to surprise my girlfriend and so she held her tongue.

In the end, they almost walked right by me, until at the very last second they did finally recognise me. Happy to see me, but pressed for time to catch the last bus to Nethy Bridge, we had a short moment of reunion and immediately went off to find the bus.

Back at the Lazy Duck, I gave them the short tour, introduced them to the majority of the people working there and helped them settle in for the night. To relax we decided to join Torsten and Borja at the fire for a little while before heading for my caravan for a cup of tea before bed.



Day 2:
The next morning Lisette and I were woken by voices right next to my caravan, this turned out to be Claire and Lisse checking if we'd already woken up so that they could get out of the cold. Had I mentioned that it was the middle of October and at night it bordered nightfrost, not exactly a problem in a heated caravan but in a thirty-year-old tent it was quite a different story. After a quick breakfast we went out to go to the Folk Museum in Newtonmore, I had visited the place before but because it hadn't gone so well and what I'd seen was rather limited, I chose to join the girls on their trip and try and see a little more of the museum.

The museum was a lot more fun when walking at a more leisurely pace, I had the chance to see the other parts that I'd chosen to ignore on my previous visit. After an altogether short visit there, we decided to move on to the second part of our trip: the Highland park.
This was one of the things that I was looking forward to the most, this was something that I didn't want to do on my own.

Taking the bus back towards Aviemore, we kindly asked the busdriver to let us off at the zoo, which was located right in the middle between the two cities. Upon entering the Park, the cashier told us about the different kinds of animals that we could see and the route that we would need to take. The most surprising thing was that they asked us to let them know when we would exit the park, this was mostly for them to keep track of any people possibly being in the park when they would close, but the part that I hadn't expected that they didn't keep track of this with cameras.

We had loads of fun discovering all of the local animals, but especially the non-locals; polar bears, reindeer and tigers were spectacular. After a few hours of appreciating the magnitude of animals we decided that we should leave. We told the cashier that we'd left and made our way to the street where the bus would pass and (hopefully) stop.

It did and we got to Aviemore in one piece, where we got on the bus back to Nethy Brigde. Once safely back in my caravan I started cooking and made a simply meal for all of us.
By now we'd decided that no one would be sleeping in the tent, mostly because it was simply too cold for the girls and I am certainly not gallant enough to give up my warm bed. So we crammed the four of us in the small caravan where we all spend the night.

Day 3:
It was Lisette's birthday that we wanted to spend together and finish with a nice meal at one of the restaurant at Aviemore.

The girls wanted desperately to visit the Dalwhinnie distillery and because I'd already gotten the day off, I decided to join them once again. On the other hand, I certainly didn't mind going back to that place.
We woke up nice and warm, some of us a little more comfortable than others, while I still have problemd believing that the a caravan bed was more comfortable than its floor. We had a quick breakfast and walked over to the bus stop at the village center. From there we took the bus to Aviemore and subsequently took the train to Dalwhinnie. The girls found the sight there just as spectacular as I had the first time and now again.

We joined up on the tour and started within a couple of minutes. Seeing and hearing everything once again made everything much clearer, the fact that this time the guide didn't have a completely intelligeble accent also worked in my favour. We all found the tour very impressive and thanks to the fact that I'd done the tour before and able to translate a few small things made everything more enjoyable for the girls.

The complementary tasting afterwards was certainly memorable, after a miniscule sip the girls unanimously decided that they didn't like the taste of the whisky and supposed that I should finish all four drams by myself. Had I mentioned that it was still before noon? Slightly intoxicated but pretty joyful I continued my day. Since it drizzled and it would continue to do so throughout the day we didn't feel up to walking the side of Loch Ericht. Rather, we chose to see Kingussie. I'd been to the high school there before but I hadn't gone into town.

Curious about one of the larger towns still in the direct area, I was the most energetic about exploring the town. Sadly we quickly found out that most of the town was made up by residential areas and sadly didn't have a large city centre for us to recline and wander about. We had a long lunch afterwards at one of the more invinting pubs, where the very pleasant barman was able to provide us all with a lot of information on places to see in Inverness, where the Girls were planning to see the following day. We stuck around for a bit after lunch, not completely sure where to go next and slighly reluctant to be drizzled upon again.

After seeing a bit more of the town, we ultimately decided to go back to the station and take the first train back to Aviemore, where we'd arrive around five. This suited us perfectly, since we were planning to eat at one of the local establishments there. The early hour even worked in our benefit, since the last bus back was already at 8, leaving us with very little time to enjoy our food otherwise.

Back in Aviemore we went to a family restaurant called Papa Rock, biker-themed and filled to the brim with attributes it did have a very nice atmosphere. Turns out we made the absolute right decision coming in this early; the whole restaurant had been booked by a couple of large groups. But because we came in this early we had nearly two hours to eat. Seemingly this place figured that one plate would feed one entire family because once our food arrived we had enough to spare. My burger was the half the size of my head!

Surprised but strangely motivated to finish this enormous specimen I dug in like a famished wolf, possibly ending up with a mild case of lockjaw because of the massive overstretching that was necessary to get even the tiniest sliver of the burger in my mouth. It took me a while but I managed to finish my ordeal. In the meantime I was having a very nice meal with the girls, as they too were struggling with the large quantities that the'd been given.