Flooding the Bathroom.... Inverness, Scotland

Our host in Inverness, a young Latvian man named Maris, wasn't actually home the first day we spent... umm... in his home. In my couchsurfing request, I had asked if he'd be available to host on Thursday and Friday. He responded that he wouldn't be home until Friday evening, but that we were quite welcome to let ourselves in. We just needed to call him when we arrived so that he could tell us where the key was hidden, and that we'd all meet up on Friday. 

"That," I told Boy incredulously, "is the most trust I've ever experienced from another couchsurfer. He's letting us into his house without him being there and he's only read my profile. Probably hasn't even looked at yours." 

So when we arrived at Maris' home, we gave our absent host a call, he directed us to the keys, and we let ourselves in. 

"Thanks so much," I gushed into the phone. "Your home is gorgeous. Is there anything we need to know to keep it safe while you're away?"

"No, not really," Maris said nonchalantly. "You know, just don't burn it down." 

Boy and I took a power nap (five hours of hitching is pretty exhausting), and then set out to explore Inverness, capital of the Highlands (which boasts a bustling population of nearly 60,000 -- if you include all the surrounding areas). 

Bagpipes and coffee shops abounded. Gorgeous bridges stretched across the River Ness and unfinished cathedrals speckled the horizon. I decided that I liked Inverness.

The building on the left is Inverness' cathedral. Maris told us (when he returned on Friday) that in order to upgrade from town to city, Inverness needs a finished cathedral. Unfortunately, they ran out of money whilst constructing this cathedral (note the absence of spires), so even though Inverness is the capital of the Highlands and is the fourth most touristic city in Great Britain, it is not a city.

Inverness' very modern looking castle

A church with spires.

On our way back to Maris', we stopped at a Lidl to pick up groceries for dinner and the next morning's breakfast. Then we settled onto the living room floor, drank a bottle of wine and soaked in the precious feeling of privacy. A feeling we've been pining for during our two months of travel.

We've stayed with some of the BEST people on this trip. Mori and Elly. Doug and Emily. Spela and Craig. Freaking Jack. But there's always the underlying feeling of, "Aimee... you're in someone else' space." And after what happened with Yien and Teh, I've started feeling uncomfortable expressing physical affection to Boy in front of hosts. Even cuddling on the couch makes me feel on edge. Like I might be offending someone. In normal circumstances, I couldn't care less if me being myself offends people. I just think, "well, if they're bothered, we probably shouldn't be friends anyway." But in this world, my housing is at stake. And for better or worse, nearly five years of not really having a place that's my own has taught me to be timid where housing is concerned. 

So it's nice. It's so nice. To be in a gorgeous little home with no one else but Boy. 

We fried up a traditional Scottish breakfast the next morning. Tomatoes and black pudding and haggis and sausage. We also decided it would be a swell idea to wash our laundry. After a week and a half of hitching around, our clothes were undeniably nasty. And if we delayed washing, it would mean another week and a half with dirty clothes -- because we would stay for just one day in each place. And while everyone in the UK has washers, about five percent have dryers. And as it's rained in Scotland a hundred percent of the days we've been here, one needs at least two days to dry clothes.

I hate that washing is so damn complicated in Europe. I mean, I'm thrilled that Europe is so environmentally friendly and that people haven't got dryers, but I'm still annoyed at the inconvenience of line drying in a country that sees one day of sun a week. 

So we gratefully popped our clothes into the wash, then retired to the living room floor to feast upon our sausage of lungs and liver (haggis). About ten minutes into our scrumptious mountain of offal, I heard an ominous swishing sound.

That washing machine makes an awful lot of noise...

I left my delicious hot plate of sheep lungs and blood pudding to check on the clothes.  And discovered two inches of water on the bathroom floor.

"SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!!!!!!!!" I screamed under my breath and turned the machine off.

"What is it?" Boy rushed onto the scene.

"WE FLOODED HIS BATHROOM!" I cried. "What do we do?"

"Well... get some towels," Boy replied, keeping the calm.

We spent the next hour sopping up the freaking bathroom LOCH (Scottish for "lake") and wringing out our wet clothes. The machine had had enough time to thoroughly flood the floor, but not to even get to the point where the soap met the dirty clothes.

So our clothes are now soaked through and still just as dirty. Perfect. 

Boy hung the clothes to dry on a broken clothesline, conquering his arachnophobia as he destroyed spiderweb after spiderweb to make room for our wet and rancid clothes.

"What do we tell him?" Boy and I asked each other the same question, over and over again.

"Well... we definitely have to tell him that we flooded the bathroom. Apologize and ask if there's anything else we can do."

So we sent Maris a text.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited for him to respond.

"He trusted us with his home..." I wailed. "And what did we do? We flooded his bathroom."

"At least we didn't light it on fire. In fact, we did the opposite of that," Boy threw in his two pence.

"I feel awful," I mourned.

Maris texted us back a few hours later.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you about the washing machine. Don't worry about it. My ex did that once too."

Boy and I both breathed probably the largest sighs of relief in the history of all time ever.

Maris, Carolyne (a French couchsurfer), Troy and I spent the evening laughing about the bathroom we'd accidentally flooded, drinking wine, whiskey, and all manner of homemade liqueurs from Eastern Europe that Maris had been collecting. Which resulted in me going to bed early, drunk facebooking my friend Robert and passing out before I remembered to hydrate.

The next morning, I woke up horribly nauseous and with a maddening headache.

And we're planning on hitching 70 miles today... Gosh... I don't even know if I can be in a car right now. 

My head pounded. My stomach churned. I threw up all the yogurt I'd eaten for breakfast.

DAMNIT. 

But I still went to Loch Ness with Maris, Troy and Carolyne. And learned that my commitment to Nessie was dwarfed by the chap who's been living in a trailer by Loch Ness for twenty five years, holding onto a faint glimmer of hope that one day, he will glimpse the legendary monster. 
 

And after twenty five years, he has yet to get a glimpse.

Maris. The Latvian host whose bathroom we flooded.

Touching the lake. It was unbelievably cold. And there were people flapping about in it without wetsuits. I love Scottish people, and I don't think I will ever understand them. Just like I love Boy, and I will never understand his sense of direction.

 

Maris went to meet some friends and Boy and I walked to the outskirts of Inverness, set down our bags and woozily (on my part) started our hitching. Within ten minutes, a Romanian named Alleen (sp?) pulled over. 

Alleen was fabulous. He took us exactly where we needed to go, provided many stories about Romania and seemed thankful for our company. However, my hangover and Alleen did not make the best of friends. Alleen drove like a maniac. As in, he would pass drivers at breakneck speeds, slam on his brakes, swerve madly about at the last minute and all sorts of other dangerous maneuvers. He finally happened upon an ambulance with its lights flashing, and thought it would be a grand idea to tailgate the ambulance. While smoking cigarettes in the car with the windows rolled up. 

I spent the entire journey gripping the door, sweating and thinking, please don't throw up.... please don't throw up.... please don't throw up. 

I didn't throw up. Alleen dropped us off in Spean Bridge, where we found a cafe and waited for our next hosts to answer their phone. 

Never a dull moment.