6/11/2004 Friday: chill-out day in Kirkwall. Emailing at the public library, shopping at Safeway (Skullsplitter! pasta and pita bread, I won’t bore you with the prices). Ended the night drinking and playing cards in the youth hostel (the curfew is very loosely enforced) with a Scottish college student Neil (who actually was on the same tour of Maeshowe as I), and Clive. The UK version of ‘Asshole’ is bizarre, arbitrary and requires no skill whatsoever.

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6/12/2004 Saturday, yet another chill-out day. I jogged down to Scapa Bay (not too far away, really) which is the final resting place of HMS Royal Oak, which was torpedoed by a German U-Boat during WWII. About 800 lives were lost, and there’s a memorial there. Out beyond the seaweed strewn beach are several buoys marking its grave. Had a desire for fish and chips, but ended up at ‘Buster’s Diner’, an American theme restaurant featuring license plates on the wall, and a working ‘walk/don’t walk’ sign. Oddly enough, some of the Michiganites were there, supping on pizza. Clive and Stuart left that night for the Shetlands. I briefly thought about going, but I was already so far over my budget, it just didn’t seem worth it. What would I see there anyway? Puffins?