Thursday, Sep 14, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.

Travel day. Woke up at 7am. Said goodbye to a couple people from the hostel and walked down to the bus station. Bus didn't feel too long this time. Airport security was easy and I was boarding my flight in no time. Touching down in Aberdeen, there was a brief informal passport check and I was through. 4£ for a bus downtown. Aberdeen is beautiful. A sign in the airport claimed it was the 24th "must visit" city according to the New York Times. I didn't get to stick around for long. Got some food in the bus station and boarded the ferry across from it. They suggested boarding an hour or two early. I won't do this next time because there was not much to do on the ship other than prepare for 15 hours of boredom on this 5:30pm to 7:30am ferry.

Most people buy cabins which are on the lower floor. There's pods which are smaller, and recliner chairs which are comfier and in a decent location. I opted for the cheapest tier. This means I had no designated seating. The only real places to sit are at the back of the boat near the bar. You can either lie down on the annoyingly thin and curved benches, or in a recliner if you can get to one. The recliners aren't bad so I opted for those. Some people just slept on the floor. The problem was, the cinema was right beside this area. This means that the entire poor section had to listen to the entirety of the barbie movie and one other until 11pm before we could finally sleep.

I spent some time on the top deck. It had a good view of the coast. No luck finding the northern lights unfortunately but plenty of stars. Got the "vegetarian chefs special" for dinner. It was some sort of stew. Felt like they really skimped on the portions for the price...

I didn't really sleep the whole night. Tried to see some of the Orkney port when we arrived there around midnight. Unfortunately, they'd closed the top deck at this point so I couldn't go up there. All I could see through the window was a bit of a roof. Cat napped until we arrived in the Lerwick harbour.