Scotland!
I’ve wanted to come to Scotland forever and was super excited to head up here! We got back to St. Pancras station from Paris and did a quick stop at Sara’s for our extra luggage, before heading to Heathrow to pick up our car! Now, I’ve never driven any of the times I’ve been here…I gave UK driving laws a quick 5 minute lesson and we headed out. It’s now been 4 days and so far I’ve only been on the wrong side of the road once
and had one minor “overtaking” issue. Roundabouts are my nemesis, but I’ve done pretty well
driving across this nation!
We headed out from London on the way to Edinburgh. Stupidly, we left in the afternoon on the M6 north and were caught in HOURS of traffic. A 7 hrs 20 trip became almost 11 hrs. We missed our dinner reservation and Lisa, a friend we were meeting for the weekend, was stuck alone in the bar. Fortunately, she emerged unscathed and only slightly poorer (until I arrived and we got a bottle of Mumm’s.) Edinburgh is a beautiful city, and nowhere near as busy and crazy as
London is.
Our day in Edinburgh was spent visiting sights—we went to Edinburgh Castle, Mary King’s Close, City of the Dead ghostwalk/poltergeist tour, and hit some pubs—the one where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, and one that had amazing treacle tart. We also went to The Witchery, one of the best restaurants in the city, for an 11pm reservation on a Saturday night. Sadly, this meant we missed the legendary bar scene of Edinburgh, but we had a great meal, champagne, wine, dessert etc, and walked back to the hotel—we weren’t carried, nor did we pay someone to haul us back. We did a bit of shopping on the Royal Mile... I made the mistake of asking a guy why the pound looks different from the English one. WHOA. One of those nationalistic things you do not say. For the record, I know what countries comprise Britain (and the UK, for that matter) but I didn't know I would get weird Scottish money when I took cash out at the bank machine! And I was told that the money in Scotland wouldn't be accepted outside of the country, despite that it is valued the same as the English pound. Anyway, I ruffled the feathers of the shop owner, who replied. "Scotland is it's OWN COUNTRY, don't you know?" He then went on to admonish the English and I learned that while their money is valued the same, no one else will take it simple because they are, essentially, jackasses.
Sunday came and we sadly had to leave Lisa (who was likely happy to have her own room) and head onwards. We went to Perth to visit family, and what was supposed to be dinner on the way through turned into dinner, 5 pints, and a sleepover. We had a great time visiting, and it was nice to be in someone’s home instead of in a hostel or hotel. It was very cozy, and we had breakfast made for us! A true luxury of home and ode to Scot hospitality. I even got schooled in Burns poems—the Selkirk Grace and Address to a Haggis are as good, or better, than the gamed red, red rose one. As an aside, we also saw the Burns Bachelors Club tonight—he was a famous romantic and womanizer!
We left the family today and were heading over to catch a ferry to Ireland and head to Galway to visit some more friends. We stopped in Stirling to see William Wallace’s monument, but it was shortly after 4 and we could only get a pic from afar- likely not a bad thing, since we didn’t really want to climb the 300 steps. We also FINALLY stopped at a Little Chef! These are a big chain in the UK and we know of them because of a food network show Heston Blumenthal hostel where he revamped the chain. It was a series, and it aired again over the holidays in a marathon. We were determined to visit a LC, but we hadn’t seen any until today! We even typed it into a GPS in southern England and the GPS took us to the middle of no where suburbia and said we had arrived at the destination. We had almost given up hope! The food was good, and Kathleen tried Fish and Chips—she has now had fish, blood pudding, haggis and steak pie. She covered her bases. Ive had chicken and vegetarian lasagna.
We tried to catch the ferry on time… but we hadn’t actually pre booked or organized anything here since the day preceding was sort of up in the air. What did this mean? It means we didn’t catch the ferry and are now in the sketchiest hotel imaginable in a town I can’t pronounce. We are near Cairnryan, and are getting the 730am ferry to Larne and heading on to Dublin. Sadly, we will miss Galway and an amazing friend who is in school there, but we will eventually get to Eire! We got to the ferry port town and stopped asking for rooms in multiple places—even the dodgiest were all full! There was a nice place that wanted WAY too much money…so we drove down the road until we found a hovel and I went in to ask. The reception is actually a bar, where 5 or 6 men were sitting around watching TV and drinking. The barman is the hotel operator, and he told me he had one room left for 50 pounds if I wanted it. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “Do you take Visa?”
Nick the Barman: “No, cash only.”
Me: “ok, I will go get some! No problem.”
Nick: “Great, and I need you to fill out a form for health and safety reasons…just basic information, name etc.”
*30 second pause and rummage*
Nick: “Eh, fook it, I can’t find me pen. Don’t really need health and safety.”
This was a reassuring start. The room itself is actually very nice, and we get continental breakfast, decent TV and internet. Another lesson in “don’t judge a book by its cover.”
So, its 12:30 and I am trying to sleep…can’t make my mind shut off. It’s a problem I have that is usually cured with pills, but alas I don’t have any here with me. We leave in a few hours for the next leg of the journey—can’t wait!
Though one sad thing about leaving Scotland—I never did find out what belongs under that kilt.
xoxo Cane
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