November 4, 2006

We're back!

Our remaining trip: We left St. Andrews following the Castle Trail past Aberdeen on our way to Inverness. It was a very scenic ride with lots of hills and curves. I'm happy we got the car we did because any smaller wouldn't have been enjoyable in the highlands and any larger wouldn't have fit on the narrow roads! We had purchased an Explorer pass at the Edinburgh castle so we took advantage of it on the Castle trail by visiting many that looked interesting to us in the guidebook :)

We arrived in Inverness rather late in the evening so we took the first place we found for the night. It was rather unimpressive for its price lended to our decision to only stay in Inverness for the evening. We were excited to head down to Fort William past Loch Ness since we had spoken to many who loved the city. Once again the drive proved to be quite lovely...unfortunately, Nessie was nowhere to be seen :)

We found a nice cottage to stay at in Fort William, visited the highly recommended castle remains (which proved to be more of a teenager hide-out than an impressive historical site) and then toured the downtown area. We also decided to use it for a base for our following day's travels. We wanted to get out to the Isle of Skye and POSSIBLY the Isle of Mull. We departed with the intention of touring the island by car the following day. Unfortunately, the ferry we planned to use to get to the island didn't run until 6 hours after we arrived and the horrible weather deminished any desire to excert further effort into the trip. Instead we toured that end of the mainland and headed back to Fort William for a warm comfortable afternoon in the cottage.

Our next destination was Stirling for two days. Stirling was by far the hardest location to find accommodation. For some reason, noone would answer their door and the guest houses were few and far between. It was this experience that has made me want to purchase a SIM card on our next road trip. It would've been nice to call ahead to places rather than driving around from one place to the next. Regardless, the effort was worth it because Stirling was a nice town to visit and the room we landed was well worth the money we paid for it. We ended up driving back towards Edinburgh to pick up souvenirs we had seen and then off to Glasgow to catch our flight. Unfortunately, as always, flying back did not go without troubles. Ah well - such is life with traveling. We did get to end the trip back with a helicopter ride which Mike had never had the opportunity to experience. :) Woohoo!

The first day back has been a swarm of discussions to catch us up on what happened in our absense and the status of what was left open when we departed. Both of us had over 300 emails to review which took up most of our morning. Fortunately, many of the emails were mass information emails that were no longer important and a majority of the remaining emails had already been tackled and completed by our co-workers (thank you!)

Time to go home! Check out the pictures! I have them posted on Zoto :)

Scotland Update!

Traveling went as to be expected. We experienced minimal delays coming over to Scotland. To our disappointment, our flight was not through British Airways as stated on the ticket, but rather American Airlines. I guess we’ve just been spoiled with our flights in the past. American Airlines didn’t offer ‘On-Demand’ movies available in the headrest in front of you or video games, etc. and the seats weren’t as comfortable as our past ones. Mike and I managed to get little to no sleep on the flights so we were quite exhausted by the time we arrived in Edinburgh. Fortunately, we had a warm room with a big bed covered in down comforters waiting for us when we got there.

Driving on the left side of the road stick shift is proving to be easy! I’ve already had the opportunity to drive on the left in Thailand so it was just getting used to the stick shift. The roads here are very nice but rather confusing. Roads change names every two blocks it seems and there are round-a-bouts EVERYWHERE. They claim they are more efficient than stoplights (Which they are) but they put stoplights right after the round-a-bouts!?

Edinburgh was quite beautiful. The town is made up of really old buildings…old churches, castle, etc. Mike took TONS of pictures so we’ll have plenty to share. I forgot my cable for the camera so you guys will have to wait for that! We went to the castle in Edinburgh as well as the church in Roslin (Da Vinci Code).. we also visited the Canton(?) Hill and wandered Princes Street...

There are bed and breakfasts (guest houses) EVERYWHERE and they are really expensive! Everything here is expensive actually. When you look at the menus, everything looks like the price you’d expect at first glance until you realize that the prices are in pounds and you have to multiply by nearly two to get the cost in American dollars. (ack!) The meals have been very good though and Mike even tried some Haggis (I had a teeny bite). It really wasn’t that bad!

Today we played at St. Andrews! To Mike’s amazement, I played rather well…well, rather well for it being my second time playing golf ever. J We were fortunate and ended up paired with a father and son from Michigan who were really laid back. This definitely helped Mike relax. I think he was nervous I’d end up embarrassing him with my lack of skill. ;)

Now we are in St. Andrews at another Bed and Breakfast. Tomorrow we’ll probably cruise the Castle Trail near Aberdeen and then head towards Inverness. ;) I’ll keep everyone posted when I have internet connection!