Lacey's Visit - Roadtrip - Day 3

Sunday, June 28 - We woke up early, showered, and had a wonderful breakfast. I had scrambled eggs, tons of white toast, a potato scone, and some sausage. Lacey had porridge and some veggies with eggs (I think). We were so sorry to leave early, but we had to try to catch the first ferry of the morning – so that, at least, if we missed it, we’d be first in line for the second one!
So, yesterday on the way to the bed and breakfast in Strontian, the road forked. This morning we had to backtrack down the road, along the loch, to the fork and take the other path. This new road – talk about country lanes!! Single lanes with passing places we’ve done, but this was a whole new experience – driving in a single lane right alongside a cliff that drops down to the rocky beach of the loch. But we made it! We missed the first ferry, probably by only 5 minutes, as we saw it sailing away as we pulled up… oh well. It was probably the best thing that happened to us on the trip. We parked the car in the queue and had about an hour and a half to kill before the next ferry… We took pictures, Lacey danced around listening to Big Country, and then we explored. Walking through a broken gate and up a hill lead to the most beautiful meadow area that overlooked, and lead down to, the water! The views from here were amazing, you could see the islands, the coast of the mainland, a castle across the sea…


Finally the ferry came and we boarded. It was tiny! There were about 4 cars on it, I think, including us. One of these was a VW Bus carrying three red-haired men, whom we actually continued to run into throughout the rest of the day. It was freezing on the ferry! There were no indoor areas like the bigger ones (no cafes, no bar, no bathrooms). Luckily the passage was only a half hour, so Lacey and I donned our headphones, bucked up, and enjoyed the ride. If you look at my pictures, you'll see several in a row of Lacey on the ferry that end with pics of her cracking up. She wanted me to get a picture of her with the islands as backdrop, but it was a great view from every angle - so I was moving all around trying to get the shot from every side so she could pick her favorite. Apparently she felt famous and called me the paparazzi (although I didn't hear her over the noise of the boat), so she started cracking up, and I kept snapping pictures... not quite sure what was so funny.

When we arrived in Tobemory on the Isle of Mull we had a choice to make, drive around the long side of the Isle to the next ferry, or spend time in Tobemory and take the much shorter half of the island around to the next ferry. We choose spending time in Tobemory and I’m so glad we did. Until this point, much of the trip had been appreciating the views and scenery from inside the car, or at periodic stopping places along the way. Here we went in the shops, talked to the people, ate in a restaurant, bought souvenirs, and mailed postcards! The town of Tobemory has a main street that leads to the pier where we spent our day. The buildings are all brightly colored and a popular Scottish children’s tv show used to be filmed right there in the town center!

A couple hours before our next ferry, we said goodbye to Tobemory, and drove to the ferry. After queuing in line again, we went into a pub to kill some time. We each had a Scottish shortbread and a Strongbow (yes, I know you’re jealous!). The ferry this time was Huge! There were at least 4 tour busses on it (don’t ask me how they managed to navigate the single lane roads to get to the ferry! Eek!) and many cars! There were several cafes on board, a bar, etc, etc. We got hot chocolates and went up to the top deck (only open air sailing for us! The views are the best!) to enjoy the ride.
When the ferry arrived at port, we were again back on the mainland. We decided this time to take the longer, more scenic drive back to the apartment, and ended up passing a nice beach area (where several people were camping and had bonfires going!) and enjoying much more scenery before returning home where we showered, unpacked, and went to bed.

Lacey's Visit - Roadtrip - Day 2

Saturday, June 27 – After a breakfast with interesting food and good company (the other guests and hosts) spent chatting about random little things from why sometimes its hard to peel hard boiled eggs to ancestry, Scottish history, and how everyone in my family has LLL initials, we were off on Day 2 of our Highlands and Islands roadtrip! Lacey was driving (she actually drove from this point on, so there’s no need for me to mention that anymore…) and we crossed over the Skye Bridge and onto the Isle of Skye. We immediately stopped at the Tourist Information Center, bought some postcards, and mailed them! Then we continued up and around the Island, stopping here and there for photos, until arriving at Dunvegan Castle. We toured the castle and some of its grounds and gardens, learning about its history as a fortress and also as home to the MacLeod clan leaders. (For more information, check out their website: www.dunvegancastle.com). We took several pictures of the castle and grounds, but unfortunately, cameras were not allowed into the restored interior.

There were some really interesting things to see, too! Like a real dungeon where they threw prisoners (only way in was a hole in the roof, no way out), several hidden stairways and passages, and the kitchens! After a visit to the giftshop, we were on our way again. I started taking fewer pictures the further we drove. And not because it was less beautiful, but because I found that the camera just wasn’t capturing the beauty of the island. The size of the mountains, the rocky ground, all covered in green, or trees, spotted everywhere with sheep! (It was easier to capture with video, so make sure you check out some of the videos posted on my photo site.)

We were to arrive at 430 for the first of three ferry’s that we’d be taking on this trip, and weren’t sure about the availability of food between Skye and that evening’s bed and breakfast, so we stopped at the grocery store and bought some food for snacks and dinner, before heading to the ferry. It turned out that the ferry port had a snack bar, several shops, and a kilt-clad gentleman playing bagpipes, so we ate our picnic, bought coffees, and enjoyed his music until it was time to board the boat.
On board the ferry, we road on the top deck, of course. The view was amazing, the cliffs and mountains of the island are perhaps best viewed from the water, and not from on the island itself.
Once back on the mainland, we began the drive to Strontian, where we’d be spending our second night. We were driving mostly on single lane roads with passing places by this point, but had gotten pretty used to it, and most other drivers also seemed to be familiar with the roads and were courteous. It did make the drive to the Bed and Breakfast take slightly longer than estimated, though, since driving on one lane winding roads tends to be slow-going, but that’s better for enjoying scenery, anyway!

When we arrived at Otterburn, our 4-star B&B (and it was Much nicer than the one the night before… so nice, really! Cute, charming, clean… I would have stayed here for days!) We arrived around 830pm again, there was a note on the door saying “Lacey and Laurie, please come in.” We walked in to find a longer note on a table explaining that they (Mike and Cheryl, our hosts) had to run out, but that they would be back by 930 and explained several things about the house, where our room and keys were, etc. So we went to the room, used their internet to start some pictures uploading, and then explored their yard a little. There was a big hill in their backyard that we climbed up, giving us a great view of the lake across the street and the surrounding country areas. On our way back in, we met the other couple that was staying at the house (only two guest rooms here, both ensuite!), a much older couple traveling up from near London on holiday. They were very nice and told us that they’d also gotten a note upon arrival, and that it seemed to them that Mike was in charge and that they hadn’t even met Cheryl yet! But, shortly after we got back inside and got settled, Mike and Cheryl returned and we got to meet her. It was clear that Mike was in charge of the B&B, which we all thought was unusual, but since he did such a wonderful job, none of us really questioned it any further, and Cheryl seemed pleasant, too. We asked him about the ferry we needed to catch the next morning – how long it would take to get there, and which one we’d need to catch if we wanted to catch a second ferry later that day at 430pm from a different location on the island. He told us that we should aim for the earliest ferry in the day, so we’d need to leave by 9am. We felt so bad that we needed to get to bed early, we wanted to stay and enjoy this place longer, but tomorrow was another day of travel and sightseeing, so to bed we went.

Lacey’s Visit - Arrival and Roadtrip - Day 1

Friday, June 26 - So, obviously when Ben was here I didn’t go to work Thurs, Fri, Mon, or Tues. Whoopsie. That left me with Wed and Thurs that I could go in and get some work done before Lacey’s arrival on Friday morning. Well, except that I planned to leave early on Thursday so that I could stop at the grocery store to get food for our roadtrip, and clean my room.
So anyway, Friday morning arrived and Lacey’s plane was due to land at 7:30. I figured I would try to catch the 7:03am bus from City Center to the airport, so I got up around 615, got the bus to City Center and arrived about 2 minutes late to catch the bus. So then I had to take the 7:33 bus, which meant sitting at the bus stop for 30mins all alone in the cold wee hours of the morning… When I got onto the bus, the stack of morning papers all had the headline “Jacko has heart attack” and in reading the article, I learned that he had a heart attack and was in the hospital – crazy! When I arrived at the airport, I found that her flight was delayed and hadn’t landed until 750, so I actually didn’t end up being late at all. I went to Starbucks and got a Chai Latte and Banana Nut muffin and saw more headlines everywhere – “Jacko Dead” (yes, they’re still calling him Jacko here, even after his death…). I was shocked, so I got a seat by the international arrivals door, and read the article while I waited. And waited. And waited. Have I mentioned that Lacey was the last person from her flight to walk through the doors? So around 845am, there she comes through the doors, pulling her two suitcases behind her… And all I really remember is her socks… She was wearing capri-length sweats, since it was so hot at home, but she knew it would be chilly on the flight. Then, in anticipation of it being cold in Glasgow, she had pulled on thick knee high socks to wear home from the airport… which were black with white music notes on them. Haha very cute, Lacey. So I ask her “Have you heard about Michael Jackson?!?” and she says “Oh, yeah, Ben called me and told me!” So of course, my jaw drops because I’m shocked that My Ben called her while she was in the airport just to make sure she heard! So sweet of him!
We got the busses from the airport back to my place, we both showered and packed for our roadtrip, and then we got a bus to Enterprise to pick up our car for the weekend.
Oh, enterprise… and our Prius… that could be a whole blog to itself… So enterprise doesn’t have the car we reserved (size B) and we can either get a smaller one, or upgrade to a slightly bigger one… So we go for the slightly bigger one, and it’s a Prius.. and of course, none of the guys who works there is really familiar with hybrid cars, so they can’t tell us much about how to drive/park it. Their advice: drive it around the parking lot for a little while until you get the hang of it. So I did. Yes, I was driving to start off with. We figured that since Ben and I had driven to St. Andrews and I was the most familiar with the roads and street signs (having already been here for 3.5 weeks and lacey being fresh off the boat…) it made the most sense for me to start off driving and Lacey to handle the maps and directions. We pulled out of the parking lot and got about a block down the road when we realized that the car was beeping… and everything we tried wouldn’t make it stop, so we turned around and went back to Enterprise. Apparently, the foot break was on… and they had neglected to mention that there was a foot break, but now that they noticed it, we would need to put that on everytime we stopped, or turned off, the car. We would also need to first make sure we were using the battery, then push the park button, then turn the power on the car off, then engage the foot break. Every time we parked. That car had ‘all kinds of stop” (as we later started calling it) going on.
Ok, so then we were on our way! We started driving north, and hadn’t been on the road long at all before we were surrounded by the beautiful green countryside that is Scotland. As we were driving up and around Loch Lomond, we passed a parking place that had a great view, so we stopped to take some pictures. Unfortunately, it was on the wrong side of the road, but once we crossed, we saw that we could actually climb down to the rocks by the lake!

We drove on a little further and then stopped at a picnic area by the lake to have our picnic lunch of blueberry muffins, carrots, hummus, grapes, and other odds and ends that I’d packed for us. We also stopped at one or two Tourist Information Centers along the way… About halfway into our trip, we passed signs for the Inverlochy Castle, so we stopped to check it out. Just a little ways off the main road were ruins of a pretty large castle, that we were able to walk around and explore. There was no one else around, except one other car-load of tourists exploring the property. It was really amazing!! The castle was square, with a tower on each corner, and while the stairs were gated off, you could look up and actually see the stone stairways leading up the towers! We took lots of pictures here, of course! When we reached Invergarry, which is a little over 3/4 of the way through our day's journey, we stopped at a pub for dinner. Or should I say, The pub. It seemed to be the only establishment in the town, aside from the numerous Bed and Breakfasts… It was pretty expensive, but what do you expect when they’ve got no competition… I had fish n’ chips and Lacey had a veggie stuffed pepper.

About 2 miles outside of the town where we were staying that night, there's Eileen Donan castle. It was built on an island and now there is a bridge to it for visitors. We were about an hour too late to visit the castle, and would be setting out too early the next morning to come back to visit, so we stopped to take whatever pictures we could from the road. (The castles are only open from 10-5 or 6pm, which makes visiting more than one in a day very difficult in the best circumstances!) Of course, just as we pulled up to take pictures, the sun was setting over the lake, and we were taking pictures of the castle into the sun... so the pictures you see (like the one above) were actually taken from the moving car of the rear of the castle as we drove away from it, slightly disappointed, but glad to have seen it at all.
Around 830 that evening we arrived in Kyle of Lochalsh, the last town before the bridge to Skye, and where we were staying in The Old Bank House that night. We met our hosts – the bed and breakfast owners, Sally, Mike and their son Joshua. They were a little odd, but very nice and hospitable. Sally took our breakfast orders, asked if we wanted anything to drink/eat that night, and gave us our keys. Since it was still daylight out (its light here until well after 10pm in the summer), and still too early to call home (5 hour time difference from Philly, 6 from Nashville) we decided to walk around a little and explore Kyle. It’s a cute little town, with several interesting shops selling homemade crafts and woolen items. I wish we had been there during business hours, but I’m sure we experienced much of the same on the rest of this roadtrip, so we didn’t miss out on much by only walking past. We went back inside, called Ben, Joe, and our parents, and went to bed.

Ben's Visit - St. Andrews

Tuesday, June 23 - Ben's last day in the UK, so we had to make it good. We had Enterprise pick us up at 9am, take us to the shop to fill out paperwork, and off we went! Yes, it is that easy to rent a car in the UK. Nevermind that you're driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, and you have no idea what any of the street signs mean. Here's your keys, the car takes unleaded fuel. That was the only advice we got. So we set off on our way, luckily I'd planned ahead and printed out directions from Google Maps. After about 1.5 hours of driving, mostly on main roads, we arrived at the coastal town of St. Andrews - the birthplace of GOLF. Ben was so very excited! We parked the car and immediately headed toward the courses. There were several right there in the middle of the town, Old Course, New Course, Links, among others. We played a game of puttputt so that we could say we played golf at St. Andrews, and then went into the clubhouse to explore! We visited the roof for an amazing panoramic view, the gift shop (of course), and watched some strangers hit a couple balls of the tee at the first hole.
Then we walked back along the coastline, I took off my shoes so that I could feel the sand on my feet, and, since there were so many people playing in the water, I decided to put my feet in, too. Yup. I put my feet in the North Sea. And the water was warm!! So I walked in up to my knees, which was so very exciting for me!
Then we continued to walk down the coast to the St. Andrew's castle. We didn't pay to go inside, but since its mostly ruins, the view was just as spectacular from the outside. The castle is set on cliffs towering above the ocean and surrounded by rocks where the waves crash and break against...
Finally we walked back up toward town, and Ben went into the Museaum of Golf while I sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful day and weather. I sat watching the water and listening to the waves and seagulls. It was very nice as it brought back memories of home...
Enterprise closed at 6pm, so we were supposed to bring the car back by then, which meant we'd need to leave by 4ish... So at 4, we bid goodbye to St. Andrews and headed back to Glasgow. It took us 2.5 hours (1 hour longer due to traffic) to get back to Enterprise... so we left St. Andrews early, but still didn't make it in time to return the car... But its probably for the better since we needed to make sure Ben had enough time to pack and everything. We left the car at Enterprise, walked back to my place, had dinner at an Italian place near my flat, packed him up, and the next morning at 5am the taxi came to collect him and take him to the airport. Around 9am on my way to work, I had to detour to Enterprise to return the car keys...
And that, is how Ben and I celebrated our one year anniversary. And that's the story of his trip to the UK. :-)

Ben's Visit - Windsor Castle

Monday, June 20 - Ben's last day in London, so we decide to go visit Windsor Castle. Its a subway ride to the train station, and then about an hour train ride to the castle. When we get to Windsor station its a short walk (uphill, of course) to the Castle. This castle is much different than others we have visited- most likely since it is still currently in use. The Queen considers Windsor to be her home, and it is where she spends the summer months. She was actually there while we were visiting, as her Standard was flying above the castle, but no, we didn't see her! We had to wait in a bit of a line to buy tickets and there were large glass windows between the ticket office and the next room, where they were doing security checks. A little girl behind us in line asked "Mommy, are we going on an airplane?" It was very cute. And she wasn't far off - it was just like the security to go on a plane... So we entered the castle grounds and toured around. You can only take pictures of the outside, but inside we saw Princess Mary's Doll's House, and several of the State Rooms, which are, of course, all lavishly decorated. We also got to go inside the church where Henry VIII and the Queen Mother, and several other monarch's are burried.

We had to manage our time well at Windsor as we had to catch the train back to Glasgow that evening. Train back to London, subway to get our bags, subway to Euston, grabbed dinner in a pub in the station, then train back to Glasgow and taxi home... Arrived home around 1am.

Ben's Visit - Londontown

Sunday, June 21 - We woke early to get ready and had to walk two blocks to the Ramada Jarvis Hyde Park where we were to meet our bus. We arrived early at the hotel and saw that they had a coffee shop inside and were hopeful that we'd be able to grab breakfast, but alas, the coffee shop wasn't open until after they finished serving breakfast - which was 15 pounds/ person! And we weren't quite early enough for a full sit-down breakfast... So we got on the bus hoping to be able to grab something to eat along the way. Turned out that the bus we got on was just picking people up from our region, and that the people on our bus were talking all differnet tours. So our group and many other busses all met up back at the tour company's office, where we split into groups according to which tour we were taking. Just so happened that there were several shops around the office, so we were able to grab some danishes and juice for breakfast and a bottled water to carry for the day :-) Our tour was the City of London, or Total London Experience, I believe it was technically called... It started off with us driving around the city and our tour guide explaining the buildings we passed, monuments, statues, etc. When we got to Westminster Abbey, we were allowed off the bus so that we could take pictures. Then we continuted on the route. We finally left the bus at the cavalry museaum, which we toured, then we walked through a park towards Buckingham Palace, saw the changing of the guard - parade and all!!, and met the bus again. We went to lunch with the group at a resturant neat Convent Garden and were allowed a short time to explore after eating.

From there we headed over to the Tower of London! I had been looking forward to this the most, so it was most unfortunate when the tour guide informed us that after going all together to see the Crown Jewels we would have about 20 minutes to explore the Tower itself. Now, contrary to how it may sound, the Tower is not simply one tower.. its an entire castle, a fortress, and has tons of amazing history - not the least of which is that is was the site where Henry VIII had his wives beheaded... So when we got inside and saw the line to see the Crown Jewels, we decided Not to see them and to see the rest of the castle instead. It proved to be a good decision. We didn't see the Jewels, but we got to see almost everything else - including the Henry VIII exhibition they have going on this year to commemerate the 500th anniversary of his assention ot the throne!!

After the Tower, our tour group walked out to a pier on the river Thames and boarded a boat that took us all the way down river back to Parliment and Big Ben, etc. The boat ride also included a tour, and you have an excellent view of London from the river, so it was really great. Once off the boat, all we needed was to cross the river to get to the London Eye - the UK's largest ferris wheel, that takes 30 mins to do one rotation. We loaded into a compartment and took our ride - luckily it was a clear day and we were able to see the excellent views of the city and surroundings that the Eye was designed for! Our tour guide left us before we got on the Eye, so our tour was over at that point. Ben and I decided to cross back over the river to get a closer look at Parliment and Big Ben before making our way back home.

Ben's Visit - Hampton Court Palace

Saturday, June 20 – 315am: the alarm goes off. We get dressed, brush our teeth, and make sure we’ve packed everything. The phone rings at 339 – taxi is here to take us to Central Station. We take the 425 train to London Euston station. The plan was to sleep on the train in order to at least get a couple hours of sleep. We didn’t count on Ben getting sick and not sleeping at all…
We arrived in London at 915am, found a place to sit and rest, so Ben could recover. I bought some breakfast and got him a hot chocolate and we ate while I looked up directions to where we were staying online. (Yes, at the train station… I forgot to do it before I left. Whatever.) We couldn’t get to the place (the house where Leric lived when studying abroad here – he arranged it with the caretaker kid that we could spend the weekend!!) until noon, so we had some time to kill. Kings Cross and Pancreas Stations were just a short walk away, so we went exploring. Of course, first place we found is platform 9 ¾!! After taking too many pictures there, we took the tube to our place.
When we got in the room, Ben immediately laid down on the bed and fell asleep. I turned on my computer and started checking opening times and directions to Hampton Court Palace – since that’s where we had tickets to that day. I saw that it was actually the big day of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s coronation and they were having a big to-do with the king and queen riding a boat down the river to arrive at the palace and then a feast and dancing and merrymaking!!

So I woke Ben up and we went to Hampton Court and toured the palace and gardens and joined in the celebrations of Henry’s coronation. Hampton Court was Henry VII's favorite palace to visit and is now commonly refered to as his playground. The interior has been beautifully restored to reflect the kings and queens who have called it home over the centuries and the great hall was just as it would have looked when Henry lived there! There were antlers all over the walls in some of the rooms, reflecting Henry's love of hunting, and the table cloths in the great hall explained some of the customs guiding meals in his time. We were also able to tour the kitchens - a place many of the palace's residents would never see themselves! It was so interesting to see a 15th century kitchen! (And a kitchen equipped to feed 500 people at that!) And then there were the acres and acres of gardens, expanded and elaborated upon over the years, these were beautiful to explore - and we were lucky to have such a nice day to lie out on the lawn for a little while!

The palace was to stay open late that night for fireworks and such, but we decided to leave early since we had all day plans for the following day. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner where I had a chimichanga and Ben had a burrito. I ordered a frozen raspberry margarita – delish!! And Ben had a Corona (I think). Then, after we’d finished, they brought two double shot glasses of frozen strawberry margarita over to the table with the bill and a couple mints! Awesome!