TJ and I had decided at some point last year that we'd like to have a baby this spring. Our trip to Scotland was a little bit of a last hurrah before we started trying to get our lives and finances in better order.

I disappeared on here right around the same time I realized getting pregnant was not going to be as easy or as quick as I thought. I even cheated on you and started a new blog that felt a little more anonymous because I was having trouble dealing with and talking about some of the hiccups we had along the way. 

Looking back, they really do seem like little hiccups, but at the time, it was the most frustrating, heartbreaking, roller coaster of a journey that I had ever been on. In the end, I got pretty lucky and my issues were able to be treated very easily. On Thanksgiving of last year, after 5 or 6 months, I found myself standing on my bed to hold up a pregnancy test up to the light and saying "am I crazy or do you see a line?"

Turns out I did see a line (but that doesn't discount that I was in fact crazy). We told our families on Christmas day by showing them the 6-week ultrasound pictures and I'm now trying to patiently wait out the last 6 weeks of this pregnancy. 

Of course, that sums it up all really nicely and leaves out all the fun of morning sickness, reflux, an esophageal tear, a stomach virus that landed me in the hospital, stressing about not gaining weight because of all these fun issues, having to give up chocolate and other reflux no-nos, and all the other stupid issues that I will have to try my best to forget when we decide to go for a second baby. 

Overall, I've learned a lot about myself, my marriage, and the wonders of health insurance. I've also learned what I think will be one of the most important lessons of motherhood with the mantra that has carried me through the past 34 weeks - "as long as the baby's ok, I can get through this." 

On our second day in Edinburgh, our plan was to get up early, grab breakfast, and meet up with a ghost tour of the underground. Some side information about me: I'm a huge baby when it comes to any kind of paranormal stuff. I can't watch scary movies and I generally cry during haunted houses and hayrides. I've learned to just stop agreeing to go to these things. But TJ really wanted to wanted to go on this tour. So, I decided to suck it up and be the bigger person. Well, I tried to anyway.

We started the day as planned and grabbed breakfast in a huge bar that used to be a bank. We walked around and took some pictures and then I decided we should walk up the 287 steps at the Sir Walter Scott Monument. The tour guide from the bus the day before said we would get a certificate for going all the way up and I wanted that certificate. I also might have wanted to waste just enough time to maybe get out of going on the underground tour.

So we walked up these narrow, twisting stairs:

And got to the top!

 

Or so we thought. We were pretty pleased with ourselves for barely breaking a sweat, until we realized this was only the first level. So, up we went. I'm generally not too scared of heights, but the stairs themselves were terrifying! So narrow that you had to go back down if someone tried to come the other way, and we started yelling up at each level to make sure no one was on their way down before we started. The view was pretty incredible from the top though.

 

After we got back down and took a minute to catch our breath, we realized that we'd probably miss the noon tour. So, we headed back to the old city to walk around to kill time before the 4:00 tour. Around this time, I realized I was actually going to have to go through with this tour and started to feel really sick. I can't help it - I'm just that bad with this stupid crap. I must have looked pretty pale (even for me), because TJ took one look at me and realized I was on the verge of throwing up and decided to gracefully bow out of the tour. And even bought me a milkshake to make me feel better. 

I felt really horrible ruining it for him. I really think you should try to do everything you want when you're visiting far away, because you just never know if you'll be back there again and you never want to leave thinking "if only we had done this." But this is just my weak spot. I'd rather base jump off the Walter Scott Monument or eat shellfish (anyone who knows me knows that's pretty big). Luckily, I am blessed with a very understanding husband

After calming myself with a mint chocolate chip milkshake (seriously, so much better than musty old haunted tunnels), we hot up a grocery store where we hit the Kinder chocolate jackpot. A family pack of Kinder Bueno  for around $2. I'm drooling just thinking about them...

Loaded up on sugar, we hopped back in the car to complete our loop and return to Glasgow. Once in the city we headed towards the water to see the "Armadillo," or the Clyde Auditorium, and to check out the Glasgow Science Centre right next door. 

At the science center, we were greeted by a local celebrity:

Grommit was sleeping. Lazy dog.

They're having a really cool exhibit this year featuring Wallace and Grommit and teaching kids to be inventors. They have sets like the one above scattered throughout from the movies and shorts. It was so cool to see how small the pieces the artists have to work with and how they still get them so detailed so they look life size on screen. 

The whole place is very hands on and really more geared for kids. We blew through parts of the exhibits, but some got our attention, like the huge game of connect four. We had to stop so I could kick TJ's ass. We also had to stop so we could show off our impressive anatomy skills:

After we were finished being total nerds, we headed out to see if we could find some festival with a few good bands playing (I think it was Snow Patrol and Band of Horses). Well, it was very chaotic when we found it and apparently we missed Band of Horses, but could pay around $75 each to go see Snow Patrol. No thanks. Instead, we drove back downtown and grabbed some dinner at a little Italian place that was good, but a little strange. They did have deep-fried pineapple fritters for dessert, so all strangeness is forgiven. 

We went to bed early so we could get up for our flight, amidst yelling and carrying on everywhere in the city, as it was the first World Cup game that night. It did explain why we saw someone selling American flags earlier in the day, though...

Our flight home was uneventful and we headed over to my parents' house to pick up our little dog and have a birthday dinner for me and then went home and passed out for a very long time. TJ went to work the next day - I opted to use a vacation day to sleep almost all day. 

When we were finally all settled there, we found an Italian place that was still serving food (a lot of the pubs stay open late, but their kitchens close by 7 or 8 - even on a Friday in the city!). It seemed a little bit like a dive, but the food was great and the server was really nice and even teased TJ a bit (which always wins points with me). Afterwards, we hung out in the lobby of the hostel with the computers and beer to figure out our plan for the next day.

The next morning, we set out to the center of the city (about a 30 minute walk) to find the tourist office. They have a really convenient system where you can buy tickets and arrange tours for a bunch of different companies all at once at the same location. We decided, since we only had 2 days in the city, to do a hop on hop off double decker bus tour (is there anything more touristy?). It worked out really well because it showed us some parts of the city we wouldn't have had time to explore otherwise, gave us some little history lessons, and gave us a ride up to the castle. It was also a beautiful, sunny day, so if felt great to sun ourselves on the top level of the bus after being cold for the past few days.

We got off in the Old Town to walk up to the Castle.

After a tour of the castle and lunch, we headed back down the hill to the Camera Obscura. The Camera Obscura sits on top of a tower in Old City and uses a series of lenses to capture and manipulate images from all over the city. There's also an interactive museum that lets you play with all kinds of optical illusions. 

View from the top:

 

We hopped back on one of the buses to check out the Queen's palace in Scotland and some other sights before we hopped off to find some food. We went into a little pub and I had the best chicken pot pie ever. It was at this point that I decided all foods should come in pie form.

Since I'm a huger nerd and TJ is a nerd lover, we decided to go on a literary pub tour. I'm not sure why I thought this was such a great idea since the last literary pub tour I went on (oh, yes, this nerd has been on more than one) in Dublin ended in some of us getting way too drunk and getting really dirty looks from the performers. It was fun, but we were the youngest people on the tour and there was a little more acting and reciting than drinking.

Here, you can see how excited TJ was:

Me? I was trying to think of any Scottish writers. I was clueless to many of the writers that came up. I guess Scottish literature just doesn't get much attention here.

I did get to try Nessie's Monster Mash beer (which I now have a bottle of waiting for me in the fridge), on the tour, so that was a plus. The tour guides were very animated and seemed pretty knowledgeable, so it was a good time. I think maybe the beer to literature ratio needs to tip a little further towards the beer side, though.

We were in a lot of dark bars, so I didn't really take many pictures inside the bars, but here are a few from the tour:

This last one still makes me cringe:

That being said, it was a very nice little city from what we saw of it. We woke up pretty early the morning we stayed there because we had to get up to "pay and display" our parking ticket (or risk getting yet another fine), so we walked around and grabbed a quick breakfast at a coffee shop. 

Right outside of our hostel, there was a large walking mall. We walked around a little bit and possibly ended up on Scottish TV because they were filming some news segment and met some locals:

Without any real plans, we headed towards the water. There was a very large train bridge that goes out of the city that TJ was itching to go on (it's famous for something or another and even collapsed at some point, but I can't remember the name). We realized it would be a pain in the ass to take a train just to go 5 minutes out of the city and back, but we saw a very large ship in the harbor and decided to check it out.

Turns out it was the RRS Discovery, which was a ship that sailed to the South Pole for research purposes in 1902. TJ likes boats, so we went through a little exhibit complete with a "wee video" before checking out the boat itself.

One cool thing about monuments and historical things overseas: they let you touch and climb on just about everything.

After our boat expedition, we decided to head towards our next destination: St. Andrews. Oh my god, I loved St. Andrews. I think my only regret about our whole trip is not allowing ourselves more time there. I didn't realize what a cool town it was. I figured we'd walk past the golf course, grab some lunch, and be on our way. What I didn't realize is that St. Andrews is an adorable resort town with tons of cool shops and historical sights and a beach with real sand. Love. It doesn't hurt that we had a beautiful, sunny day there (unlike the poor golfers at the open last month).

We checked out the golf course, which was a little strange because you could pretty much walk right in the middle of people's games. People were very quiet and respectful of the golfers though. That whole area of town had a weird hush to it.

To play golf at St. Andrews you have to do one of two things: either book a year or so in advance or enter a lottery the morning you want to golf. Since my golfing skills could make even the most patient of men bend golf clubs over my head, we didn't even try. 

There's a beach that sort of lines the golf course, which just makes it even windier. Pretty crazy to think of people trying to golf there, but I am always happy to see a sandy beach.

We walked out onto some rock formation where you had to walk across a cement jetty and risk plummeting to your death in the high winds. Ok, maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it freaked me out a little.

After walking on the beach, we were ready to get out of the wind for a little while, so we headed to the museum of golf history. I'm not a golf person, but it was actually pretty interesting. Bet you didn't know that golf was illegal for quite some time because rulers thought that it took away from time that people should have been practicing their archery. Yay, more useless knowledge!

After getting sick of golf history, we went into town to find some food and warmed up in a little pub for grilled cheese and soup. Mmm...

So, it seems like the major landmarks in St. Andrews are really just ruins at this point. There's the cathedral that blew down, was burnt down, and was pillaged and the castle that had the same sort of fate. They make for some cool pictures though. They also make for a really cool wedding location, as we saw at the cathedral (but didn't get any good pictures of while trying to keep a respectful distance for their ceremony).

 

Unfortunately, most things in the town were closed by the time we were done exploring the ruins. So, we were off to Edinburgh!

I had booked a buss/boat tour through Jacobite before we left because I had heard that these tours can book up pretty quickly. This was the only attraction I bothered to book before we left because I figured we'd be pretty upset if we went to Loch Ness and didn't get to go out on a boat. The tour worked out really well. They picked us up in the town center and then drove us out to their docks and we got a little history lesson on the way, courtesy of our adorable bus driver who's name I can't remember but TJ can do an awesome impression of. He told us all about the Jacobite Wars and the Highland Clearances. You could tell he was a huge history buff and totally loved his job (and I think just all around nice guy). We then had about a half hour cruise of Loch Ness before docking at the ruins of Urqhart Castle. We were able to explore the castle and watch a "wee video" about the castle and the Jacobite Wars. 

After the castle, they put us back on the bus to go to an exhibit on the Loch Ness Monster. I thought it would be really hokey, but it was actually kind of cool. They chronicled all of the major reported sightings and all of the attempts to prove/disprove her existence and talked about all of the hoaxes throughout the years. They sort of lead you to the "she doesn't exist" side of the argument, but I sort of like to believe in a world where she could. So there. 

The weather sort of sucked and was pretty cold, so I broke out my new rain jacket to wear over my sweatshirt and other jacket. And I was still cold. Oh well.

Found Nessie! (Or maybe a duck)

After Loch Ness, we headed back to our car in Inverness to find that we had gotten a parking ticket! Most of the public parking in Scotland is paid for through these kiosks that you prepay and then print out a slip to put on your dashboard with how much time you have printed on it. Well, we had "paid and displayed," but I think maybe the slip fell off the dash when I closed the door. It wasn't a huge fine, but it was not a fun extra expense. We paid it so the rental company wouldn't hunt us down when we got home. 

After some bitching and moaning about our parking ticket, we were ready to say goodbye to Inverness and get on the road to Dundee. We made a few little stops along the way to stretch our legs and get ice cream in Pitlochery. While driving, we got a glimpse of one of the many falling down castles that litter the countryside and I suggested we stop to take a few pictures from the highway (yes, the highway! we found real roads again). As luck would have it, there was a bunch of Highland cows munching away on the grass right in front of it. It was like winning the lottery.

We arrived in Dundee a little later in the evening and had a little bit of trouble finding out hostel, but were pretty happy once we climbed the million steps up to our room.

The hostel was in a very old building with lots of exposed brick and stone walls. It was located in a walking area (hence the difficulty finding it) and we had a private room on the top floor with a view of everyone walking around and going to bars below. 

It was a little later (by Scottish standards) to find dinner, but a bartender directed us to a chain restaurant with sort of a Tex-Mex flair. And that's how we ended up drinking Coronas and eating enchiladas in Scotland...

After missing breakfast at our hotel the morning before, we weren't going to make that mistake again. We sat down to a full Scottish breakfast, which amounts to a ton of food. 

It included all of the above, plus toast and a full assortment of cereal, oatmeal, and yogurt. We were good to go for awhile after that. Despite TJ's urging, I could not bring myself to try the blood pudding, but the rest was delicious.

After breakfast, we checked out of our hotel and drove into town to do some shopping. The town was basically the harbor with a few restaurants and then one pedestrian street with lots of little shops. We found an awesome kitchen store, but I resisted buying anything there. Because of the exchange rate and the remote location, everyday items were a little pricey. 

Of course, we couldn't leave empty handed We bought some candy bars for TJ to try, adorable children's books for each of our nieces, a stuffed highland cow for our older niece and a sun hat for our baby niece. We also found a clay figurine of a highland cow for me since TJ said I was too old for a stuffed one (for which the women in the shop yelled at him). I also bought myself a Skye marble necklace and a wooden Scotty Christmas ornament that the local vet makes.

After our shopping, we were ready to head out of Portree in search of the Skye bridge to get back to the mainland. Of course we stopped for some pictures along the way:

Our fourth day was probably the longest day in the car. We actually drove further on our way to Skye, but driving lost a little of its appeal on the way to Inverness, especially once we crossed over the Skye Bridge. The roads were a little scarier and the weather was probably the worst we saw the whole trip. As we drove towards the highlands, a lot of the roads became one lane, but not just for one way traffic. Every so often there would be a "passing place' so you could pull over and let cars go in the opposite direction. I also found these very handy for letting people pass you going in the same direction so they wouldn't get mad at me for taking my time in the rain, on windy, narrow little roads through the mountains. It was just a little nerve-wracking.

Just a little plug while I'm on all this driving. Before we left, TJ loaded up both of our iPhones with tons of awesome music, but also with some of our favorite podcasts from WNYC's Radiolab. Obviously, we are both huge nerds, but this show is awesome. I'm not a big science person, but they make their topics really relevant and interesting. And I have crazy crushes on both hosts now and want to name a future son Jad (but not really).

The weather once we left Skye got rainier and grayer as we went. We contemplated stopping for a picnic a few times, but every time we found a decent spot, it started pouring. We barely drove through any towns at all, so we made due with peanut butter crackers and trail mix until we got to Inverness. By the time we got there, we were both tired and hungry and a little discouraged. We checked into our hostel and weren't really happy. 

The hostel itself was very nice, but it was the only hostel we booked the whole time where I couldn't pick what type of room we wanted online, so we ended up being split into two different dorm rooms. It was only one night, so not that big of a deal, but it was a little weird not knowing anyone in my room. Any other time I've stayed in a hostel, I've had other women with me, so I always knew some of the people. There was also a little mix-up with TJ's room later that night where someone took the bed he had already claimed so they had to find him a bed in another room. Not to mention the large school group that was rooming in the floor above us that had a lot in common with a herd of baby elephants. All in all, it was not our most restful night. But it was clean and cheap and the people were very nice and helpful.

But anyway, when we got to Inverness, the guy at the front desk in our hostel directed us to the town center where we found a really nice bar with good food and free WiFi. We might have eaten there twice. After warming up with some pub food, we felt much better and went for a walk around town. 

Inverness was a beautiful city - one of the newest cities in Scotland and apparently the fastest growing city in Europe (if I remember correctly). Like so many European cities, there was a river (the one that feeds Loch Ness) running through the middle of it. There were beautiful parks along both river banks and tons of walking trails through the city. 

TJ reads every informational sign he can find everywhere we go. I have tons of pictures just like this one from every single trip we take. At least it gives me a good reference point when I look through our pictures.

Me, I'm too impatient to read everything. He'll usually tell me anything interesting anyway. I believe he told me to look illiterate for this picture.

Scotland is crazy dog friendly. We saw so many dogs everywhere we went, most of them not on leashes, but just patiently following their owners through the streets. I would have taken more dog pictures, but I felt creepy doing it. Although, I wouldn't feel weird if I saw someone taking Maddie's picture out on a walk. She's just that cute.

The cathedral in Inverness doesn't have spires because they ran out of money. Oops.

TJ noticed on the sign he was checking out earlier, that one of the paths leads you to where dolphins might be hanging out. Since I didn't actually read the sign, I ended up following him on a 3-mile hike to nowhere in the cold. I was surprisingly pleasant about it - probably because I was happy to be out of the car and to be racking up steps on my pedometer.

We walked along the river and through some parks and nature trails and never found the damn dolphins. Oh well, large sea creatures freak me out anyway.

On our walk, we saw a sign that made us pause:

At this point in the trip, we had seen signs for all kinds of animal crossings - deer, sheep, cows, chickens, children - but this was our first for renegade old people. 

We also came across a park with our first Nessie sighting! I just couldn't resist sliding down into the beast's mouth, even if it meant a wet ass for the next hour.

We finally made it back into the town center to grab some more food and beer and then back to the hostel so we could get up bright and early to go hunting for the real Nessie!

*Available Fridays only, 9am to 6pm EST.

We headed northwest to Dunvegan Castle. The drive was absolutely beautiful as we went further west towards the North Atlantic. The castle was sort of boring itself and was under quite a bit of construction, but the grounds and gardens were beautiful. We did watch a very campy, yet informative video, on the MacLeod clan. The highlight was definitely going out on a tiny 6-person motor boat to check out the seals that come into the bay to hide out from the scary sharks and killer whales that like to hunt them down in the open ocean. 

 

After our little boat tour, we were starving. We had left our hotel without getting our free breakfast (I still regret this decision) because we thought it would take too long and that we'd grab something quick on the way. Well, there was nothing on the way. We didn't drive by one cafe, bakery, gas station, anything on the drive out to the castle. So, instead of checking out the gardens, we headed out to the castle shop and cafe in the parking lot to grab lunch. After some veggie soup and an awesome chocolate donut, we were much happier and pleasant to be around.

While neither of us is a big Scotch (or whisky over there) drinker, we knew we couldn't go to Scotland and not check out at least one distillery. Even though my Dad and brother were pushing for us to go to Islay to check out one of its many distilleries, we decided it was too far out of the way. Instead, we opted to check out Talisker since it was a Scotch I had actually heard of. 

On the way to the distillery, we took a wrong turn (thank god for GPS) and we were re-routed onto a far less-traveled road. How did we know it was less-traveled? Well, it was only one lane (but with 2 way traffic) and sheep lounging in the sun in the middle. They reminded me of my little Maddie

The tour was pretty neat (we weren't really allowed to take pictures). We've both been on several brewery tours, but neither of us had ever been to a distillery before. TJ had never even had Scotch before, but drank it like a champ and even refused to add any water to it like I did. 

The area right around Talisker was beautiful, so we decided to hang out and play with the camera and admire the views to let the Scotch sink in before we got back in the car (we didn't have very much - just enough to feel a little sleepy).

On the way back to Portree, we found Highland Cows. Just typing that makes me grin. I was dying to see one of these guys in real life. We found out later in the trip that it was too close to Spring (aka baby cow season) to get close to the cows because they are extremely protective. And have very large horns. So, this is as close as we got (with a telescopic lens), but I was still ridiculously excited.

Afterwards we hung out in Portree, where we had dinner at a restaurant called "Well Plaid." And yes, that is why I wanted to eat there. I had my first ever fish 'n chips and it was really good. Very heavily battered, so I could barely taste the fish haha. We walked around town and got Skye-style homemade ice cream (still not sure what that means exactly, but it was good) and then watched some tv in our hotel. Unfortunately, all that was on was nature shows and Cloverfield. I hate scary movies. And I hate nature shows - Scottish TV fail. 

I can't explain why exactly, but this day was not only my favorite day of the trip, but probably in my top 20 for favorite days of all time. I'm not the biggest road-trip person (I blame too many hours logged in the car with my family as a kid), but there was just something different about this trip. Maybe it was just because we were in another country, maybe it was because it was just TJ and me, or maybe it was just because I had looked forward to this trip for so long, but it just felt so freeing. 

We headed out of Glasgow around 8 or 9 and stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast since TJ had been dying for some egg McMuffins since the airport the day before. I'm only a little ashamed that this became a semi-regular part of our trip. What can I say? Their food is better in other countries and they have free WiFi. Once we got out of the city, we relaxed about driving quite a bit. The roads weren't crowded and were in great shape. 

Not far out of the city, we drove into the mountains and then drove along Loch Lomond for much of the trip. At first the scenery was just very green and not too unlike what you might see in more mountainous parts of PA. We stopped to stretch our legs in a park along the loch.

TJ kept laughing at me because I was downright giddy at this point. Anytime I had been stressed over the months leading up to this trip (which was pretty often), I just pictured myself standing on the edge of a huge lake, looking into dark, glassy water. I had never even looked at pictures of Loch Lomond before, but yet here I was looking into my daydream. 

We grabbed some snacks and took a potty break at a cute little store - home of this guy:

and then headed out on the next leg of the drive. As we got closer to the coast, the scenery just got more and more beautiful. Every time we'd come around a curve, I'd think just how breathtaking it was and it just couldn't get better, and then the road would curve again and give as a glimpse of a mountain range or stream we hadn't been able to see before. It was tempting to stop every five minutes to take pictures, especially since there were these handy dandy areas to pull over every mile or so. TJ snapped this at one such area:

 

We took another little break at this adorable store/restaurant  and checked out some sheep. The store made me very sad that I bought cute rain boots (wellies) before we left because they had a huge wall of them! Oh well. 

The weather was sort of gray when we left Glasgow and a little chilly, but the further we went, the sunnier and warmer it got. I quickly learned that any advice I had been given about packing and dressing for all possibilities was very true. I think in one day it went from being gray and in the 50s, to sunny and in the 70s, to rainy, to sunny, to rainy again, to sunny and cold, to sunny and windy. From that first day on, I wore a t-shirt, a long-sleeve shirt, and a sweatshirt and brought a jacket, rain coat, and umbrella with me everywhere. 

At one point, we pulled over to take a picture of a mountain, and saw a sign for a "viewing point." We didn't know what we would be viewing, so we went to check it out and found this:

I said, let's climb down there. TJ said no. Guess who won!

Not this guy!

At about our half-way point, we decided to grab lunch in Fort William. Fort William was a very adorable little fishing, tourist town. It's the closest town to Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in Great Britian), so there were tons of things centered on hiking and camping. I believe we drove by Ben Nevis (and I'm sure took pictures of it), but I couldn't tell you which one it was. Every time I saw a really big mountain I decided it was it, but then we'd see one that looked bigger... I eventually just gave up. There should have been a sign, in my opinion. Anyway, back to Fort William. There's not really a fort there anymore, but you can see bits of where one used to be.

 

One of TJ's missions throughout the trip (perhaps throughout life?) was to try every non-American candy bar he could find. This one seemed especially intriguing:

Pretty much, it was just a bigger Cadbury Dairy Milk bar. So, I liked it (does that mean I'm not a girl?), but TJ didn't (and what does that mean for him??).

I had grilled cheese for lunch, which continues my streak of having grilled cheese in every country I visit. We walked around town a little, but most of the stores were closed since it was a Sunday, so we headed out on our way.

Does this look familiar to anyone?

Not being Harry Potter fans, we didn't actually get out of the car to take a decent picture, but yes, that is what the HP train goes over. 

We arrived in Mailaig with plenty of time to spare, so we walked around the town and found some ice cream. The weather had become beautiful and sunny again, so we killed some time just hanging out on the water.

The ferry ride over to Skye was pretty short, which was good because it was crazy windy and a bit cold. 

I was so excited to be on Skye! I was looking forward to this more than any other part of our trip. By the time we got up to Portree, it was pretty late in the day, so not much was open. We checked into out hotel, which was adorable, and waited in the bar until we could have dinner there. 

Outside of the hotel:

Hotel Beer Garden:

Our room:

To pause here for a second, these pictures were taken around 8pm at night. As I found out right before we left, the sun doesn't set in Scotland in the summer until very late and then rises really early. There were nights were we tried to go to sleep at 10 or 11, but couldn't because it was so freaking bright out. Once we got used to it, it was so nice to be able to walk around later in the evenings and have it be light out, but very strange since almost everything was closed by 6. It made us a little restless in the evenings. 

After dinner (mmmm... steak pie, mashed potatoes, and beer), we walked down to the harbor to check out the town a little:

Exhausted, we went back to the hotel to enjoy the only room on the whole trip with a tv and get some sleep. 

So, driving in a foreign country in a tiny European car was bad enough (did I ever tell you about my almost panic attack in a Smart Car in Greece?), but the added issue of driving on the wrong side of the road was just icing on the cake. Leaving the Glasgow airport, I knew I had to get it over with and be the one to pull out into traffic on the left side for the first time ASAP. 

All in all, it wasn't so bad. The GPS was a total life-saver because I didn't worry about missing a turn and could just take my time (we got re-routed several times on that first, short drive). We had just a few scary moments throughout the trip, but no one got hurt and I didn't panic (too much). 

The freaky, backwards dashboard:

We did both try to get in the wrong side of car quite a bit. And maybe even once after we got home

Anyway, we headed to our hostel to see if they would let us check in early and grab a shower, etc. Of course, they wouldn't, so we found some food and headed out to check out the city. 

When we were planning this trip, a lot of people advised us to not waste time going to Glasgow. We didn't really have an option because it was the only airport US Air flies into regularly (we were using frequent flyer miles) and I knew I wouldn't want to do even more traveling on our first day in Scotland. Maybe I'm just easy to please, but I liked Glasgow. I don't know if we could have found a ton to do there if we had stayed longer, but it was a nice city to walk around get our bearings in a new country. We headed towards the downtown area with no real destination in mind and figured we'd just walk around and grab dinner until it was a decent enough time to go to bed.

Right away, we found Saint Mungo's Cathedral, where they just happened to be setting up for a wedding. 

They let us walk around inside for a few minutes before kicking us out for the wedding guests. 

We parked ourselves on a bench so we could watch everyone arrive at the wedding. I was really hoping to see the bride, but I think she must have gone in through some side entrance. I tried to subtly take pictures of the guests because i'm a creeper like that, but also because a lot of the men were in full kilt get-up and a lot of the women had some really awesome hats. I wish we got to wear more cool hats.

After stalking the wedding guests, we stumbled upon St. Nicholas Garden, which was pretty adorable and an excellent spot for a quick photoshoot.

We really liked these guys:

We headed further downtown to check out the shopping areas and find dinner. I wasn't in full-blown tourist mode yet, so I felt funny whipping out the huge DSLR every five seconds (I got over that fast enough, don't worry). Consequently, I didn't get too many good shots because I was trying to be discreet. But here are a few:

The modern art museum:

Lots of streets were closed down to traffic and for pedestrians only which was really nice.

We walked inside the Central Train Station, which was really cool. It was very airy and open.

After awhile, we were tired and hungry, so we grabbed a quick dinner at an outdoor Italian restaurant and headed back to the hostel to go to bed. We felt pretty lame going to bed around 9, especially since it was still bright and sunny outside, but we were exhausted from traveling all night and wanted to hit the road nice and early the next day. 

Here's a shot of our lovely twin beds in the hostel to end with. Ahh, bed...

So, here we go

As much as I absolutely love flying and get giddy just driving by an airport, getting there on time really stresses me out. So, of course we got stuck in traffic on the way there putting me in a bit of a panic while we circled endlessly looking for a spot in long-term parking. By the time we parked and started unloading the car, I was sort of a mess. I went to put on my backpack and discovered a little surprise. Apparently Maddie didn't want us to go, because she so helpfully chewed through my strap:

Sigh.

We made it past check-in and to our gate in plenty of time, though. TJ rigged my backpack so i would stop complaining and we were all set. Until the flight crew asked for volunteers to switch flights. I ran to the gate so fast that I might have tripped over some poor women's laptop plug, causing her laptop to fall. Oops.

They switched us to a flight that would have a short layover in Amsterdam (our original flight was non-stop), but would get us there only a few hours after we had planned. But this came with an upgrade to first class and a $550 flight voucher for each of us. Score!

Ahh, the perks of first class:

I had the lasagna, if you're wondering. While switching to envoy for an overnight flight is pretty much like hitting the lottery, of course it couldn't be that simple. They moved a woman on portable oxygen up to envoy because there weren't any available outlets for her in coach, which in itself was fine. Except the poor woman had trouble fitting comfortably into the seat and the outlet stopped working as soon as they tried to use it. After much discussion with her and her husband and a call to the concourse, it was decided she could remain if she would sign something saying she was ok with this arrangement and that she would be ok for the 7-hour flight if the oxygen stopped working. TJ and I started mentally brushing up on our CPR skills...

We arrived in Amsterdam without any issues and pretty much ran through the gigantic airport to get to our next flight. They didn't have our reservation since we were added last minute, so there was quite a bit of rapid-fire, smiley Dutch conversation before things were arranged. 

Once we arrived in Glasgow, I immediately started worrying about our luggage. The people at the gate in Philly had assured us that our luggage would be pulled off of our original flight and transfered onto the new one to arrive in Glasgow at the same time as us. Well, after watching the luggage carousal go around empty over and over again, we realized that had not happened. We were told that our luggage had arrived before us and was being held in an office for us. 

Thankfully, the arrivals gate in Glasgow is not very big because we walked the length of it twice before we figured out where this office was. Seems we couldn't find it because it was through large glass doors that said "DO NOT ENTER." 

Everything got sorted out, we picked up our adorable rental car, and were set loose on the streets of Glasgow!

I love writing posts here. I like the little bit of anonymity (even if I can't spell it) on mindsay. I don't even mind when no one reads my posts or comments on them (of course, I really like it when you do!). Facebook is great - I love being able to keep in touch and share my life with friends and family in ways I might not get to otherwise. I love seeing everyone's vacation pictures and feeling included in everyone's lives. But Facebook isn't the same.

On Facebook, I'm very self-aware. I'm very conscious to the reactions of others to everything I post. I'm careful. I try not to post things that will make my mom roll her eyes, my dad make fun of me for years to come, start political fights between family members, or make my husband feel like I'm over-sharing. I'm also very careful of how I'm represented and conscious of the different types of people i'm friends with. Last night, my sister in law posted pictures from a family beach vacation and I couldn't un-tag myself fast enough. There are over 1,000 pictures tagged of me on Facebook - doing stupid things, drinking too much, making funny faces, or just generally not looking my best. I'm cool with that, but I draw a line at my coworkers seeing me in a bathing suit.   

Here, I rarely make things friends-only. There, I'm locked down tight. I even removed myself from google. I feel the need to not just protect myself, but my family and friends who I might link to or share pictures of. 

But I miss the over-sharing. I miss writing long, rambling posts about whatever is on my mind. Or posting short little quotes or links to articles without feeling the need to explain myself.

So, let's try this again. For the millionth time. 

So, I spent a lot of time last week planning out our route, renting a car, and booking hostels and a B&B. Now I have 67 days (but who's counting?) to wait anxiously for the trip. I guess maybe I was over-zealous in my planning/mapping/booking spree. Oh, well. Now I have even more time to fill in what exactly we're going to do at each of these places and then move on to my favorite stage of trip planning: shopping for ridiculous things that I in no way need.

I haven't really planned a trip out to this level of detail in a long time (I think maybe Ireland in 2004), so it was really daunting at first (hence putting it off until now), but now I think I could sooo be a travel agent. Well, maybe not - I'd be too jealous of the cool trips everyone would get to go one without me. 

I'm trying to link to our route on Google maps, but the link has some things that Mindsay interprets as smiley faces. Hmm... let's try this instead:

Two new incredible little people have come into my life this month. 

Meet Chloe (my niece):

 

and Charotte "Charlie" (one of my best friends' babies):

Life is pretty amazing.

I'm not sure why, but I think I might try this year. I'm not feeling more Catholic all the sudden or anything, but maybe I just need something a little different to think about. 

So, what to give up? Not beer, as that would make for a very sad St. Patty's day. I don't drink much else, so it doesn't make sense to give up any other alcohol. I thought about soda, but I'm already cutting back on that, so that feels like cheating. I was thinking maybe fast food, but I don't eat much of that anymore, so not much of a sacrifice. I won't give up my phone, tv, or facebook, so let's not even go there. Maybe I could give up really trashy tv? Just watch what we have planned on the DVR and NetFlix and then turn the tv off? That's a thought. I find myself watching a whole lot of crap out of boredom but then somehow can't find the time to clean up the kitchen, exercise, or pick up a book. Something to think about...

Any other ideas?

I celebrated a different anniversary this past weekend. Eight years ago, I had a double date - Andrea and Karin and Andrea and Lauren. We sat at the back of Carmines and laughed at our names while we ate pizza. And then we drank ourselves sick in my dorm room and watched horror movies. A very romantic Valentine's Day, for sure. 

Andrea's second baby shower was on Sunday. She got a ton of stuff for our little Valentine, Charlie. Some pictures from both showers:

Proud parents-to-be at the first shower last month:

First pile of presents:

My mom had a wonderful idea for some of us non-pregnant girls to compare bellies to Andrea's. Way to make the pregnant chick feel good about herself, Ma!

Andrea with her pile of gifts at the second shower:

Karin looking coy:

Delicious chocolate cake with raspberry filling. Mmmmm...