Our Trip So Far...

This will have to be without pictures until we can find someway to upload them. But here is how our trip has gone so far...

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

We got to the airport yesterday at about 8:30 AM and got all checked in. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, then just waited for our plane to board. There was free wireless internet in the airport, so that was nice. We got on the plane and flew almost 5 hours to Liberty Airport in Newark, NJ. It was a pretty uneventful plane ride. I read a couple of magazines and started and nearly finished No Doubt About It by Sheri Dew. I love that book. I don’t remember if I have read it before, but it is great! So many wonderful insights and things that will help me be a better person. I highly recommend that book. Brian read the newest Harry Potter book (number 7) the whole way. We got a cheeseburger on the plane with some suspicious light-colored meat. I passed on eating that and just opted for my salad and kit kat they provided. Brian ate the burger and said it was good. I’ll take his word for it. When we arrived in Newark we had 4 hour lay over, but it gave us plenty of time to walk around, eat and read some more. We ate at a little Portuguese restaurant in the airport. The service was soooooooo slow but the food was pretty good. At about 10:45 PM local time we boarded our plane, taxied for what seemed like forever, then started on our 5 hour and 54 minute flight to Edinburgh. It wasn’t as long as I thought it would be. I did a little sleeping and mostly reading. I finished my book. Brian read a lot, too, and I think he is almost done with it. We got a really yummy beef and potato dinner with some of the good Pepperidge Farm cookies. They also served a light breakfast snack, but we both passed on that. We touched down around 10:45 AM, Edinburgh time, went through customs where I got asked a lot of questions. The lady was like, “What are you doing here? Do you know anyone here? Are you here for the festival? (I said, ‘No.’) Then she said, “Then what brings you here? Who are you here with? Where is your husband? etc…” Yikes! Do I look suspicious?!?!? After that we got our luggage and were met by some travel reps from Edward Jones. She took us outside where the weather was gorgeous and we were picked up by our “chauffeur.” He drove a VW Transporter. It was a nice little mini-van type vehicle. I told Brian that would be a perfect car for us! It seats 6 nicely in the back and it still has a ton of cargo room. It’s weird to see them driving on the opposite side of the car and on the other side of the road. I look at other cars and see the passenger (who in the US would be the driver) and think, “Ahh! Watch where you are going! Look ahead!” It was about a 25 minute ride to our hotel. I really had to focus and concentrate really hard to understand what our driver was saying! I didn’t catch some of it…just nodded and said, “Oh yeah.” or “Cool.”

When we got to the hotel we went to our room. It’s nothing spectacular, but a clean place to sleep and get ready. We were both so hungry, so we went out in search of something to eat. We found a great Italian food place (Bar Italiano). We had a magherita pizza, which was delicious! It is hard trying to convert things to pounds. Our lunch was like 6.75 pounds and they take credit cards, but you have to tip in pounds, too. We tipped 2 pounds, which equals out to a little over 4 dollars.

I was afraid to go to sleep because my friend Rachel said when they went to Rome they went to bed in the afternoon and didn’t wake up until the next day at 1 in the afternoon. But we were both so tired, so we got a wake up call for 5:30 PM. It was a great nap and we both slept like a dream. We got up at 5:30 and we got ready for our dinner. It was our “Welcome to Edinburgh” dinner. When it was time to go in, there was a bagpipe player in all the Scottish dress playing. It sounded really cool. Dinner was scrumptious. I really liked the Mediterranean pasta salad. There were also “tatties” (mashed potatoes), pork, ravioli, and beef. The beef was interesting. It was good, but just different than the “beef” I am used to. It was very light and just totally was so tender. The desserts were tasty, too. There was a rich, delectable Mississippi mud pie, shortbread and a lemon soufflé that was so light and creamy. Yum!

After dinner we just walked around the town for a little bit. We were trying to get to the Royal Mile, but we didn’t find it. One street we went down was a little seedy….bars—of all kinds—lined the streets. We quickly walked past. We did see a lot of cool architecture and buildings. There was an interesting and very pretty cemetery we walked by. We also saw the Edinburgh castle—it’s beautiful and so amazing. We hope to tour that this week. The weather is beautiful! It’s probably in the 60s. Lovely.

It sure is an interesting feeling/experience to be in a different country. I feel like I am going to do something wrong or against custom or something. I told Brian I feel a bit out of place here, but imagine going to like China—where you would really feel out of place.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

We both had a great night sleep last night. This morning we got up at about 7:15 and went down to breakfast. Brian had meetings that started at 8 and mine started at 9:15. In my meeting—the spouses meeting—basically we did introductions, heard about a 30 second firm update, then listened to a tour lady talk about all we could do on our trip.

Both of our meetings got out before 11, so we scheduled some activities, then walked down Princes St. looking at all the cool stuff. We ate a cool looking place called Kenilworth. We both ordered cheeseburgers, but the meat was a weird-looking, light colored meet and it had a strange taste to it. It definitely wasn’t McDonalds or any other American hamburger for that matter. I ate about 1/3 of it. Brian didn’t mind it too much. At least the Ciabatta bread it was on was good. After lunch we came back to the hotel where we met up to take the city tour. We got on a charter bus and got a tour of part of the city. We saw the Queen’s Palace, went down the Royal Mile and stopped at the Edinburgh Castle. We got a little tour there, then we got to explore on our own. It sure is an amazing castle and very pretty. After the castle, we strolled down the Royal Mile and picked up a few souvenirs. For dinner we went to Bella Italia. Yum yum. It was the best meal I’ve had in a while. Brian had a pizza and I order linguine rustica. It was just linguine with a butter and olive oil sauce and some chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. After dinner we headed back to the hotel, stopping at Somerfield’s for some chocolate and at McDonalds. Brian got a Rolo shake (something new they have) and I got a McFlurry with Cadbury Dairy Chocolate in it. It was great. Before we got to our room we called our girls. They are having fun. Eliza is homesick. But they are surviving and hanging in there.

Oh yeah…Right now in Edinburgh is the Edinburgh Festival and the Military Tattoo. Actually it starts on Friday and miraculously we were able to get tickets. They have been sold out since Christmas, but one of the tour people here had some connections. But on the Royal Mile, there are a lot of “artists” and “actors.” Lots of very interesting people, too. At one point, Brian got my attention and kind of motioned toward someone and did like a “Whoa…she is very interesting/weird” look. I looked and immediately said, “Oh my gosh. Take a picture of her right now. Do you know who that is?” It was Elaine Davidson—the lady in the Guinness book of world records for the most body piercings. Freaky and ouch! I couldn’t believe we saw here. So we quickly snapped some picture. We did it nonchalantly although from the pictures it probably looks like we were stalking her!