Great Scot! (Day 1)

Tally ho! As some of you may know, I’ve been doing a wee bit o’ traveling in the last few weeks, first to Alaska (see previous blogs) and most recently, to the beautiful country of Scotland. So recently, perhaps, that the smell has not yet left my hair. I did only arrive home on Wednesday the 10th and now I will recount every painful detail in full, in this eight-part series of my adventures in Scotland.

On the excruciatingly long day of October 2nd, I woke up, worked out, went to work, and eventually made my way to the Vancouver airport to rendezvous with my dear old friend Jean so that we could join forces and descend upon Scotland in a most overwhelming manner. But first, we had to eat so we could store fat for energy.



After munching and making our way through security, we waited patiently (sometimes not so) for our plane to board. At least I found 20 Euro cents under the table at the security counter.







Finally, our plane was ready to board.





We were so excited, despite being given the almost-worst seats in the entire plane. I had the most to complain about, being seated beside some huge dude who took up a quarter of my seat in his arm bulk alone. I was seated in the middle seat of the middle section in the middle of the plane. Boo! Terrible! On top of that, the staff was super cranky and the food was very pitiful. Our seats were serviced by two very ornery gentlemen who decided they would like to snap at us for imaginary infractions. One snarked at Jean to remove her earphones when, in fact, she was wearing none and he merely thought her earrings were earphones. No apology. The other decided I had wrapped my bag strap around my leg and it was very dangerous. It was just draped across my knee by accident. I swear. We were served some horrendous excuse for a submarine sandwich after Calgary and some runny eggs before landing in Glasgow. By the time we rolled in to Glasgow, we were much more dejected.



Oh the puffy, greasy-haired lot of us. Seriously, our ankles needed compression socks.





Once we landed, we sprinted off the plane as fast as we could manage, grabbed our bags, and moseyed on out of the airport to find our bus that would take us downtown Glasgow.




Yesiree, we are not in Kansas anymore.

After trudging several blocks into the shady, art deco district…





…we landed at our first of Scotland homes, the Charing Cross House.





After exploding onto our beds and showering, we decided that we once again had energy and thus continued to venture out as it was Jean’s 25th birfday!!!



YAY! Happy Birthday Jean! Just looking at us, you’d never have guessed it was now Wednesday at 5:00 PM. Yes, that’s right – got up Tuesday morning, and no sleep until Wednesday night.

We headed down to our newest stomping grounds, Sauchiehall Street, to find a place to celebrate at.




We decided on this joint called Topolino’s as they were the only restaurant who had this waif-ish female at the entrance summoning us. It was meh. Poor service, inflated prices. Welcome to the UK.

We didn’t party out long – we were in bed by 8:30 pm, beginning a long night of slumber only to be interrupted by the Irish guy next door coming home at 4 am to stomp his feet and sing drinking songs about renegades. Yeesh.

Tomorrow is Day 2 of our adventure and our first full day in Glasgow. We are going on a walk into a gothic necropolis, exploring an old cathedral, and downing my first (and only) Scottish pint.