So after the internet café in London, we had very limited access to internet, and thus I was unable to really keep the blog up to date. We have officially made it home safely now, but I still want to document each trip so as time permits I’m going to write a little bit on each one. Here goes…
Last we left off, we were heading out to the boat tour of London. We hadn’t originally planned to do this but my boyfriend’s brother said it was one of the best things he had done there, so we decided to try it out. The last day in London was our best day weather wise, so it was a perfect day for doing this little trip down the Thames (Lesson 1 for Carrie – not at all pronounced like it looks). The boat we took was one you could hop on and off of if you wanted to go see the different sights, but having already seen pretty much everything we just decided to stay on and listen to what the tour guide had to say about each place. We were able to see the Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, London Tower, Tower Bridge, London Bridge (not anything to write home about even though a whole song has been written about it), Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. The beautiful day allowed us to get some really great pictures, including a nice montage of us trying to take pictures of ourselves and me struggling to keep my eyes open looking into the sun (we were laughing so hard that tears definitely were a part of this photo session…Lesson 2 – Carrie is very sensitive to the sun and can’t take pictures facing it without sunglasses on). After the boat tour we walked up and down the river until we found a little place on the water for dinner. Then it was about time for us to head back to pick up our bags and catch our overnight bus to Scotland. This is where things got a little hectic…
The entire time we were in London we had zero problems navigating the underground subway system, but just in case we allowed ourselves well over an hour to get to our bus stop from the hotel. Well, as typical in Ashley and Carrie land, we encountered our first underground problem within this time. We got on a train which we thought would be taking us to the bus station, but apparently they had some closures that day. They were making announcements but they were so fast, and with the accent we couldn’t understand what was going on. Fortunately, we weren’t the only ones so we didn’t feel quite as stupid. Everyone was just staring at each other trying to figure out if they should get on the train or not. Eventually a nice girl helped us get on the right train but we ended up having to run for our bus and barely made it. We literally ran up as they started loading. After jumping on and scoring the back row with the spare seat in between us we were pumped to get to Scotland. Unfortunately we were entirely wrong about how old we are now. Apparently you reach a certain age when you can’t get a good night’s sleep on a bus and we were probably only able to get about 2 hours sleep. Luckily, this 2 hours sleep came at the very end of the trip…with perfect timing for us to not notice what time we were arriving. Had we been awake, we would have been in a panic, considering our bus was almost 2 hours late arriving to Scotland. We pulled up at 8:22 and were supposed to check in at 8:30 for the tour. Ahh! We sprinted across Edinburgh with me frantically calling the tour company pleading with them to wait for us. We made it there at 8:40 and pulled out 2 minutes later. Whew!
Good thing we made it because Scotland is probably one of God’s greatest creations on all of earth. Seriously. I wouldn’t believe that beauty like that existed if I hadn’t gotten to see it myself. We must have brought good weather with us from TX because we had the most gorgeous three days and our tour guide continued to tell us how lucky we all were to be seeing weather like that.
Let me back up a second and describe what exactly the tour was. We signed up for a 3-day tour of Scotland through a company called Haggis Tours. We had 23 people on a bus from all over the world, although we were dubbed the Aussie bus b/c so many of the people were from Australia. Most of the people were in their late 20’s early 30’s and it was a great little group. Our tour guide, Russell, was a born and raised local Scotlander who knows pretty much everything there is to know about the country. Funny as heck and perfect for a 3-day adventure.
The first day we toured different parts of the countryside including Loch Ness, just beautiful, but no sighting of the monster, then we arrived in our stop for the night in a little town called Fort Augustus. We stayed in a hostel that was actually fairly nice. Everyone was pretty tired, so we just pretty much went to bed that night (and got our first shower in like 50 something hours).
The next day was spent entirely touring the Isle of Skye. Translated that means the “prettiest place on the face of the earth”…seriously. Just wait for the pictures b/c that is the best way to describe it. We ate a picnic lunch on a cliff overlooking the ocean and I probably could have stayed right there for a week and been perfectly content. We saw beautiful waterfalls and mountains and hills and rivers and sheep an arms length away. I was just in constant amazement the whole day. My heart literally hurt b/c it was just so pretty to see.
Funny story though…every time we would go look at something Russell would say “normally we don’t take the 3 day tour here but you guys just have to see it”, so after hearing that line about 24 times Ashley and I began to wonder what exactly the 3 day tour normally does…sit in the parking lot?
That night we ate dinner by the river in Fort Augustus from a little fish and chips stand then went on a boat trip on Loch Ness that searches for Nessie. No such luck for us but it as a fun little adventure anyway. Then I went on a run along the river, which was pretty much the prettiest run of my entire life looking out along Loch Ness and the mountains. This was at almost 10:00 at night and it was still bright out. Crazy. Also, I have decided I might have to make my new dream a marathon in Scotland. Anyway, after my run I headed back to meet the rest of the group at the pub in our hostel. We sat around a chatted with the others on the tour and then karaoke hour started. Quite funny and entertaining!
The last morning of our tour started with a little presentation on Scottish culture and clothing by a local Scott, then we headed back on the road to look at more beautiful countryside. Our tour ended and we had to race off once again to catch a bus to the airport. After our little scare with the overnight bus we decided to not chance the bus back this time b/c we had a morning flight to Paris that we didn’t want to risk missing. So, we got a flight out of Edinburgh to London and got a hotel right by the airport. One of the Aussie’s from our tour was on our flight so we were able to eat dinner and chat with him and then head back to London for sleep and our flight to Paris.
Whew, sorry for the long windedness. Remember I could write 5 pages on a pencil so I guess 3 on a 3 day trip to Scotland isn’t too bad! Next to come, my adventures in Paris!
