Scotland Adventures: Day 10

This was a rainy day (and I underestimated it)! We caught a cab to the train stop, and from there, took ScotRail into Edinburgh. Once off the train, we stood in awe of the architecture. Look at this Sir Walter Scott Memorial! (We learned what it was later.)

We met a tour guide at St Giles Cathedral, and from there traversed up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. We learned on this trip that most castles are built on old volcano plugs. That was the case for this one. And as is the case for things on a hill, it was cold and windy up top. Although I was wearing a long-sleeved dress and a jacket, I was more than happy to receive and wear my husband's rain jacket. What I really wished for was a hat and a scarf!

The castle was interesting. Basically, we learned that the queen had a lot of power. Queen Victoria said that the castle did not look "castle-y" enough, and so they added the front gate in 1887. She also did not think the castle had enough power, so they brought in naval cannons, cannons that were never even fired. The only firing gun is a gun shot off at 1 PM every day to help ships keep time. (Well, it was in the old days, but now I think it is just for remembrance sake.) The castle's governor's mansion houses the major general of the Scottish military. The castle is also home to military barracks. (We saw multiple uniformed soldiers walking around.)

The oldest building at the castle is the Chapel of Edinburgh/St Margaret's Cathedral built in 1130. The newest is the National War Memorial, built in 1920. The latter is a very somber place, housing the rolls of all members of the military who have died. No pictures were allowed here.

The great hall houses a ceiling built only of wood (no screws or bolts). It was pretty fantastic. The castle also houses Scotland's crown jewels. No photos were allowed there either, and we skipped this due to the lines.

Our tour guide was quite the hoot. He thought that Sheboygan was in Michigan. (It's in Wisconsin.) It seemed pretty clear that he was giving a scripted talk. He laughed at his own jokes. I learned some history, but really would have rather heard more talk about the castle.

After the castle, we walked to the Caledonian Hotel for afternoon tea. This was the one thing my mother-in-law (MIL) wanted for her birthday, and boy, did we jump through hoops to get there. First, they could not find our reservation. Then they said they did not have afternoon tea and could only bring us lunch. Finally, after we got seated and I pointed out a tray of what looked like tea sandwiches going by, My MIL again asked for the tea menu and they gave it to her. She was so excited, and I was so happy for her!

I was feeling under the weather, so I got soup instead of the full tea service. My MIL was nice enough to share a few of her treats, however. The staff even brought her a "Happy birthday" plate at the end. It was special to see a table of three ladies next to us celebrating one of their birthday's that day as well. September 30th is a good day to be born, I guess!

We stopped by a Starbuck's (hoping my MIL could get her free birthday drink--no such luck--she needed the UK Starbuck's app). Then we walked back to the ScotRail stop. We went up, down, and around to find our platform. Thankfully some ScotRail staff told us not to take the first train, but to wait for the second. After about an hour, we were back the Bellshill station, but no taxis, and no one to call them.

We walked into town, but saw the traffic lines and decided walking would be faster than calling a cab, waiting for it to weave through that traffic, and then take us back to our hotel. Plus, we didn't even have the taxi service number. It was about a 1.4 mile walk back, and we were tired, but we made it. I stayed in the hotel room the rest of the night, consolidating, packing, and repacking because Thursday was departure day.

Scotland Adventures: Day 9

Whew! This was a long day. We traveled almost the whole of Scotland. (The longest road in Scotland is about 400 miles, and we drove a lot of it.) I still didn't feel well. But nevertheless, the trip must go on.

The day started with a cab ride at 6:45 AM from the hotel to the bus station. There, we grabbed some food (and paid to use the bathroom). Then we got on the Discover Scotland bus with about 10 other people. Our trip was to be Loch Ness, Glencoe, and the Highlands. Immediately, we took to our guide, Harry. Originally from Ireland, he told us that he came to University of Glasgow to study history, then got his masters in historical building inspection, married a Scot, and decided to stay. He was so personable, and so knowledgeable, truly the best guide.

As we left Glasgow, we learned that Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, with 25% of the country's population.

Most of Scotland's castles, are built on old volcanic plugs: Dunbarton, Stirling, and Edinburgh. Scotland is known for its whiskey distilleries, and it shows. Distillery fungus from ethanol rich air makes trees and buildings black. Only the Ben Nevis and Dalphinne distilleries constantly pain their buildings to keep them white. Others just let the black, black. In other distillery history, Ballentine's used geese as guards after their German Shepherds were too friendly and easily bribed.

We saw so much beauty as we traveled. First up, we came to Loch Lomond, a large "lake" with 20-30 islands on it, including Wallaby Island. Fresh water lakes began as glacial lake, which is why Scotland had good tap water. Harry gave us time to get coffee and walk around at Loch Lohmond a bit. I tried a flat white for the first time and highly recommend!

As we drove higher, we learned that timber is a large export from Scotland. Norwegian pine grows quickly. Scots pines have a blue tinge. Scottish heather is purple for only 10 weeks of the year, and we were there for some of them! Tyndrum is the only gold mine in Scotland. Munroe has mountains over 3,000 feet. Mountains with a rounded top are called bans. Nevis means "head in the clouds" and Mt. Nevis is called that because it is most often partially covered by clouds. It rains some part of the day 80% of time in the Highlands, but God blessed us with a very clear day, and we could see most of the mountain this day! It only rained a little on us on the drive back.

The Highlands bog does not support sheep or really any other permanent life, and is therefore home to a lot of unique flora and fauna. Trout are the main fish in the lake. Roe and red deer are common. There are only 24 pairs of peregrine falcons (one in Glasgow). Wolves and bears were hunted into extinction, now the badger is the largest carnivorous animal. 

Highland coos (cows) are the oldest breed of cows in the world. Males have thicker horns that point away from their faces. Females have thinner horns that point straight up. A herd eats 10 tons of grass a day. They are used for meat, not dairy. Farmers started selectively breeding for the ginger color because Queen Victoria preferred it.

There are five ski resorts in Scotland. Glencoe is the oldest. Scotland is famous for the West Highland Way 96 mile hike, and we saw lots of people out on the trail. Apparently you can through hike, or have sherpas take your bags from town to town. A lot of Scotland's industry is tourism, national and international, it seems.

Mid-morning, we took in the Three Sisters Mountains. We had to climb about 20 rock steps to get this view, but isn't it amazing?

At the Highland Soap Company toilet stop, I took a side jaunt to see Inverlochy Castle. There are castles everywhere in Scotland. So cool!

We got stopped at a ship crossing before getting to Loch Ness. The road literally opens and closes to let ships through. This only took 10 or 15 minutes, however.

Loch Ness is the biggest body of water in England, and we spent most of our stopped time here. I don't really believe in Nessie, but some people do. A man named Stephen Gallagher quit his job and moved to Loch Ness in 1991. He has been looking for her ever since. Naysayers say Nessie might be a big eel. I would tend to agree.

There is an old Benedictine monastery at Loch Ness. It is now apartments, but still impressive.

The place was pretty mobbed, and we grabbed take out sandwiches at Cobb's Cafe for lunch. They were not the best food we had, but food. 

My husband got an ice cream cone afterward. (I was way too cold, but did take a bite.) I noted that the ice cream seemed to have more ice crystals. My husband attributed it to the high humidity. After a few hours at Loch Ness, we started our journey home.

We learned that only 4% of people live in the Highlands. Approximately 5.5 million people in Scotland, but it is home to 6.5 million sheep. No wonder we saw them everywhere!

Gatehouses designed to be small and “show off” outside the castle. There are now such high taxes on castles and estates that many people sell them, or split up dwellings into holiday homes, etc. to help pay bills.

We got a chance to feed Highland coos on the way back. (I abstained.) 

It was cold and rainy and I decided to go back to the bus early to eat leftovers from lunch and chill. We hit a bit of traffic on the way back, but made it by about 7:30 PM. Then we taxied to our hotel, making it there by about 8 PM. Such a long day, but worth it!

Scotland Adventures: Day 8

Well, the hotel might not have been the nicest, but it did have a nice gym attached! I actually managed to find barbells to use for my PT-prescribed strength routine. I might have been one of only three women in the club, and the only one in the barbells section, but oh well. I just did my thing and moved on. I did get to see the sun start to rise.

Breakfast at this hotel was not included, so I ate in the room. Good thing that I packed a lot of food. It's come in handy. (Well, it's not exactly true that breakfast was not included. It came at a cost of 13 pounds, or about $17 US money. I figured eating my own food was cheaper.) I just hoped I could get "real" food at least once this day.

We debated about what to do. My mother-in-law and husband's aunt decided to go into Glasgow. We were still trying to work out conflict from the day before, and decided to stay behind and see if we could walk to the next town, Coatbridge. There are awesome (and wide!) paved paths from city to city. We did walk about eight miles total, but we saw some cool things along the way.

We stopped in at an Aldi for some oats shopping.

We tried to find some churches. (More on that in the churches post.)

We walked a long way home.

I saw quite a few kids out, which made me wonder about school. It turns out it was a bank holiday.

We debated about dinner. I had advocated for going to McDonald's, as it was so much cheaper than the hotel restaurant (where entrees started at 19.95 pounds, or almost $27 USD). We didn't want to walk after all our morning walking, though, so we nixed that. My husband heard about fried pizza, so we decided to try a delivery app for New Mamma Mia Takeaway.

My husband ordered the pizza crunch (breaded and deep fried). It was okay. All of the food got a little soggy from being shoved hot into closed boxes that got taped shut before delivery.

I didn't know exactly what I was getting when I ordered the "10" grill box." The menu said, "Chicken tikka, donner meat, aloo tikki, chips, chicken chaat, veg pakora, chicken pakora, seekh kebab served with salad & sauce and naan bread." I ordered the pakora sauce (Glasgow style), which Google described as "a creamy, cooling blend made with yogurt, ketchup, and mint sauce that balances the heat of hot fritters." I didn't order fritters, but yogurt sauce sounded refreshing. Somehow I also ended up getting a spicy sauce, and man this was good! I probably ate a whole day's worth of calories in one sitting, but oh well. It was vacation, and I needed food. Others in our group did not enjoy this meal so much, but for me, it hit the spot!

Somehow in the food shuffle, we did lock our one hotel key in the room. We visited with some nice local friends of my mother-in-law before trying to resolve that issue, though. Thankfully the front desk nicely gave us another key and we were all set. Phew! We had another adventure for which to prepare!

Ireland to Scotland Transfer Adventure: Day 7

Well, this day did not get off the best start. I did get some movement in (PT, strength, and treadmill walking since this was the start of my skeletal reset week). We thought we could get breakfast at 6:45 AM, but no, they opened at 7:00 AM. I shoveled food in, ran upstairs to brush my teeth and zip my bags, and back downstairs we went. 

We thought we had time to catch the 7:38 AM AirBus to the airport, and we did, but when we got across the street (in the rain) at 7:31 AM, we saw it leaving. We attempted to wait for the 7:56 AM bus, but it never came, forcing us to take a taxi to the airport. Well, that was expensive!

Getting to security was pretty easy. Ireland no longer requires removal of items from bags, or dumping liquid. Cool! Well, not so cool. Both my husband and I had our bags run through the scanner twice. They swabbed my husband's playing cards. They did not like my crochet hook, cactus squishy, or half-filled Nalgene bottle. (They also put that through a special screening machine.) Thankfully, they let me keep everything. 

I tried to pray instead of grumbling. I tried to tell myself that this did not mean our Scotland leg of the trip was off to a bad start. It took some work to exercise this perspective, though.

And the troubles continued, not at the airport, but at the hotel. Our reservations were all messed up, something probably due to the amount of middle men between our travel agent and the hotel. Thankfully the welcome desk lady was very professional and helpful. The rooms left something to be desired, though.

The door had to be slammed to get it actually closed. There was no central air and heat, only a room heater/radiator thing, so the room was either cold or a little warm. Noise filtered through the window quite readily. We had no refrigerator. We did have a warm water kettle, though. That was nice! 

Uber did not work in our area, so that nixed our ideas of going to a local church service in the evening. We were actually quite far from any real towns, but rather in a business park. Maybe this worked for some tourists, but not very well for us. Hotel availability in both Ireland and Scotland was limited because we timed our visit right around the WestLife tour. That might have been part of the problem.

We decided to get a very late lunch/early dinner at the hotel at 4 PM. When we went downstairs, however, we found out that they did not open until 5 PM. At this point, I decided to cobble together snacks for dinner and call it a night. I just couldn't do it anymore.

As I sat in the cold hotel room, at the sparse hotel desk, munching my protein bars, the sun did burst through the window of an otherwise gloomy day. We caught our church's morning service via livestream (thank you, technology!), and then really turned in. Thus far, Scotland was a bust! I also was starting to not feel well. 

Real Life Marriage: Sweet Spot

We were saving for a big trip this year, which limited our spending on date nights. That was a point of contention, as I tried to find free or low cost things to do, while my husband said we should just spend the money and worry about it later. Somehow, though, by God's great grace, we hit our sweet spot.

I think it all started with our Mogollon day trip adventure. My husband planned that, and the whole time we walked out in nature, we talked about our dreams. Many of those dreams involved adventuring. Next thing I knew, my husband told me he had a list of adventures he wanted to take. I said, "Let's talk about it," and we did. We sat down and mapped out dates for all of those adventures. And slowly, but surely, we started easing into that sweet spot. I became willing to break routine a little more often. My husband started taking more initiative, and suddenly there we were, in the car, driving to new places and spaces, out in nature, having fun. This is what I had wanted, for so, so long!

I don't know what it was exactly that broke us out of our contentious, "We can't spend money," but we want to spend time together cycle, but we did it, and it benefit our relationship greatly. I found myself having more patience when my husband shared more of his dreams with me (which of course, cost money!). He offered to help me more around the house. It's like somehow, we just got back in sync with each other.

This past month was the month of our big trip. Honestly, I was low-key dreading it all year. It was big leap, a lot out of my comfort zone, and my husband's dream, not mine. After getting into this swing of adventuring together, though, I felt my heart starting to change. Maybe I could enjoy this trip. Maybe it would be fun. Maybe it, too, would be an adventure.

While we enjoyed the trip, we also again hit some bits of contention. They were painful and hard, and just might have pushed us out of our sweet spot. But by God's grace, we got there once, and I pray that we might again find ourselves in that sweet spot of enjoying and prioritizing each other.

What We Cooked and Ate (Week 41)

This Week's Eats:

Cashew milk (Cookie and Kate)

Dinner cooked by my husband!

Easy lava cake bites (Meal Prep in an Instant)

Instant Pot cock-a-leekie soup (365 Days of Slow + Pressure Cooking)

Pumpkin spice coffee creamer (The Gracious Pantry)

Sourdough crumpets (The Pantry Mama)

Steel-cut oats with brown sugar and honey (Meal Prep in an Instant)

Noteworthy Repeats:

Egg bake casserole (Food 52)

Freezer Pull-Outs:

Artisan pumpkin sourdough bread (The Pantry Mama)

Sourdough pumpkin pie baked oatmeal (The Pantry Mama)

Soft pumpkin sourdough bread (Drive Me Hungry)

Sourdough gravy (The Pantry Mama)

Ireland Adventures: Day 6

What a packed final day! Fairview Park Run in the morning, Phoenix Park midday, Guinness tour in the afternoon, and my husband's 40th birthday. Whew! I was tired.

The park run is its own post, so I will say that from there, we trucked back to our hotel, cleaned up, and headed back out on the bus for Phoenix Park. Sure, we could have taken a cab, but a bus was much cheaper.

Phoenix Park is home to 600 deer, and according to its website, supports 50% of mammal species in Ireland and 40% of bird species. We got off near the water, seeing lots of birds and Wellington Monument before traipsing through the park looking for deer. Sadly, we saw none, but we did see lots of green, plenty of people running, and Magazine Fort.

Then it was a hike to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour. This was my husband's wish for his birthday. I am not really into beer, but the immersive audio-visual experience with things like water drops spelling out words was pretty cool. The building is five stories, and the Gravity bar up top has amazing views of Dublin. It was also very loud and overstimulating (maybe purposely so, to keep things moving-there were A LOT of people!), so I was glad to move on. The climb down many flights of stairs, though, that was a bit of a feat, especially after our days of hiking and walking and my run in the morning. As a whole, this was more entertainment than tour of a working brewery as my husband had thought, but he said he enjoyed it, so win!

We finished at Guinness Open Gate Brewery, and I was so thankful to get food. It may have been early, and one again a lot of food, but I devoured it. Then we walked back to our hotel, passing some now familiar sights like Christ's Church Cathedral. We walked over Ha'Penny bridge once more time, passed the Spire one more time, and almost collapsed at our hotel, but first, we had some celebrating to do!

My husband turned 40 this day! So I traipsed back up our stairs one more time to get tarts and candles so we could sing and celebrate him. What a trek for his birthday, but I hope we get many much such experiences, and many more years together to celebrate in the future!