From London to Lassies: A Weekend in Scotland

This weekend, I decided I would join Jocey and take a trip to Scotland for the weekend.  Although it hadn't been on my initial travel list, I was so excited to see the beautiful country that everyone has told me about.  After finishing work on Friday, I hurried back to the Crowne Plaza on Cromwell to meet Jocey and Ashley, who joined us for the trip.  A quick cab ride to Victoria Station and an Express train brought us to Gatwick Airport, one of the three lesser known London airports (probably because they are in the middle of nowhere!).  After a yummy dinner in the terminal, we boarded our plane for the quick one hour flight to Edinburgh.  When we arrived, we jumped in a cab and headed to Armadale, the small mining town where Jocey's friend Julia lives.  We were disappointed we couldn't see the landscape at night, but we did get to navigate through a good amount of the area as one of the main roads was closed!  After some searching, we finally pulled up to Mount Pleasant Road, where we were greeted by Julia, her two adorable dachsunds Asher and  Anna, and her sweet cat, Timothy.  Asher and Anna are pretty much identical to Annie and Parker; Asher loves anyone who comes in the door and is pretty much happy all the time, while Anna greeted us with loud barks, and was very protective of Julia (she kind of has the German Shepherd complex, like Parker).  After catching up for a bit, Ashley and I retreated to our bedroom as we were both exhausted from a long day of both work and travel.

People's Palace

Fall has Arrived in Glasgow!

We woke up bright and early after having a wonderful sleep, and decided we would spend the morning in Glasgow.  Since Julia's house is pretty much directly in between Glasgow and Edinburgh, we thought why not?  As Jocey recovered from jetlag, Julia drove us into the city.  Making our way into Glasgow was so enjoyable, as the scenery surrounding us was breathtaking; the rolling hills and sheep and majestic trees were unbelievably pretty.  Julia dropped us off at George Square, the center of the city, where we decided to do a hop on hop off bus tour.  Since we were planning on being here for just the morning, we thought this was the perfect thing to do.  We got off at a number of different sights, including the Glasgow Cathedral, Barra's Market, and Glasgow University.  My favorite part of the city was the People's Palace, which was made up of this amazing atrium housing all kinds of plants and flowers; it was such a nice escape from the chilly weather outside!  We had lunch at the Willow Tearoom, the most famous one in the city, and enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea before hopping on an hour long train to Edinburgh.  The train ride was equally beautiful as the morning's car ride, although we both fell asleep for a good chunk of time so we can't completely confirm that statement.

When we arrived in Edinburgh, we decided the first thing we wanted to do was go by the water.  We took a cab down to the Royal Britannia, the Queen's private ship.  While we wanted to take a sunset boat tour, our attempts of finding any said boats were unsuccessful, but we got a beautiful view of the sunset and the sea reflecting it.  We then made our way back into the center of the city, where we again decided to pay for a hop on hop off tour.  We thought we would get an idea of the city as a whole and decide what we wanted to explore more on Sunday.  It turned out to be really fun, as it was the tour guide's last tour and was absolutely hilarious.  His ending statement was, "I hope you enjoyed the tour and you've learned something, and if you've got a problem with anything, I really don't give a s***"  Needless to say he was loved by all.  That night we met Jocey and Julia in Edinburgh, where we ate at this really cute restaurant by the water.  We got to sit in couches (making me even more tired than I was!), and I enjoyed my first UK sticky toffee pudding for dessert - quite yummy!  After dinner we headed back out into the countryside for a much needed sleep.

Edinburgh

Sunday morning marked an even earlier wake up call than the day before as we wanted to make the most of it before our flight that night.  This time it was Jocey who drove us into Edinburgh (we were going to take a train in, but a "hotel fire" closed down the station...longg story).  Our first stop was Edinburgh Castle.  This amazing structure is built on top of a volcano, and boasts panoramic views of the whole of Edinburgh.  Here we got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels and learned about life in the Army.  Our next stop was the Scotch Whisky Experience.  Now, any of you who know me know that I am NOT a whisky fan, but since we were in Scotland, we felt like we had to.  Our tour started off with a ride (in a barrel!) taking us through the process of making scotch whisky.  Afterwards, we were instructed on the different regions in which whisky is made, after which we got to taste from a region of our choice.  I chose the Highlands, known for warmer, vanilla-ish flavors.  We were taken into an amazing mirrored room with a huge collection of bottles for our tasting.  When we tasted our first sip, Ashley and I both nearly gagged; being my father's daughter (Glenlivet all the way!) I have tried scotch before, but never anything that had burned that much.  When our tour guide saw Maggie's reaction, his response was "clearly we don't have a fan in the back," prompting everyone to stare at her.  Overall, although the tasting part was a bit intense, it was great fun.

The next few hours were spent exploring the Royal Mile, a long street lined with various stores and restaurants.  We picked up some traditional Scottish scarfs and had a nice, cozy lunch at the White Horse Pub (of course, immediately thought of T.Swift).  At the bottom of the Mile is Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland.  We toured through the building, and got some amazing views of the crags nearby; I would have loved to climb them, but the combination of wind and heavy luggage deterred us...next time!

Scotch Whisky Tasting...apres gagging

Our last activity in Edinburgh was one that most people would never expect me to partake in.  We decided to take a tour of the Underground City, a channel of underground tunnels that used to be home to the city's homeless and is now known to be very haunted.  We were lead by our tour guide, who despite her blond hair and initial sunny demeanor turned out to be quite spooky in the dark.  We were lead into a large dark tunnel and taken into a number of rooms, each with its own haunting significance.  Ashely and I were literally gripping each other until our knuckles were white, we were so scared.  At one point, Ashley dropped her bag by accident and she shrieked in horror; it was embarrassing looking back on it but we were just terrified.  We were so relieved to finally see daylight again, and make our way safely into a black cab to return to the city center.  Before catching our bus to the airport, we decided to make a quite pit stop in Jenner's, the department store known as "the Harrods of the north."  After getting our shopping fix, we boarded the bus and enjoyed a leisurely ride back to Edinburgh Airport, where we had a quick dinner before our flight back to Heathrow.  

Our weekend in Scotland was so much fun; we got to experience both the rural and cosmopolitan, and I got to spend some nice time with family!  It was so great to finally meet Julia - I feel like we have been hearing about her for years!  Overall, Scotland seems to be an absolutely gorgeous country with friendly people.  Hopefully one day I will be able to return!  

   xo Carolyn