Hello everyone! Today was my first day of Spring Break. I got up early this morning so that I could take a train in to Edinburgh to meet my parents at the airport. This was no easy task. My goal was to be at the airport by 9:20 when my parent's flight arrived. (I should explain that I needed to leave early because the bus from the University to the train takes about 10-20 minutes depending on the bus, the train from Stirling to Edinburgh is about 50 minutes, and the bus from the train station to the airport takes 30 minutes.) First, I couldn't take the original train that I wanted, because there isn't a bus that leaves from campus before 7:00 (I wanted to take a train that left at 7:15). So, I regrouped and tried for a train at 7:39. Well, that train didn't work our either. Evidently that train doesn't run on Saturdays. (ScotRail, you need to update your online timetables because there definitely is train that leaves on Saturdays at 7:39.) So, I ended up on a train at 8:05 which kind of made me worry about my master plan of being at the airport by 9:20. It actually all worked out. While boarding the train, I found a friend from one of my seminars who was also going to the airport to pick up his parents. So, I had a travel buddy and we managed to get the AirLink bus to the airport and arrive by exactly 9:20. This was a good thing.
After I met my parents, we quickly discovered the one of the suitcases didn't make it's way from Heathrow (London) to Edinburgh (I find this strange considering bag number 1 did make it). So, we had to be back at the airport by 12 to pick up the bag that was on one of the next flights out of Heathrow. Thus, we headed to find our rental car. This was an interesting process. The first car that they gave us was a stick shift (we asked for an automatic). Once we finally had the right car, we drove around trying to find the hotel that we're staying at that's close to the airport in Edinburgh. Problem number 1 with this was that when I turned on the GPS (they gave us one to use at the car rental place) the voice started shouting at me in French. I figured out how tot change it to English, but then we discovered that the road we needed was blocked off. So, we ended up back at the airport to wait for our luggage.
Once we finally had our luggage, we headed for Stirling. This went a lot more smoothly. My Dad drove, and I was very impressed with his UK driving skills, being on the wrong side of the road and everything. When we got into Stirling, we went to Tesco to buy lunch before heading up to the castle. We toured around the castle for a while then headed to the William Wallace monument. We discovered that at the William Wallace monument, you actually have to park at the bottom of the hill and can’t just drive up. So, we admired it from afar.
Then, we headed for the University. I showed my parents around campus and managed to squeeze them in to my tiny dorm room. (They were very impressed by how small my room is. ) Afterwards, we checked into our hotel in Dunblane (a town close to Stirling) and went back into Stirling for dinner at the Filling Station. Now, we're back at the hotel and getting ready to watch the Butler vs. Florida game! Let's hope they play good again tonight. Tomorrow we're heading up into the Highlands to Loch Ness and Inverness. It should be a fun day!
No comments:
Post a Comment