Our trip to Europe

Sooner or later I will use this blog not just for updates about my life.  :)

John and I went on a fun little trip to Europe last month with my parents and Aunt Carlene.  The trip started out when Mom, Carlene, and I went to hang out in New York for a few days.  We stayed with John's brother and sister-in-law Josh and Mattie in New Haven.  You would have had quite a laugh seeing three country girls trying to find their way around the Big Apple.  First time for all three of us. 

We got to eat New York hot dogs, New York cheesecake, rode the subway, saw street dancing on the subway, went to the top of 30 Rock, saw the Statue of Liberty, and most importantly, saw Wicked!!!!!  (It was awesome.  Totally worth the money and the trip to New York.)

Dad and John met us there after a few days and then we all headed for London.  Everyone went to see the famous Tower of London (which is actually a castle?) while John went to visit the London School of Tropical Medicine where he's thinking about going for a PhD.  After learning our lesson to never plan to meet in a huge train station (that none of  us had ever been to) in the middle of a big city during rush hour right before we were supposed to get on the airport bus several blocks away to catch a flight to Scotland, the grown-ups finally found John who finally found me after I had left the group in a desperate search to find him.  Whew.  Close call.  

Anyway, off to Scotland we went but not before an episode on the plane involving a passenger having a heart attack and another passenger giving CPR until the medics finally showed up and worked on the poor man for an hour or so right there in the isle while we all sat there watching, buckled up and ready to go.  (They eventually carted him off the plane and we never heard from him again.  Hope he made it.) Finally we made it to Glasgow late in the night and after a good night's sleep, a hearty breakfast of Hagis* and beans, and a looong walk through town with luggage in tow we made it to the train.  Just in time for the train ride that we had been waiting for all our lives but didn't know it yet.

It was hard to beat off the jet lag during this most beautiful ride through Scotland's countryside, but worth it.  It was also hard to get our trigger happy fingers to stop taking pictures so we could just relax and take it all in. 

 

Recognize this bridge?  Does Hogwarts Express ring a bell?

On the train ride we also learned about Scottish culture and politics from the few sentences we understood of our conversations with the natives.  We rode all the way to the edge of Scotland to a little fishing village called Malliag.  I actually don't know how to spell it but you say it like "mallet" and just as you're about to pronounce the "t" switch it to a silent "g."  

The next morning bright and early we boarded the ferry that was to carry us to the Isle of Skye.  It was there there that I was called a "poor lass" by a Scottish seaman (I must have looked really bad that day).   When we arrived on the island we walked around like lost tourists until a nice man suggested the right road to take, where we soon found ourselves at a big mysterious castle in ruins.  

 An ancient bath house.  Looks good to me!

The castle was owned by (and the island ruled by) the McDonald clan, of which we (the Blackham side of the family) are said to be descended from.  Pretty cool.

The next day, after a delicious meal of fish and chips (well, veggie burger and chips for me) we boarded the train back to Glasgow and I tried to teach everyone how to play Euchre but they were definitely not into it like I was.  

From there we took a quick train to Edinburgh.  To our delight (and Dad's embarrassment) there were two very friendly old men on the train who saw the fiddle and insisted that there be music.  So Aunt Carlene got out the fiddle and Mom got out the flute and the men got out their robust singing voices and there was music.

Around what seemed like midnight we arrived in Edinburgh (pronounced "Ed-in-burrrreh" make sure you roll the "r") and found that we happened to be there smack dab in the middle of a big huge cultural arts festival.  Which was cool but we felt kind of dumb standing there in our grubby clothes and back packs with all the Scottish hipsters in their skinny jeans, scarves, and come-over do's.  Anyway, we made it to our hostel after getting lost several times because the streets did not match the google map in John's head.  THANK heaven we were assigned to a room with a group of Asians who were nice and quiet.  

The next morning we went on an awesome historic tour of the city lead by our American tour guide who didn't have a hard time letting her fake Scottish accent slip through.  We learned all about how unsanitary  it was to live a couple hundred years ago.  And how much it sucked if anyone suspected you of being a witch (for REAL it seriously scared me).  And that if you got caught stealing they would nail your ear to the board in the town center and people would dump their rotten vegetables on you and even empty their chamber pots on you ewwwww!

Then we rushed (because one of us (ok, it's me) gets really stressed about making it to the airport on time) back to the airport and barely (just kidding--we were there three hours early) made our flight to Geneva.  And this brings me to one of the most memorable parts of our trip: the rental car. 

Why did the Hertz lady think that a group of people from the American West would know how to drive a Prius?  Especially one that had an owner's manual in every language except English.  Was it because we wouldn't speak French with her?  And why oh why did we think that a Prius was just like any other car?  Well, after an hour or so in the parking lot trying to figure out how to get it going we finally asked some guys walking by (remember this was like midnight) to show us how to do it and we got it running!  But we only made it a few feet because the e-brake was on.  Luckily the Hertz lady was just then walking to her car but she pretended not to see us so we stopped behind her parked car so she couldn't get out until she told us how to undo it.  We should have asked her how to work the GPS too.  Oh well.  We made it to our hotel after asking lots of people for directions.  We were all sleep deprived and grumpy but it turned out ok the next morning when we got to go on a gorgeous scenic drive up to Interlaken.  That was until we stopped at a rest stop half way there, and then couldn't figure out how to start the Prius.  We tried and tried and tried.  So John went in and found an English speaker to help us call the rental company.  Luckily they sent a guy out who showed us what to do and we felt kind of dumb but we were on our way.

At least we didn't use very much gas.

Anyway, we visited the famous Chillon Castle (written about by Lord Byron in "The Prisoner of Chillon"), and that evening made it to the beautiful town of Interlaken.  John and I stayed at the cheap hostel but the grown-ups stayed at Hotel Interlaken, where Felix Mendelssohn and Lord Byron had stayed many years ago.  The next morning we rode the train up into the mountains and went for a hike.  It was so beautiful.  Maybe the most beautiful place I have ever been.  

See that piece of cake on the table?  Well we should have brought more snacks with us because Mom and John could not resist sneaking a bite of the abandoned dessert.  Well, guess what it wasn't abandoned.  The two asian ladies whose cake they stole came back for it and we got out of there real fast.

The cows in Switzerland really do have bells!  I thought it was just for show but I think they use them because there aren't any fences up there and how else would the owners keep track of the herd?

Not quite sure what this was--maybe a trail marker?

Oh boy, am I not done yet?  This keeps getting longer and longer.  Anyway the next day (because we never wanted to be in one place for more than one day) we headed back to Geneva and flew back to London.  From there John's friend from Ghana who now lives in Sheffield, Frank, picked us up from the airport.  After all the meeting and greeting, we walked a long ways out to Frank's car only to realize that he only had enough room for three of us.  There was either a misunderstanding about how many of us there were or how big we were.  Too bad Frank's house is a few hours from the air port or we could have just made two trips.  So John and I waited for the midnight bus and arrived at Frank's house around 4:30am.  Anyhoo, the next day we relaxed at Frank's house and met his wife and new baby.  He cooked us a really delicious Ghanian lunch.  Then it was off to Liverpool.

We didn't actually do anything in liverpool because we spent all of our time in traffic trying to get there on time to catch our ferry for Dublin.  It was a good idea to take the evening ferry so that we could save on a hotel room--but not a good idea to cram five people into a four person bunk-room with no ventilation.  Oh boy.

Anyway, the next day we were in Ireland and that is a whole nother story that I am going to save for another day.  Thanks for reading, I'm amazed you made it this far!

* Want to know what Hagis is?  No you don't.  Stomach, heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep or deer, oats, onions, suet, salt, and pepper.  I actually didn't know what it was made of until yesterday when I found the recipe in a book that I actually own.  Good thing I didn't eat any.