Friday, April 3, 2009

Final Thoughts

It is definitely good to be back home with Scott and Lola.  No matter how amazing a trip is, it is always nice to get back to your family, bed and shower.  Speaking of showers...

I have never experienced so many odd shower devices.  In the B&Bs we stayed in there were often switches to turn on the hot water (like a light switch) and then a whole control box with a variety of buttons you had to push to get shower actually working.  This was usually followed by a trickle of water that would go from scalding hot to freezing cold.  There were a few times one person had to figure out the shower and take the rest of us on a tutorial of how to make it work.  

Also, what is with the bathroom light switches being outside of the bathroom?  Never could get used to that.

A few fun notes:
  • crackin' wee pub-this was the way Craig described many of our lunch spots!
  • hand luggage and overhead locker-British Airways terminology for carry ons and overhead bins
  • A typical Scottish breakfast consisted of eggs, a half of tomato (fried/baked?), mushrooms, beans, ham and sausage (this was also served on the plane to London from Edinburgh)
  • J.K. Rowling is from Edinburgh.  She began writing the Harry Potter books across the street from the Royal Oak, Hogwarts is based on a school in Edinburgh (Tony Blair attended this school), and most of the movies were filmed in Scotland.  There were many references to the books/movies and it was very fun to see the inspiration for the magical world!
  • Even though the Scots speak English, there are definitely times when you can't understand them!  Their accents are so strong!
  • Luckily we made it out of the UK without having to use the code word! "MAC!"  I am still a little fuzzy on how this works...
  • We were also fortunate not to need the fishing line that Cynthia brought along.  Although I think that the mom's could have used a clothes drying line at one point ;)
As I mentioned before, I left the trip a few days early.  When we originally booked I was still employed and didn't want to take more than a week away from work.  Well, the rest of the ladies stayed until Wednesday and managed to squeeze in even more!  
Unfortunately blogspot makes this picture a bit small, but the Queen is in the car in her bright pink outfit! Definitely amazing they got to see her-my mom said it was quite the spectacle and very amazing.
I missed my chance!!!  Prince Harry was RIGHT there.  
It's ok...I am pretty happy right where I am :)

Obviously we packed a lot into 10 days!  Lots went on here too with Allison and Chrissie both having healthy baby boys while I was gone.  I get to see Tanner again tonight (he is absolutely adorable!) and can hardly wait to get to St. Louis to meet little Eli.  Congrats to both moms!  

Well, that wraps up my trip over the pond.  Back to normal blogging...thanks for listening!

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