Trip Tidbits (09-14-19)

Six weeks is a long time for 4 people to travel together, but here’s why it worked so well…. 

Obviously we are great friends, and the 4 of us are interchangeable, you might say.  Many times Paul and Julie will work on something together (usually route planning or cooking) , while Mike and I sit back and smile...

...and just as often the two guys will go off on their own, talking technical stuff or whatever, while Julie and I hang back or hang out.  

And of course, Paul and I went off on our own at times, and left Julie and Mike to their own devices.  The 4 of us have a very natural flow and are pretty easy going.

  Overall, we saw many incredibly beautiful things, from ancient cathedrals to scenery beyond imagination. 

Our outings varied from museums to live music to hiking, but one of the keys to a great trip was that we had enough time to just chill out and relax.

We saw lots of old stuff…. I mean really old stuff… Europeans are justified when they laugh at what Americans consider old.  There are countless buildings and ruins here that date back to the 1100s and earlier.

You know the history is old when the Vikings were the invaders…. In the year 1050.

Some of the buildings still in use today are so old, the plumbing is on the outside.

Each of the countries we visited had some definite differences from what we are used to in the U.S.

In Scotland, for instance, the only choice in salad dressing is “on the salad” or “on the side” . There is only one dressing, although it does vary a little based on location.  Chips are fries and crisps are chips, which wasn’t too hard to remember.

Also, they don’t put ice in their drinks.  If you ask for ice, they look at you funny, but are happy to oblige by putting in a cube or two….no more than that.

I was very happy to have fresh seafood on the menu, until I read the word “whole” in front of the word “fish”.  Being unsure, I meandered past someone’s table, and yep, sure enough, there was the fish on their plate, staring at them.  No thanks.

Google was our friend, as there were many times we couldn’t figure out what a menu item actually was until we did a search.

When you are done with your meal, you have to ask for your check.  When you owe for lodging, you have to ask for the bill.  Never once did anyone ask us for money. At first it was annoying, but then we got the hang of it.

We gave up trying to pronounce Gaelic names, and sometimes gave up on the English version as well…usually some garbled mess came out of our mouths. 

There were other things we used google for as well….we googled things such as the instruction manual for the washing machine that we couldn’t figure out,  how to change a setting on the car, or what does the clothes dryer mean by “water tank full”?

The money, bills in particular, vary in size, and of course, look different from what we are used to seeing- that caused Paul to leave a $20 tip at dinner….his excuse? It looked like monopoly money!

Time and date required a constant calculation. Europeans write their dates Day/month/ year, instead of month/day/year, and everything is in military time…yes, in theory subtracting two hours shouldn’t be rocket science, but it was sometimes hilarious trying to figure it out.

It was quite a while before we consistently tried to get in the correct door of the car. Mostly one of us would look up and ask “who is driving?” as a gentle reminder to go to the other door.

Driving in general was a bit of a challenge for a while. TURN RIGHT, THINK LEFT could be heard frequently from the passengers. Scotland had many single track roads, but Ireland did not. While Ireland certainly had the better roads, what they didn’t have is shoulders…ever.

The signage is different  from what we are used to, and at times, interpreting a sign was a fun pastime…

There were many times we laughed out loud at things we heard…

-On the hiking trail:  “ I hope we don’t have to go up as far as we are going down”

-At the dock, a conversation between the ticket taker and someone trying to board the ferry: “Do you want to go to Inis Morn?”  Her response: “yes, but maybe tomorrow, not today.” Huh?

-By the ferry captain, in his safety spiel  “ follow us, we’ll be the first ones off the boat”

-at the rail station, over the loud speaker “ North bound service will be delayed 20 minutes due to bad behaving trains”

Our accommodations, for the most part, were pretty good- we really enjoyed the self cater places, where we had the whole apartment or cottage to ourselves.  That made it easy to cook our own meals, and pack lunches when we didn’t want to eat out.

It was nice to have guys who are mechanically inclined, as their tasks included fixing a fan, installing light bulbs, and sharpening knives (using a nail file).

Still, most places were pretty good, some not as good as others (at one place we were the dog sitters while we were there!).  Our mantra was “we’re only here for a few days” sometimes said with a sigh of regret, sometimes with a sigh of relief.  Our place In Doolin stood out from all the others- it was an incredible space, extremely well laid out and equipped.

From a practical standpoint there were several things that made the trip easier:

Topping the list is T-Mobile.  With Mike and Paul’s phones, and my ipad having T-Mobile service, we had signal almost the entire trip. That made navigating and communicating extremely easy.  We used Whatsapp to text back and forth by creating a group name, and while in the cars, the walkie talkies proved to be invaluable (once, we found ourselves in a crowded city, looking for a grocery store- it was very quick and easy to say “lets get the hell outta here”).

It was impossible to split every bill 50/50, so I took on the task of tracking who owed who how many pounds/euros. That way we could adjust who paid for groceries etc and kept things reasonably even. At the end, the Porters owed the Swains $8- not too bad!

Mike and Julie, having traveled more than us, gave us several great ideas on what to pack. We bought a set of bags to keep clothes separated, which made moving them around simple and neat, and made it easier to organize so that we didn’t have to bring in all our suitcases every night.

The other thing we brought was a top sheet.  I would never have thought to bring that, but almost none of the places we stayed provided top sheets, just duvet covers, which can be too heavy and hot.

And then there was First Class.  We flew First Class, and traveled on the train First Class.















 I think traveling domestically, I wouldn't care as much about the benefits of First Class, but with a long flight it was really nice to have the perks- Our seats made into beds, we had plugs for our electronics, a pillow, 3 blankets and we were fed on a regular basis.








 There was an actual menu to choose from, and the food was served on real plates, and the wine in real wine glasses.

Overall the trip, for Paul and I, was much less stressful, and a lot more fun, because Mike and Julie did a large chunk of the work in the planning and booking, and we completely appreciated it.

As I said, the 4 of us mesh very well, and have never had a bad time together:

Off to Scotland! (8-1-19)

The morning we left England was the rainiest day we had so far. We hired a car, and stood in the rain waiting for him.  Luckily it was a short wait.

 We had elected to take the train to Glasgow, so we could all enjoy the views of the countryside along the way.














We were a little dismayed when we arrived at the station and saw the huge set of stairs we needed to climb- with all our luggage. And then something amazing happened. A complete stranger scooped my large suitcase out of my hand and without saying a word, dropped it off at the top of the stairs and kept walking. When I looked behind me I saw that someone had also taken Julie's bags from her- so awesome!

Our seats in First Class were very comfortable for our 5 hour trip to Glasgow, where we were picking up our rental cars.

 Getting from the train station to Hertz was a bit of an adventure-the car service sent a vehicle that was too small, so Julie and I traveled with our suitcases on our laps rather than waiting for a bigger one.

Once we had our own cars, we could buy some food, and of course, drink. I was joking with the Hertz agent about driving on the "wrong" side of the road, and she said " it's not the wrong side unless someone is headed straight at you".  Cute.

Its been a long time since Paul has driven on the left side of the road, so we were happy to have Mike take the lead on that first day.

Since our plans did not include a stay in Glasgow, we headed straight to Arrochar, near Loch Lomond.

Our accommodations for this spot were hotel rooms in a very small hotel, on Loch Long. We had a pretty view from our window, which was the best thing about the place. The rooms were small and not wonderful, but we were only here for two days so we didn't care.

The pub attached to the hotel had decent food and we ended up eating there both nights- none of us were up for driving around at night looking for a place to eat.







We finally got our new walkie talkies while we were here. In our early planning stage we decided it would be good to have them, making it easier to communicate between the two cars.  There were several hurdles- first off, they use different frequencies in Europe, so we couldn't buy them in the U.S. and bring them. And of course we had to get them shipped.  Julie found an Amazon locker near our flat in London, and they were shipped there, arriving soon after we did. The only problem was, all FOUR of us forgot to get them! We ended up having to return those, and have another set shipped to Arrochar.













With only one day to explore Loch Lomond, we took a small Ferry/sight seeing boat across the lake to the small town of Inversnaid.













There was a waterfall just next to the hotel, with several hiking trails just behind it. Paul and I intended to hike a longish trail and Mike and Julie were going on a shorter walk. But then it rained. Hard. So hard, I couldn't even get a picture with my phone, never mind my camera!

Our hike lasted about 10 minutes, after which we headed to the hotel to get a bite to eat before the next ferry.








Our captain on the boat was a hoot- telling us tales and pointing out items of interest. He informed us that the waterfall is usually flowing much more, but they have been in a water shortage- it hadn't rained in.......6 hours.  As we pulled up to the dock,  he shouted out "Abandon ship!" because you have to take advantage of every opportunity to say it.