Subject: Scotland part 2 of 10 Date: Tue, 30 May 95 11:44:44 -0700 The room we had was at the top of the house, where the roof slanted into the top of the roof, so it was exactly like the ceiling in our house, so when I first woke up I thought, for an instant, that we were at home... but the texturing was different. It was quiet up there, cozy, comfortable and warm. The shower, as with most British showers, was the electrical unit on the wall with the tiny, removable from the wall sprayer. I think that they're actually supposed to just be used for military style showers, where you wet down, turn it off, soap up, and then turn it on for a final rinse. The stall had some difficulty containing both John and I, but we managed to wash the previous days trials from us. The dining room held only one other couple with a baby. The host came by and handed us the menu and I picked half a bowl of Scottish oat porridge for my cereal, a poached egg to go with my sausage, bacon, tomato, and 'tatey scone. I'd never had a 'tatey scone before, turns out it's made from potato flour and is more like a pancake. I was also sneezing and stuffy headed, possibly from allergies, but I thought it was a cold at that moment. So the hot, hot black tea with plenty of milk and sugar was perfect for my throat. With the serving of the porridge the host asked, "Are you going to eat this traditionally?" I answered, "I don't know. What's traditional?" He pointed at the sugar, "Lots of people eat it with this. But tis' more traditional to eat it with this." He pointed at our salt shaker. "It makes it taste creamier." So I tried it on a little bit of my porridge and he was right. It tasted really good. So I used it on the rest. John just salted his whole bowl. Braver than I. Also we got the first outside joke about our car. The host was wondering what kind of deal we got on our car and half laughingly asked, "You couldn't have gotten anything smaller, could you?" I think I'm starting to pick up on the sentence structure that's used over here, it's what is truly unique about the langugage here compared to in America. That's still what bugs me the most people people that try to speak with a British accent is that while they might get the sounds right, they don't get the *English* right. Anyway, then the host goes on to say that he think a Mini's smaller. Which got John kinda riled up to the point where he was saying that the rental rate for a Mini was far less than for our car. I think it's going to be a running joke for this trip. After breakfast we tried to figure out our itinerary and finally figured out where we were going when. Tonight we'll get as far south towards Liverpool as possible, so that we can go there tomorrow for John's Land Rover parts. Then a night in York with shopping and touring there for the day. Then up to Edinburgh for two nights and a day and, perhaps, meeting some friends, then up north, Aberdeen and further to Invernese and sometime the Isle of Skye for at least a night each. After that, one night in the vicinity of Glasgow, or, perhaps, Darvel and then home on Monday morning. The next trick was to tell folks where we were going to be, when. We went out to see if we could use the post office we'd seen three times the night before and get some postage from it and find a pay phone that would take the phone card we'd bought at the Safeway vending machine. It's kinda a cool idea, to be able to buy a card with phone money on it, and not have to carry change, but we round that sometimes it's hard to find a phone that will take the card. In town, there was a booth that took it, but it was a highly trafficed area, so that it was nearly impossible for me to hear, so we decided not to call anyone. The post office was neat and quick and they were really friendly about getting us what we needed, including postage, this time, for all our postcards so we wouldn't mail them all from the airport as we were about to leave. Hopefully. Then off to the Coast, the west coast in this case, and the Castle of Culzean, which is actually pronounced like Colleen. The Castle was in the middle of a huge park and estate and had been rennovated by the family. The interior of the castle was constantly updated; and the gardens were extensively upkept. The flowers were really, really beautiful. There was a walled in garden filled with plots for flowers, long lawns and one HUGE lawn that had room for giant rhodadendrens that were in full-fire bloom, a 'troll bridge' made from giant rocks with two 'booths underneath the stone of the bridge that could be used for trolls; and four GIANT trees. The whole place was lovely to just walk about in. Then off again down south. Annan, right off the A71, which we followed along the coast. We saw sheep everywhere and the sam gently rolling green everywhere. So I went to sleep. We stopped at Annan at 4:30pm for a spot of tea with a bacon and tomato toasted sandwich and a 'toasted tea cake' which was a very soft, slightly sweet white bread bun with currents in it. Quite good, and exactly what we needed after hours on the road. The sandwich was wonderful, the tomato was all runny and HOT with the backbacon that the British serve for breakfast, not the crispy stuff we eat. So it was basically a ham and tomato sandwich put in a toaster. On the way out of Annan we saw a nuclear power plant. A few quotes from John while driving along. "We used to drive a shoebox in the middle of the road..." "Next time we come to England we're getting a bigger car..." thing is that not only were we getting passed by everything that was bigger than us, but there wasn't anywhere we could put anything 'to be hidden'. Though the one advantage was that there was no way anyone was going to steal this thing. So, futher along The South we got into the Lake District. On our way to Liverpool... We got to see The Metal Bridge. We then targeted Carlisle as the place we wanted to get to in order to find a B&B before it got too late, and have some dinner. We reached the city fairly quickly, but then spend an hour learning the detailed layout of the city. Euphamism for spending a somewhat frustrating hour trying to find the tourists' information bureau. Every time we thought we were following the little 'i' signs we'd lose them, right in the centre of town. Kinda an indication of our persistance in that we tried for that long and then went to the police station to ask for directions to the bureau. Turned out, from the station, the only way to get there was to walk there becuase a number of the streets in the center of the town were blocked off for shoppers and shops. Actually, the city was really beautiful, and if we hadn't had other goals it would have been really interesting just exploring all the shops, parks, and a lovely old castle on the edge of the city. The information bureau was right in the middle of the shopping area. We never found it. Even after getting off the road and walking with the directions that they'd given us, we never found it. Instead, we finally gave up, drove towards the M6 along the A6 looking for a B&B. We found one, with a For Sale sign in front, and stopped anyway. They still had room, and a very nice man brought us up to the room in the back of the house, gave us milk for our tea and then told us that the pub across the road had okay food for dinner. So we had dinner and then had fun driving further along the A6, looking for a pay phone that would take the phonecard I'd bought. No such luck... but we did find a nice payphone behind a shop, far enough from the main road to be really, really quiet and have clear reception. So we made our list of phone calls to all the people we had to warn about the plans that we'd just made. We managed to contact Jenny Glover, Steve's wife, and got directions from her as to where to go and how and when and told her of our plans. Then we called Chez Dancing Fox and got to tell Tanais of our plans and I got to talk with both Mary and Simon for a bit. That was a lot of fun, getting to put voices to names, and getting to hear about their garden, the machines they were working with and the like. Fun to listen to their laughter as well. We were also able to warn Malcolm of our coming as well. That was a lot of fun. The pay phone was kinda cool 'cause we could put a pound coin into 'em and watch the money tick away from the digital display. We used pretty much all our change for the phone calls. Back to the room, turn on the TV and we got to see the best of all the Star Trek movies, IV, the one with the whales. We had tea and some of our biscuits for dessert. There were nice chairs in front of the TV and it was nice to just sit and watch and be quiet for a while and write some letters. ------- End of part 2 of 10 ------- Copyright 1995 by Phyllis L. Rostykus. All rights reserved.