The Stone of Destiny

So I guess my posts are coming about once a week now....

This weekend was unbelievable. Spain had holiday this week, so in the city of Sevilla, Monday and Wednesday were holidays (the ´burbs had Tuesday off as well) so Rachel, the other auxiliar at my school, invited me to go to the UK with her and her friends. After a little bit of deliberation, I was in. We decided to just ask for Tuesday off so we could come back on Wednesday.

So we set off, with our one piece of carry on in hand, all meeting at the train station. Well, not quite all of us. Brianna was to meet us later that day in Liverpool as she still had work on Friday. Rachel, Julia, and I board the train heading to the Malaga airport. We travel through the most beautiful countryside, valleys, and mountains to arrive in a beach town. Everything goes smoothly and after no time, we have boarded the plane to Liverpool.

side note: lets just talk about this flight for a second. It was completely full, and full of hooligans. As I am sleeping (as I always do) in my aisle seat, I can hear footsteps running up and down the aisle way. After a little while, I feel this poke in my arm. I open my eyes slowly and cautiously to see a little boy smiling mischieviously in my face. ok, it was a little funny... but not really. so I resume sleeping in order to avoid as much of the flight as possible. As we are descending into the city of Liverpool, someone shouts out that it is snowing and immediately I am in the Christmas spirit! :)

We withdraw some pounds, Rachel forgets her pin, the airport hasn´t any heat, and we set off on our way to the hostel and towards fish and chips. We board the bus and end up talking with a young lad from the liverpool area getting the scoop. He really gave us the scoop. Told us where to get off, where to get our fish and chips, the cool clubs and pubs, and the not so cool pubs and clubs. We find our hostel and it is the cutest, quaintest little place. We are greeted at the door by a little old Englishman with white hair and an outgoing personality. He invites us to tea, and we talk business and then he tells us where to go and what to do. He was delightful.

After we put our stuff down and refresh our makeup just a tad, we head off in the direction of fish and chips. Mind you, it is snowing and freezing. At this point, I am wearing my rainboots because they wouldn´t fit in my bookbag.. but I at least think they will keep my feet dry and I have 3 pairs of socks on. Well, my feet start to feel wet. Really? yes. The rainboots that I had just bought, were leaking water... but its ok, I still had an amazing time. Just thought I would let you in on that little tidbit. Oh yes, fish and chips... so we get to the street we were told it would be on. There was a fish and chips place but he said to avoid that one, this one didn´t really have a name.. so we search the street and can´t find it.. So we start asking people on the street. ha. Everyone was having a good time that night.. finals must have just ended. Anyway they pointed at the first fish and chips sign they saw, and even a pizza sign and said go there. So we kept walking. We ended up spotting a window that had fish and chips painted on it, an Italian restaurant, and headed in. It was delicious and completely clique but it didn´t matter, we were eating fish and chips while in England. Check.

We had told the nice man in the hostel to let Brianna know that we would meet her at Cavern Club (the place the young lad told us not to go as it was an older crowd reliving their glory days, but we went anyways, and it was just that.. but the best night) at midnight..

We are having a beer or two, chatting it up with eachother when this man with a bushy mustache and guiness dripping from it comes up and starts talking with us. We humor him for a little bit before moving to a table. We met some English, Irish, and Norwegian folk before Mustache Man comes back and takes a seat right next to me... I am the winner. I couldn´t understand a damn word he was saying and all I could concentrate on was not catching the spray from him words and the guiness that was dripping and foaming on his mustache. And because I let people talk with me... this lasted for a bit. Ohh the poor guy.

12 comes and goes.. we are tired, so maybe Brianna was too and decided not to come out. We had no way of knowing as our cell phones didn´t work. So we decide to head back. As soon as we get in the door, the hostel worker informs us that Bri

anna´s flight was cancelled and she would meet us in Glasgow on Sunday... we are like what? we won´t even be in Glasgow on Sunday and why was her flight cancelled... so we try to get to the bottom of it.

Turns out her flight was cancelled due to the air traffic controllers strike in Spain and flights weren´t leaving or coming in. The rumor mill was swarming at this point.. and we were like how did we just miss that by hours. So, Brianna would meet us in Edinburgh the next night. cool. ok. We head to bed to get ready for the Beatles tour in the morning. The morning comes a little too quickly... and we get some toast, tea, and potato cakes for breakfast before heading out on our 4 hour tour. We went here, we went there, we had the most enthusiastic guide (which is necessary). After every site we saw, he would ask us in his accent ¨so, how´d you like that?¨ ¨cool, huh?¨ ¨How does it feel to walk in the footsteps of Rock ´n Roll?¨ He was a CHARACTER, in capital letters. So I learned a ton about the Beatles that I had absolutely no clue of previously. My favorite was hearing how they used the words in their lyrics. For example, the lyrics ¨it won´t be long until i belong to you¨ I thought that was cute. I have lots of pictures from this. Although I couldn´t feel my toes and I had a close call in maintaining my balance in the cemetary, I would say that it was a successful tour. We had him drop us off to eat in the place where Lennon or Paul spent a lot of his time and they are known for the men´s restrooms being exquisite.. we saw them and they were not that great. Just FYI. but the shepherds pie was pretty freaking good. Next was to make it to our train on time.

We made it, but right before it was leaving. and not without Rachel thinking she had left her passport. but we were all good. on to the next train. On this second train, we were told we were going to be delayed getting into Glasgow, so as we are getting close to our stop but thinking we still had a ways, Rachel and I set off for the restroom. Now, the closest two were out of order so we had to walk about 6 cars down to find a working toilet. I´m in there washing my hands, fixing my hair and there is a knock on the door... I am like hold on just one second. Then there is banging and Rachels voice is like ¨Ohhh my gosh, Jan this is our stop, we have to go!!!¨ Well the previous stops had all had warnings, next stop xxx, we will be approaching xxx in 2 minutes. This one, we are now approaching Carlisle. Ohh shit. All of our stuff in in a car 6 cars down with the last person of our group. What do we do if we can´t get there in time. So I run out of the bathroom, we are running through the cars, hurdling over luggage, pushing (sorry) people out of the way. Some aren´t moving, so we are like please let us through, this is our stop and our luggage is in car one... seriously the train is about to stop and the doors are opening. Finally, we make it with like one second. Julia with all of our stuff is frantic and we are like holy hell did that just happen. it did. So we decided if that ever were to happen again, which it wouldn´t, everyone would disembark and the person with the luggage would grap it all. We avoided that disaster by only the smallest bit.

Next up is a bus. We go to find the bus. there are a few coaches outside, so we ask a worker. He points us to a bus and we get on..... we are the only 3 people on this bus to Edinburgh. Mind you, this is a huuuuge coach bus, really nice, a three hour drive, and three girls with only backpacks for luggage. Talk about a loss of profit on that one. The gas had to have been ridiculous. Luckily, we didn´t get stuck in the snow, we probably should have and we made it to Edinburgh on time, safely and soundly. Make it to the hostel... apparently I was marked as male and so they had to do some rearranging to put me in a female room, but other than that things went well. We had planned on heading to a cute little pub but once we made it to the room, all of us were tired and felt weird after the bus ride, so we headed to bed.

The next morning, we got up to get some breakfast and take the free tour of the city. Breakfast was awesome. We set out on the hunt for bagels and we found them... we ate at this cute cafe (Edinburgh is full of them) called Chocolate soup. They have a million chocolate drinks and then muffins, shortbread, soups and sandwiches. I caved one day and got a harvest cider drink. it was the bomb.

The tour was meeting right outside so we head over there. Our guide was a man named Alan. He also was a CHARACTER. He had long, scraggly hair was extremely tall and had an English/Scottish accent. He reminded me of Hagrid. Now Alan really likes to talk... which is totally necessary in a guide. He had stories out the wahzoo and they were funny and enlightening. We were told where the phrase ¨shitfaced¨comes from when referring to someone who is extremely intoxicated:

Back in the day, there weren´t toilets indoors and so people used bedpans and whatnot. After so long of people dumping them during all hours of the day and night, there were laws passed that the waste could only be dumped between the hours of something like 10pm and 7am. The person doing the dumping would yell a Gaelic phrase basically telling anyone below to get out the way... and then would dump the contents. The person below had about half a second to yell hold your hand and jump out the way. So in the morning it wasn´t a big deal.. you would recognize the dumping phrase, yell hold your hand, and jump out the way. However, after slamming back a few brews, you might hear jibble jabble, look up to see what the H is going on and get a nice little present in your face. Thus comes the phrase ¨shitfaced¨.

We were taken to the place where J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter (yes, I have a million and one pictures), saw her inspiration for Hogwarts, heard a few ghost stories, learned about the stone of destiny, the history between England and Scotland.. Seriously, I could go on and on. It was the most interesting tour.

After 3 and a half hours of learning about Edinburgh and walking around in the 3 degree weather, we were frozen from the inside out and pretty hungry. So we set off to thaw and defrost. We ate in a charming restaurant that served an amazing burger. The decor screamed Pottery Barn during the holidays...and you know, I loved it.

Since it is winter and we were so far north, the sun set about 4 in the afternoon. It got dark super early... no me gusta mucho. Add this to the fact that the weather was the worst it has been in years and they do not have the tools necessary to deal with the snow, everything was closed and we were forced to go shopping.

Finally, that night, Briana meets us at the hostel! It only took her two days and a huge detour to get to us... NBD. We make our way to a Thai place around the corner from the hostel, where Rachel gets the giggles and our waiter has a stick stuck up somewhere in his body. It was entertaining.

On Monday, we head to the writers museum, try to go to the castle, but due to weather conditions, the castle was closed. We were forced to warm up with a whiskey tour. The tour was cool, it consisted of a ride showing how whiskey is made and the difference between the barrels to get lighter and darker whiskeys. Then we were shown a video on where in Scotland the whiskey was made and a scratch and sniff card of the different aromas found in the different areas for the different whiskeys. Once we had an idea of the flavors and aromas, we picked one to try. We did our tasting in a room of over 4,000 bottles of whiskey. One man had a whiskey collection that he sold to this place and it was on display in the tasting room. It was very cool. there were whiskeys that dated back ages. I now know that I am not a whiskey fan at all.. that I actually hated every sip I took. ha. but I took one for the team and I had to do it for the experience. When in Scotland....

After, we ate at the Elephant House, where HP was written. The food was delicious and there is an incredible view of the castle. We tried to go to the National Museum of Scotland after, but of course due to weather it was closed.. even though it wasnt even snowing and the museum is indoors...So we did a little browsing of the shops, checked out the church where many a men were knighted and headed off to find a movie theatre. I am sure you can guess what we saw.... yep. thats right.

So the next day was our last... we were going to try the castle again.. who goes to Edinburgh and doesn't get to see the castle? Lucky for us, it was open! So we toured the castle, got some amazingly, incredible views of the city and sea. Were able to experience the stone of destiny that everyone kept talking about, the crown jewels, a sword as tall as me, and a prisoner of war camp. it was really cool. The castle was like its own little city.

At lunch we tried Haggis, if you know what it is you would think we are disgusting.. but hey, when in Scotland. For those of you who don't know what haggis is, it is taken from wikipedia: "Haggis is a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours."

Sounds delicious right? haha it really wasn't that bad. After this it was time to head to Glasgow, we were leaving in the morning to go back to Sevilla. So we head to the bus staition, no buses are running, ok so we head to the train station. We get tickets for the next train to Glasgow. The board says that it is delayed, puts a platform up, but still says it is delayed. So we decide we need to go and check it out anyways.. we get there and the platform is EMPTY!! whhat? so we overhear some others asking about the train and the worker saying oh yeah it left on time.. the board lied!!! So we have to wait around for the next train to come.. as soon as there is a platform up we turn to go to it... the worker is running there.. so other people start running and soon behind us is a stampede of people running to get on this train. So we get on and sit down.. it is so cold in this train there is frost on the inside of the windows.. so we sit are on this train for quite a while before it reaches Glasgow station. Once we get there, we head toward the bus for the airport. This is where the story gets good.

So, we are waiting at the bus stop, not sure when the next bus is coming. The lady standing with us is waiting for her husband. She tells us that she doesn't even know if the bus is running due to weather.. so we go back to wait in line for a taxi. It is taking 20 minutes each time for one taxi to show up and there are probably ten people in line. We cant feel our toes.. remember how my boots were leaking? So we are like we are going to walk to the street to see if we can get a taxi.. as we do this, we see the airport bus so Rachel runs to the bus to give him the thumbs up that we want it and we get on. The girls ask the bus driver if he knows where our hotel is and he has never heard of it. they think that is weird. So we get to the airport and get in a cab to take us to the hotel.. we tell the cabby where to go and ask if he knows of it. His reply: unfortunately, yes. okayyy? So we are chatting it up, watching out the window, commenting on how much snow there is, thinking about where we are going to eat dinner.. yes our lives revolve around food.. its not weird. So we begin driving through what looks like government housing. We see one fish and chips place and then all residence. Im like this is weird.. i really hope we aren't staying in one of these apartments. the cab stops. We are sitting in front of this huge old house with a circle drive. There is one light on out front and it looks deserted. So in my mind, i'm like ok, this is quaint, a little bed and breakfast. We walk up, I am trying to take it all in. I imagine a cute, little, old Scottish man coming to answer the door. There is an ashtray full of like three packs of cigarettes, the paint is peeling, and the doorknob isn't on the door properly.

One of the girls makes the comment "This looks like the sort of place you go in and never come out of" .... yikes... and it did. So right as she is saying this, the door opens. A middle eastern man with one eye half open/half closed is staring right at me. Yes? uhh we have a reservation here. Oh, come in. We walk in.. the ceilings are high and not an ounce of renevation has happened in this place since the sixties, maybe earlier. There is a weird smell, and the three girls reservation was lost. We should have known better than to proceed. I, however, was the lucky winner and my name was on the reservation list. So anyways, he says he has room for them. yeah, because no one wanted to stay there. the inside looked like a mental institution or a shady hotel from a horror movie. I am serious, we were in the setting for a horror film. The lighting was even the same.. that weird yellow, green, gray lighting they use to make the ambiance scarier. So anyways, I have a single because I booked seperately, so I ask if there is a quad, the man tells me no. I am like, ok well maybe this will be good for me, I am a big girl, I can stay in a room by myself and have some alone time.

So we all get our keys and walk up the stairs. Think stairs of an old government building.. where they are wide and there is a landing with a huge window and velvet curtains then another set of wide stairs. My room was straight at the top of the stairs and the girls were to the right. if I needed to run from my room to theirs it would have taken 10-20 seconds. So, I put my key in the door and turn the lock. My stomach drops to my feet. Staring at me.. is a little tv with an antennae. The window is putting shadows on the wall and my mental institution twin bed is gross. I don't even turn on the lights... I have already psyched myself out. I yell to the girls, I can't do this, this is the ring, I can't do this, its the ring. So I run into their room and lock the janky ass door. Seriously, that lock would not have kept out an ant. We all sit on the beds/chairs and look at each other. Where the H are we. So, the one bed doesn't have sheets or a pillow, there is one towel and an open bar of soap on the other bed. we are still half laughing. I finally brave it enough to go to the restroom, sick. water in the tub, just hanging out and the toilet doesn;t flush (not that they work well as it is in Europe, whatever). perfect. and the floor is spongy.. like it is going to fall through at any moment. That was the icing on the cake for all of us. We decided we were out of there. But not before taking a pic of how we felt and me making a comment about how I hoped nothing showed up in the background, thus giving all of us the creeps even more.

So we elect Rachel to give the bad news and do our best to get our money back. We stand at the top of the steps for probably 5 minutes braving ourselves up and telling the other to go first. ha. anyways, we march down with all of our stuff.. try to act brave, the man tells us he can't give us our money back despite the fact that everything was wrong and that his advertisement online was totally a false description of what the place was actually like. He tries to reconcile the situation by offering a different room... umm im not sure if he even built a new room for us that we would have stayed there. Moral of the story.. no, we had made up our minds. So we ask him to call us a cab... it is going to take an hour, AN HOUR. So we decide to start walking. I am the last one out and because I am a goody two shoes, i follow the sign on the door to close it securely but i was going to do it with a little attitude, right? just a little.. but any ways it flung back open because it wouldnt latch and then the handle was just dangling there on the door.. it was up to par with the rest of the hotel.

So we are cracking up about that just happening, we were giggly what can I say. Just as I am thinking in my head about how icy the driveway is and how its a good thing we aren't crazy sueing type people if one of us were to fall, I see Julia's legs flying up in the air and a thud on the ground. Poor girl ate it at the bottom of the driveway. it was the icing on the cake.. actually it wasn't. there is more..

So remember how I told you that it was a sketchy street.. well now we are walking on it.. with all of our stuff. So we are booking it. The only thing I could think was its a really good thing we aren't in Eastern Europe.. ok it wasnt that bad at all. but there were lots of abandoned buildings and it was dark, and we were 4 girls. but we made it fine to a cab stop with a line, go figure. We had a drunk guy yelling to us. When we finally got in a cab.. for a moment we thought it was the same guy who had dropped us off in the first place, i laughed really hard. but it turns out it wasnt. We had him take us to the Ramada at the airport.. (side note: if we had started there it would have only been 2.5 more pounds than the shitty hotel, live and learn) so anyways, we asked him if that was him who took us there and he was like no, but that place is a shithole, why did you go there? we just laughed, thanks first cabby for warning us. Next time, go with your gut and if you are ever in Glasgow, do not stay at Lomond Airport Hotel.

We thought we were going to be stuck in Glasgow for another day due to whether, but we got out of there with only a slight delay. Sitting on a bus in the middle of the runway thinking we had lost our plane for a half hour. ha good times.

Go to the UK... im not even kidding. DO IT.