Last Day in Scotland/Travel Day

Well, my last day in Scotland before heading home. Doug and I watched TV. I finally had some Vegemite (something I was craving a few months back and the English version, Marmite, just didn’t cut it). It was what I remembered from when I was a kid. I’m going to miss Scotland. I could totally see myself living there.

1. Cost of living is pretty cheap

2. The people are friendly

3. Fuck is pronounced like Fock and they say it just as much as Bostonians

4. It’s tough remembering to look the opposite way when waiting to cross the streets

5. People walk on the left side of the sidewalks

6. Every outlet has a switch right next to the outlet, which totally makes sense. You can plug and unplug items without getting sparks like I do with my outlets

7. There seems to be as many pubs in Edinburgh as there are in Boston

8. I believe there’s a whisky for everyone; if you don’t like whisky, you just haven’t found your type

9. I could get used to seeing guys walking around in Kilts

10. I wouldn’t mind marrying a Scot

11. Whisky has legs, wine has tears- I’ll never make that mistake again

12. Round trip = return

13. NO TIPPING!!! I LOVE THIS!!!!

14. Chips = fries, crisps= chips

15. It’s hard going to bed when it’s not dark and waking up way early because the sun is up so darn early!

So, as we left the apartment it started to rain. Not just light rain like it did a few times while I was there. I’m talking about full on raining as we step out of the apartment! That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the trip. I wear my raincoat, but we go to the wrong bus stop and have to double back so I can catch the Airlink bus. By the time I get to the bus stop, my black yoga pants are soaked that they are weighing down and I’m having a hard time keeping them from falling down. My shoes and socks are soaked. My suitcase, completely wet. My purse, soaked. My carryon bag (with laptop in it) is also soaked. I get on the bus and try to dry things off, but there isn’t a single dry part on me. My purse contents are wet, including my phone and passport. My carryon bag is wet and the laptop case is wet. I’m freaking out b/c I don’t want my laptop to get wet. I decide I have no choice but to change clothes when I get to the airport, before I check in and drop off my bag.

I get to the airport about 1.5 hours before my flight leaves. I change, and take out my souvenirs from their bag and shove my wet clothes in the small souvenir bag. I change socks and shoes and place them in the suitcase and lay the rain jacket I bought for this trip right on top of my bag. I keep my wee bottle of Dewar’s Whisky, my Whisky glass, coasters, Tartan hats for the kids and t-shirt for the baby in the suitcase. Check in wasn’t that bad, there was a line (or queue as they say) but it moved quickly. Airport security in Edinburgh is easy peasy. I put my laptop in the bin along with my small bag of liquids and purse and fleece and I walk through the metal detector with my shoes on. No problems. Then I am tempted to shop with all the duty free stuff. I opt out b/c coming over, when I got to Iceland, I had to go through security again and couldn’t bring any liquids in other than the 3oz bottles in the bag.

The flight actually departs close to on time. It was weird though, as a 737, I had to walk out on the tarmac and board the plane, walking up the stairs. Water, coffee and tea are free (which is good to know). No major problems.

We get to Iceland and we deplane the same way we boarded, walking down stairs onto the tarmac. This was kind of cool, because it meant I actually stepped outside in Iceland. The weather was cold, windy and dry. The area near the airport is flat, reminding me of a desert. We didn’t have to go through security (so, I could have bought some whisky in the Edinburgh airport), just passport control with the cute Icelandic police. Stood in line to get my boarding pass for the Boston leg, where they asked for my bag tag. I have almost 2 hours before we board and it’s a small airport. A few duty free shops, so I ended up buying some Icelandic chocolate, a 6-pack variety of Icelandic beer and some liquor which I was told is sweet. We start boarding nearly on time and have to walk outside again to get on the plane. More than halfway through the boarding process, we are told that there is a computer issue causing delays. We are a full flight and I learned that the guy across the aisle from me had his wife and son who couldn’t get on this flight because it was overbooked, so they got lodging, food and 2 roundtrip tickets to anywhere. I’m like [to myself] “Hell, if they would have asked for volunteers, I so would have volunteered to stay a night in Iceland!” Anyway, we sit on the plane for 2 hours after I got on the plane before the computer issue was fixed, the rest of the plane boarded and we took off. There were two seats empty.

We get into Boston an hour or so late. Going through passport control/customs was easy, again. I had no questions asked of me, I didn’t have to get any part of my hand scanned, he just scanned my passport, stamped my customs form and said “welcome back”. I then went down to baggage claim. Where I waited…and waited…and waited. There were tons of bags going around, but there were about 30 of us still standing around with no bags. The bag handlers start taking the bags off the belt and we were like “um, where are our bags”. I felt really sorry for these people because they don’t work for the airline; they’re employed by Logan airport and every passenger whose bags weren’t here were really frustrated and venting at these baggage people, like it was their fault. I’m like, “well shit, my wet clothes!” and decide to go through the second customs check where I hand them my stamped form and wait around for baggage services to file a claim. I’m the first one in line and of course they were never informed by Keflavic that 30 bags didn’t get on the plane so they weren’t prepared for 29 angry and impatient passengers. We waited quite a long while before they had all the forms and stuff ready to take down all our info. I was supposed to get in at 7:55 or so, and I didn’t get to my apartment until 11:30pm.

I swear, I have really bad travel luck! I guess all those years of flying with zero problems is catching up with me and I’m paying my dues. I’m exhausted! But, OMG...it was SO NICE TO BE ABLE TO USE MY PHONE!!! After being without texting and calling while in Edinburgh, it was nice to be able to take it off airplane mode and call my family.