Scotland at last
On to Scotland!
So, Doncaster is nice and all, there’s uhm .. “food”, sort of a bed, uhm. Yeah. Let’s get rollin’! Onwards, to Scotland! We get up around 8, I hit the shower (careful not to bump my head against the showerhead) and go for some breakfast. We’ve already lowered our expectations, so we’ll be OK. With some calories down the hatch, we quickly jump in the car and program the car for Scotland. Only 240 miles, a piece of cake after yesterday. And since it all went so well driving on the left side of the road yesterday, we start of on the right side for good measure… Luckily, that oncoming bus turns left so we avoid some damage and quickly go back to the “proper” side. Pim orders my iPod connected and we start today’s drive with some Nederhop from our Opgezwolle friends.
We make excellent time; there’s some great scenery and we don’t have any horse drawn carriages slowing us down like there are in the oncoming traffic. We cruise up the M6, despite our initial plan of taking the costal route (thanks, Mercedes!), pull up for some more diesel, switch from Dutch hip hop over to some rockin’ Tenacious D and arrive in Edinburgh at 14:00. Having no clue where to go (we’ve both been here once, a lifetime ago), we drive around without a real goal for some time. Eventually, the decision is to park “somewhere” and do some sightseeing around the big castle. We grab some grub and get going. Somehow, it’s really a beautiful day: sunny, not too cold, a slight breeze .. perfect! We decide against actually forking over the dough for a couple of tickets and just walk around a bit more. A bunch of postcards and stamps are acquired, souvenirs are checked but dismissed, sights are seen: true tourists! Before we know it, it’s time to head back to our car (hoping we can still find it). Time for more hip hop!
Before we know it, we’re in Livingston at the Travelodge hotel. There’s still some time left, the sun is still out, so after checking in to the hotel (with Rachel, who has a true Scottish accent!), we decide to drive around with the RC car a bit more. There’s a really nice field, just perfect for racing the car, next to the hotel by some college. On the way there, there’s a couple of speed bumps in the road that make a very nice ramp for jumping around. Pim does one jump, two, three .. he circles back for another and then, as the car touches down again, one of the wheels flies off! Oh noes! Slight damage to the chassis of the car, the wheel has rolled away 50 meters (or should I say, 55 yards) but some of the bolts and nuts have fallen off and those are pretty hard to find. We spend about 45 minutes trying to find these parts, but unfortunately come up empty. No more RC car driving this trip :( After the remaining parts are stowed safely in the trunk of our ‘real’ car, we’re ready for some food. Now luck has it that the hotel we’re staying in is right above an Italian restaurant. And not just any Italian restaurant! This place is called “Toni Macaroni” (we are not making this up, I promise!). Just HAS to be good. And, in fact, it actually is pretty good food. Soup, salad, focaccia, steak and pasta .. all pretty tasty.
We show our friends and family we think of them after dinner by writing those postcards we bought in Edinburgh. I try to drop them off at reception but we’re directed to the local shopping mall where we should be able to find a letterbox ourselves. Excellent, some excercise to help digest Mr. Macaroni’s meals. The mall is really close by the hotel (our room has a view of the mall parking) but the place turns out to be quite big. We manage to find a way inside with whatever I could understand / remember from the directions I got at reception. Now all we really need is that letterbox. Some guy is walking around with two girls and a boy and we ask them if they happen to know where we could deposit our postcards. They have some clue and try to give us more directions. According to one of the girls it’s “a wee bit away”, which turns out to be at the other end of the mall. Then, like a jack-in-the-box, the other girls runs off. We check with the guy if everything’s OK and he thinks she’s just checking to see if there’s a letterbox somewhere closer. After a small lap inside the mall she returns: apparently not. Eventually, he offers to drop off those cards for us. We gladly accept Danny’s (as we learn his name is) offer, leaving the fate of our postal greetings to a complete stranger. The Scots are really great people! After having dispensed with the formalities of ensuring postcard delivery (delegating works for us! If you’re reading this and are expecting a postcard from us, blame Danny if you don’t receive anything), we still cannot let the letterbox mystery go so we set out to locate it. Circling the mall, we come across another friendly Scot, a cleaner this time. He speaks the magic words: near Starbucks, next to Mellie’s cookies. And indeed, in the corridor where the toilets are located, there’s also a big red letterbox: mission accomplished! We treat ourselves to some severe back and leg injuries (and cartman style probing) in the massage chairs available and limp back to the hotel. Hoping to recover from this onslaught during a good night’s sleep…
Posted by Paul de Weerd at 3:50 PM
