Glasgow and Goodbye Europe

Getting out of Orkney was a little challenging. They have an airport but a very very small one. We went to the Orkney airport  from there we were scheduled  to go to Glasgow. All the planes were delayed. We waited for about three hours and our plane hadn't  left Glasgow yet. The plane leaving to Edinburgh which was three hours late was leaving and said they had two extra seats for anyone wanting to go. Dane ran up to the front and got got those two seats. It is about and hour drive from Edinburgh to Glasgow. I had no idea why Dane was in a rush to get those tickets. As far as I knew we didn't really have very set plans in Glasgow.

It turned out that we did have plans very big plans. Dane got concert tickets to the Idina Menzel concert for our anniversary! I was very surprised. And I felt kind of bad he took us to Europe I thought that was more than enough for a graduation/birthday/anniversary present.

The concert was a good one. 

We met a lot of people in Glasgow that were very hard to understand. They seemed extra annoyed that we didn't understand their accent too. 

We went on a tour bus that told us about everything in the city it also allowed you get off wherever and then catch another tour bus later. That ended up giving us a lot of information and we enjoyed it. 

We didn't buy things in the other cities figuring that Glasgow would have all we needed for gifts for other people. That plan didn't work out so well. Glasgow didn't seem to have the best stuff. We wish we had bought something in Orkney or Oban for example. 

Overall we had an amazing trip. It was very cold though. I have never bought so many hot chocolates in my whole life. Dane loved the temperature.  The picture below is a picture we took in Texas showing our thermal heat. Dane and I are very different. We did have a few nice days though. I learned a few things about Dane and myself too. Dane is a very happy camper it takes an awful amount to upset him. It seems the harder it gets the more optimistic he gets. I am the opposite and need to work on that :) 

 Goodbye Europe! I hope to see you again soon! Oh yeah in the airport there was this whole fleet of what appeared to be the equivalence of boy scouts except they were in kilts. I thought they all looked very nice.

Overall, I am happy we did public transportation however, there were a few places a car would have been nice. Mainly in Iceland and parts of Scotland (Orkney).

The Orkney Islands

The Orkney Islands is not inhabited by a lot of people. When we got off the ferry trying to find a bus to our hotel became harder than we anticipated. It was really weird they actually had us go on a school bus to get nearer to our hotel. After the school bus we then walked a fair distance to our hotel. When we went to Orkney there was a famous music festival going on. We learned that if you raise your arm when a bus drives by they should stop. I wish we knew that in Oban but maybe it only works in Orkney.

The picture below is a picture of the St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. St. Magnus Cathedral has a lot of history. The founding of it was started by an earl. It took over 300 years to make this Cathedral. Because Dane and I went to Kirkwall (the capital of Orkney) during the music Festival There were a ton of tourists! The church was very very hard to see anything everybody was taking a million pictures.

We didn't do as much as we would have liked at the music festal. We missed a day due to us walking to our hotel and having no other buses to get to kirkwall that night. So instead we had one day and part of that day Dane made sure we some of the very old sites. Hence, we only went to one thing at the music festival and that was a poem discussion. The guy presenting studied old viking poems and interrupted them from old Norse. It was very interesting learning what he felt people needed to know and to learn about those old poems.

The 'town' of Skara Brae was one of the neatest things I have ever seen in my life. Skara Brae is a prehistoric village where people from the neolithic ages lived about 5,000 years ago.  It is so weird to imagine who they were and what they did. The whole village was under ground I kind of know why. It was freezing! The wind was so strong! Dane says it would have been warmer back then but I'm not convinced. 

The village was neat to see. They got all their food from the ocean and had each home connected with tunnels to other homes there also was no sign of any kind of hierarchy everybody was equal. 

These stone circles were also so praiseworthy. This circle is called The Ring of Brodgar. I wish we could get a picture of the whole thing. They are incredible to look at and it is so neat to be able to think about who these people were and what they believed in. Why did they put up these stones? We didn't end up going to Stone Henge it was out of the way and we have heard there are always a million people. I was fine with missing them because we got to see these. 

Getting to the Orkney Islands

Getting to the Orkney Islands was a major feat. It very far away from a lot of Scotland. A lot of people we talked to had never been to the Orkney Islands even if they lived in Scotland.

We left Oban on a Sunday and so there were not very many buses. We ended up going to the wrong bus stop and saw the bus driver ride right past us. The next bus came 4 hours later. It was rainy and cold and most places were closed on Sunday. A chocolate shop eventually opened up and we went in there and got hot coco and fondue. It was really yummy and warm!

Because we got on a later bus stop it got rid of a lot of time we would have spent in Inverness. It was raining hard in Inverness on a Sunday so I am not sure what we would have been able to do anyways. 

Dane's Aunt convinced me to read Outlander and I wish I had at least gotten through the second book before I went to Scotland there was  lot of history in Scotland that I had no idea before about and I feel really bad.  Had I read it before I would have tried to go to the Culloden Battlefield. We had a short amount of time in that area oh well. 

We then took a bus to Thurso, Scotland. We had a pretty long walk to our hotel in Thurso. Dane got reservations at a hotel right next to the ferry which would take us to the Orkney Islands. The walk was long and cold and I was sad when the hotel didn't have a bath oh well. It was an adventure right. 

Dane really liked Thurso. He felt like he was at the end of the world. 

The next morning we walked more around the shoreline and took in it's beauty and then we took the ferry to the Orkney Islands. 

Oban, Scotland

From Edinburgh we took a train to Oban, Scotland. Oban I think was my favorite city in Scotland that we visited. It is right next to the ocean and you can really smell the ocean. We got there kind of late and we couldn't get any Internet connection. That was a little nerve wracking but it worked out fine because our hotel was right on the coast. We just had to keep following it until we found our hotel.

Dane paid extra on his phone plane while we were in Europe. It worked out for the most part going back I would want to have some kind of GPS to be safe. He doesn't agree.

I really liked where we stayed in Oban. We stayed at a place called the Corriemar House. The lady that owned it was super friendly. The place was very cute and had good food.

As I mentioned before we got there kind of late that evening so the next morning we went to the information center hoping to go to the Isle of Iona. It turned out that the ferry didn't leave that often so we missed the first one that would have let us have a lot of time on the isle. There was luckily a different one but it gave us a lot less time. To get to the Isle of Iona you have to take a ferry to the Isle of Mull and then take a bus ride all the way to end of the isle and then take a ferry to the isle of Iona.

As we waited for the ferry to go to the Isle of Mull we took a boat ride to see seals. It was fun to see all the different islands.

Below is a picture of us on the Isle of Iona. The abbey is behind us even if you can barley see it. The abbey has a history with vikings. Which of course is the main reason Dane wanted to see it. It was funny on the bus we were on there was this huge Christian group who wanted to see the abbey. They wanted to see it because of completely different reason than him almost opposite reasons. 

Iona and Mull were absolutely breathtaking! They have such a unique landscape. 

Sometimes my anxiety gets the best of me and I don't want do certain things because of limited time and getting a seat on the bus etc. But, Dane convinced me that we should go deeper into the Hebrides since we had time and were just waiting for the bus. I'm so glad we did! It was so gorgeous! You did have to be careful though in the grass if there were these yellow plants growing and you stepped on them there was a huge puddle of water. So sometimes it was impossible not to step on them and ended up getting wet feet but it was a lot fun anyway. 

The picture below was taken off our ferry going from the Isle of Mull to Oban.

When we got back to Oban we went to McCaig's Tower. It was a neat structure with a neat view of Oban. 

Goodbye Oban until we meet again! 

Edinburgh

We then took a train to Edinburgh. We ate at a place called Oink which had hog roasts. It was pretty good my sandwich had a little bit of haggis. I didn't really care for the haggis. Dane and I discovered that some of Scotland's toilets are really hard to flush. They need a very specific technique it seems. At Oink you had to pull the handle down as fast as you can and then let go.

 We went on a hike to Arthur's seat. That mountain was very very beautiful! We had to carry all our stuff for that hike but it wasn't that bad. I am really happy we only took backpacks on our trip. It saved us a lot of hassle. We could carry it for far distances and put it under our seats on buses, trains and airplanes. Arthur's seat was very very windy when we got up to the top. The view of Edinburgh was awe-inspiring.

Coming back down from Arthur's seat we came across this old abbey that we thought was pretty. 

We then went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse or Holyrood Palace. They have it opened up for the public when important people aren't there. It was a pretty good tour they give you headphones for free and you can learn all about the different parts of the palace and about different people in history etc. You are only allowed to take pictures outside. 

York

 York was a pretty stunning city. It has a wall surrounding it and it has a few rivers.

The wall has a ledge that you can walk on 

York has a castle called Clifford's castle it is now just on a hill the mote is gone but seeing the castle in the city is pretty amazing. 

There is a medevil street called the shambles that we walked through. It is really small a car can't fit in it and you are just surrounded by old shops and buildings. It just seems like you are back in time when walking on it. 

We went to a Viking museum. That museum was really interesting because it actually had a ride on it.  It is called Jorvik Viking Centre.  Vikings lived in York for awhile and so archeologists have found things there and put them in the museum. 

We ate at a Indian resataunt that was pretty good. When we were looking at going to England one of the tips we were given was to get Indian food. We ended up getting it in York. We went to a place called Taj Mahal Indian cuisine. We had this mango juice drink that was delicious! It was right next to the river and had a nice view. The food was good too. 

York was a really neat city. The wall makes it feel so unique and old. 

Anglo-Saxon Village and the Dales

We then went to a Anglo-Saxon village in Suffolk at a place called West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village. Getting there took a lot longer than we excepted so we never made it to Cambridge. It kind of started off badly because we got on the wrong train and then we got off on the wrong bus stop so we had to walk longer than we expected. Dane is really happy we went. I probably wouldn't have gone there on my own. When we were getting there it seemed like nobody had gone to this village before. When we got there, there were very few people there. They had a museum and then they had created an Anglo Saxon village which archaeologists believe is a replica of what it used to have looked like.

Coming home we tried to go a different way thinking that it might go faster because there should be more bus stops in the other town. We found one but the buses kept driving past so we ended up walking to one pretty close where we were dropped off at. The bus said we were going to the station so we assumed the train station but it ended up being the bus station so we had to walk to the train station from there. Other than bus problems it was fun. When eating there was a sign do not take crockery outside. I never heard of that word before it means basically dishes that are porcelain.  

It was really exquisite walking next to the English forest. It looked like what you see in all those movies like Robin Hood. There was not a sidewalk which at some parts was not very fun with the cars. 

The next day we went to the Yorkshire Dales. We rented a bike or "hired" a bike as they say in England. It was so beautiful but very cold and windy. At points it was nice but other times not so nice. When we headed toward Bolton abbey the winds helped us but coming back they were going against us and made our bike ride a lot more difficult. 

Bolton Abbey (Yes I keep thinking of Game of Thrones) 

 Before I went to England I watched a lot of youtube videos of what things like what Americans thought of the UK and what British people thought of America. One of the things a British guy mentioned was that all our portion sizes were so large in America. He also made a comment saying  no wonder we have a hard time staying lean. I have to disagree with that guy I often found way too much food in England. I mostly ate appetizers because they fed us too much.