ADVENTURES IN SCOTLAND - 2001
Alicia McClelland
CONCLUSION
After a little last minute packing (I'd done the bulk of mine the previous night and Beth on Wednesday night), we were off to the airport. So we wouldn't have to haul our bags any further than necessary, Beth dropped me and our bags at the terminal and went to return the car. I didn't even have time to write 2 postcards before she arrived. All she'd had to do was park the car and hand in the key. In the U.S., they inspect every square inch of the car for damage and you get to see and sign a copy of a bill with all the charges after acknowledging that you agree with them. Not so here. We're crossing our fingers that the only extra charge appearing on Beth's VISA bill is for the little bit of gas we'd used between the gas station that morning and the airport.
Our flight to London was uneventful, and we were glad to have a hotel lined up to stash our bags at. While we had planned on where to stay, we hadn't decided on how to spend the remaining afternoon and evening.
Getting to central London took a variety of transportation . . . bus, train and tube. Fortunately, we were able to buy one pass to cover all 3 forms of transportation.
We would've liked to have taken one of the hop on/hop off tour buses around
London, but we arrived just as the second to last bus of the day was
departing. Since this would only give us one opportunity to get off and back
on, we decided it would be a waste of our £14 (about $21) for this trip.
Instead, we opted to do our own thing.
Our first stop was to view Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Given the world events since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, it would have been interesting to sit in on Parliament and see what was being discussed. Unfortunately, there wasn't time. Our second and last stop before it became too dark to take photographs was Buckingham Palace. While it appeared that the queen was in residence, for some reason she didn't come out to say hello.
Trying to fit in one more stop, we set our sights on the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. We made it . . . too late to take pictures . . . and decided we'd better hot foot it to Picadilly Circus to pick up theatre tickets that Beth had purchased earlier in the evening. Thinking we had to pick them up by 7:30p, we were glad to arrive by 7:10p only to find that the ticket broker had closed at 7:00p. There was a sign pointing to a nearby business where we could claim them. Unfortunately, they weren't the same tickets we'd paid for (second to last row on the main floor instead of up in the balcony), but they still worked out OK.
Beth's dad had given her some "mad money" to treat herself while on our trip,
so she'd decided to treat us to a play. Our choice was "Phantom of the
Opera", which she'd seen 10 years ago but I'd never seen.
Leaving the tube station after picking up the tickets, it took us a few minutes to find Her Magesty's Theatre, but we took our seats with a few minutes to spare. The one good thing about the seats (physical seats, as opposed to location) is that now airline seats seem spacious in comparison. In addition to the narrow seats, we each had a man on one side who took more of our space than we were willing to share. Plus, we were both dodging heads in front of us, and Beth had a pole obscuring part of her view.
At intermission, we refreshed ourselves with some Ben & Jerry's ice cream and moved to the mostly vacant back row behind us. Seeing that we were still having trouble seeing over or around the taller heads in front of us, the usher whose post was behind us kindly gave each of us a pillow to sit on. All in all, we much enjoyed the performance.
It was almost midnight by the time we returned to our rooms. Good thing our 8:00a flight was cancelled and replaced with one at 11:40a or we would have had a very short night.
All good things must come to an end, so they say; so, too, must our vacation. Although I'd set the alarm the night before, I must have turned it off one of the times I'd woken up and checked the time during the night. Fortunately, I woke up almost 45 minutes before the alarm was due to go off. We had set the alarm on the TV as a backup, but we were both glad it wasn't the first alarm to go off, or someone would have peeled us both off the ceiling. There was certainly no sleeping through that!
For once, we arrived on schedule. Security at Heathrow was quite a bit more in evidence when we departed than when we'd arrived. Whether the difference was due to the fact that we were getting off the airplane before and now we were borading one, or whether security had increased in the 10 days since we'd arrived (or a combination of the two), we'll never know. Besides all the usual security, they were frisking some people and searching random bags (mine included; Beth got off easy). After that, the flight was uneventful. Our joint vacation ended in customs when Beth's line for those ending their air travel at Dulles went one way and mine for those with a connecting flight went another.
With all the warnings about delays going through security, I wondered if the 2 hours between when we landed at Dulles and when my flight to LAX was scheduled to depart would be enough. I'm afraid my frist trip through customs returning to the U.S. has spoiled me for future trips. Going through security (yes, again) I only had one person in line ahead of me. Then, I walked right up to the counter. Can't beat that!
Nothing of interest happened on the flight to LAX. I couldn't wait for it to be over so I could get home and relax. My luggage and I had managed to stay together the whole trip (a good thing!). Tigger read me the riot act when I arrived, and it took him a day or two to stop following me everywhere and meowing every minute or so. Guessed he missed me, huh? I had sure missed him. As great as the vacation was (when do we go back?), it was good to be home.
THE END
Alicia enjoying the Chinese Bird Room at Culcreuch Castle.