Lynnette's Caledonian Journal - Summer 2000
Entry 1 - Planes, Trains, & Automobiles
Robert Louis Stevenson said something to the effect that to travel is better than to arrive, and I must say that I wholeheartedly DISagree with him! BEING in Scotland is far more enjoyable and edifying than the pains I had to take to GET here! We'll skip over all the financial juggling, begging, scrimping, conniving, speculating, robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and other lengths I went to to finance this trip and just cut to the chase, as it were, of my actual journey. In the end, semper fi buddy Shannon drove me on Thursday, 6th July, 2000 from my new condo (the obtainment of which, while highly desired, very well nearly singlehandedly precluded this trip!) to the Amtrak station in Newport News. If you have never ridden a train before, put any exotic thoughts of the Orient Express completely out of your mind; riding a train is merely one half-step above riding a Greyhound bus, and riding a bus is an indignity never to be suffered if you can humanly avoid it. The lot you find leaving the driving to Greyhound make the riff raff of a Dickens novel seem clean, decent, sane, and intelligent by comparison. But I digress...back to the train!
There were two long lines to wait in to pick up and pay for my reserved ticket. Though we had managed to make it to the train station early, I managed to choose the wrong line to wait in, thus making me nearly late! It just isn't my destiny to be early to anything! A one-way coach class ticket to D.C. cost $38, with a AAA discount. I had a helluva time trying to board the train with my luggage. In addition to my large shoulder bag, I also had a large suitcase and a carry-on made abnormally heavy by the inclusion of a laptop I promised my friend Andy to mail to his father in England from Scotland. You may be wondering why I needed so much luggage for a 2 1/2 week trip. My answer to you is that I am high maintenance, and I can't be expected to 'rough it' for nearly 3 weeks! Hippy chick I am not! The consequence of my packing choices was that the large suitcase was entirely too big and too heavy for me to get up above me in the luggage rack. I therefore had to sit with it in front of me in my seat taking up all my leg room as there were not extra seats on the train. I put my head down on it and slept most of the way to D.C. rather than stay awake and wallow in how ridiculous I must have looked to anyone who walked down the aisle!
The train leg (no pun intended, although I guess there is a sort of mind association between the two words for me now as riding in a train totally crushed my legs) of this day ended when we arrived in D.C. I then had to get my luggage out of the train, which required help from a bemused conductor. The good news, though, is that once out of the train, I could piggy back the carry on onto the big suitcase, and pull them both by a collapsing handle as they were on wheels! Ah, modern ingenuity! Allowing girls to cart luggage twice their size around the world! Finding the shuttle bus to the airport was not easy, but I sorted it out eventually. A one-way ticket to Dulles International airport cost $16. The shuttle was a pain as they required us to change buses en route - which meant more lugging of luggage. Eventually, however, we did reach the airport, where I found the British Air check in with a minimum of effort. Checking that big bag was a treat, let me tell you! The lady checked it right through to Glasgow, which was an enormous help since I had to catch a connecting flight in London.
I took the shuttle to D terminal and called my dad to let him know I had gotten thus far safely and without incident. A word of advice about Dulles International airport: do your duty free shopping in the main body of the airport. If you wait to do it in the duty free shop in your terminal, you won't have anywhere near as good of a selection as there is in the main body. I am soooooooooo irate that I didn't realize that. I had been looking forward to getting a bargain on a new bottle of my favorite perfume, Lauren, which I have bought in the main part of Dulles before and which I had just run out of, only to find it was not carried in the small selection in D terminal. BUMMER! So now I am over here sans perfume - I feel NAKED, and not in a good way at all!!!
I totally lucked out on my British Air flight across the pond; I had an aisle seat, which I had requested, it was near the bathroom, which I prefer, and no one was sitting next to me! Dinner was pretty good, although I skipped any free alcohol - jet lag is bad enough without a hangover. I was all excited thinking one of the movie choices was NORA, a new film by a great director from Northern Ireland named Pat Murphy. I loved her previous movie about Anne Devlin, and have been anxiously awaiting the chance to see NORA, which is about Nora Barnacle, whom James Joyce fell in love with and later married. Anyhow, I was quite bummed to learn that only the first class seats got to choose that, and I was stuck with idiot fare - now why do they assume intelligence and taste go hand in hand with money? That is certainly not always the case. At any rate, I watched ERIN BROCKOVICH (sp?), which I actually did find entertaining, I must admit. I am afraid I got NO sleep on the plane, try as I may. Sitting in those seats is so uncomfortable. It hurts my back and my knees. If a little person like me cannot get comfy in that amount of space, I really feel sorry for taller people who have to ride planes.
Well, the plane landed, hallelujah, and I legged it out for my connecting flight. The customs guy looked askance at my most recent stamps, which said I could stay in the U.K. for a year to study. That in conjunction with my year in Ireland stamp gave him pause for concern, I guess. He didn't pursue it beyond one question, however - no full body cavity searches or anything fun or dramatic like that! I again got ripped off in the duty free department - I should have popped down a level for the excellent shopping at Heathrow, but instead I went straight to my gate. I had to take another bloody shuttle, this time to terminal one and this time amongst people who were obviously from cultures where personal hygiene does not involve soap, deodorant, anti-perspirant, or perfume. GROSS! It is at times like that when I do truly appreciate America - we love to be cleanly in the States! Fight the funk, people, fight it!
This flight to Glasgow was the business! I had three whole seats to myself, and they served me the first decent brekkie I have had since I left Ireland - LOVELY saussies (none of your nasty salty smoked American country-style sausages - yuk!), fried tomato, fried mushrooms, gamon, and a sunny side up egg. I was in heaven! The view out the window was grand. We had a bit of a bumpy and scary landing in Glasgow where the plane jerked from side to side and I was a little afraid we were going to roll, but all's well that ends well. So, I collected my luggage without incident, called home, changed some money, and went to the Tourist Information center to see about Glasgow accomodation. My plan was to stay in a B&B close to the train station and the airport, thus saving me money on taxi fares. But what I hadn't counted on was Tina Turner being in Glasgow doing the only concert she was doing in Scotland this tour - and she hadn't been in Scotland for ten years!!!!!!!!! Almost everything was booked. But the kind lasses at Tourist Information took pity on me and kept checking till they found me a B&B in Paisley not far from the train. The room was overpriced and substandard at #25 a night for a single, but the location allowed me to get to and from the train station on foot with my luggage, so I was happy to take it. I caught a cab from the airport to the B&B, which cost me #5, and then I settled in for a bit of a nap.
After a few hours with Somnus, I took a quick shower and headed in by train to Glasgow Central to do a bit of shopping. I wasn't heading to Edinburgh until the morrow as I couldn't get in to my dorm there until 2 in the afternoon on Saturday. A round trip ticket from Paisley costs #2.50. By strange coincidence, I realized that in 1997, I had stayed at a B&B in Renfrew on the opposite side of the train station! When I got to Glasgow I went straight to Sauchiehall Street to the Willow Tea Rooms, one of my all time fave places in Scotland. Everything in the tea room, everything right down to light fixtures and plates, was designed by the fabulous Charles Rennie Macintosh, Glasgow's famous artist and designer. I just love it! I was talking to a girl there who is from the outer Hebrides and who teaches Gaelic to children at a bilingual school - pretty cool!
After this visit, I wandered up and down Sauchiehall Street window shopping and listening to pipers do their thing for the tourists. It was a happy day. After calling home, I took the train back and got some chips at a chipper in Paisley - YUM! Best fries I have had since, you guessed it, I left Ireland! Drank some cool tea in my room with loads of cream and sugar just for the hell of it, read a little in some Scottish books I had bought (you didn't think I came back from Glasgow empty handed, surely!), wrote some postcards, and hit the sack VERY early indeed. By a VERY strange coincidence, my bed at the B&B had the exact same floral sheets that were on my bed at home - bizarre! For whatever reason, I fell asleep IMMEDIATELY!