Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 12

So, there we were on the streets of Peebles. I was pretty sure I was going to die. Prince Charming was pretty sure that no matter what happened he would be blamed for it. (Um, yes, he was right...)

We were still walking. Well, I call it walking. I was dragging along behind Prince Charming like one of my legs had gone dead. And have I mentioned the crying? 'Cause there was some. Prince Charming spotted a local man out walking his dog. Desperation set in and Prince Charming called out, "Hey, is there a pub around here?"

Yes, it sounded as though my beloved had decided to take up drinking. Not so, friends, not so. He was thinking pub = people = phone to call taxi.

The local man stared at us. (I'm trying not to remember what a sight I must have been.)

He said: "A pub?" He thought: "You idiots".

He said: "It's right down at the end of this road." He thought: "You complete idiots." Of course, he was right. I mean, doesn't everyone in this world know where the pub in Peebles, Scotland is? I thought so.

We hurried forward like men in a desert who have spotted an oasis. That is to say, we stumbled down the steep street and didn't see a pub. (Curses! Foiled again!) We walked over one more street and, lo and behold, there it was. A tiny door in a long wall of shops (all closed of course). I thought the pub was closed too, I mean, why wouldn't it be at this point? But Prince Charming pulled open the door and peeked in.

An angel in capris, shirt with rolled up sleeves and high heel sandals (OK, it was just a nice Scottish woman but by now anyone with a smile seemed angelic) bustled us into the back dining room. The front of the pub was full of mostly youngish men watching a soccer (hereafter: football) match on the telly and drinking it up.

"Oh, ye look dun in!" She said, showing us to a little table and pointing the way to the Ladies' and Gents. In the tiny cubbyhole restroom, I combed my hair and washed my face and generally, made myself feel about 50% better.

In short order we were well fed, rested up a bit and generally well cared for (and no, we didn't have anything stronger than water to drink, although, if I was ever going to take up drinking, this would have been the day!). The dining room was separated from the bar by a swinging door but we were never disturbed by the football fanatics (in other words, they were not very loud. Maybe they weren't winning?)

The nice lady had not only restored our faith in humanity, she called her "favorite taxi service" to drive us to our castle lodgings. Which begs the question whether she has a non-favorite taxi service but we were way too tired at this point to ask such a question. (By the by, I think we left this woman the best tip we gave anyone whilst on our trip. I would've given her every pound I had left, so it's best that Prince Charming handled that, considering we had three more days in Great Britain to live through.)

Then our own carriage (OK, bland little taxi) whisked us up to our castle and this was our room:
I don't know about you, but a room like this went a long way to restoring my spirit.

Not to mention a tub like this: So, despite a very trying day, we had a lovely evening and in the morning we got to see a view like this:
We ate a full Scottish Breakfast (Word to the wise: Haggis isn't that bad but avoid the blood pudding.)

We walked around outside the castle while the hotel manager called our trusty taxi service again. Yes, I know, we were rested, it wasn't that far down the hill, the dogs would probably be inside, etc. Forget it. Prince Charming, smart man that he is, didn't even ask me if I wanted to try. Besides, we were dressed up (I had on my favorite dress) because we were on our way to Glasgow to go to church (Sunday night) with missionaries our home church supports.

This is from the castle, looking down at Peebles: And this is Peebles (well, one corner of it): And here is the bus stop where we waited forty-five minutes for the Edinburgh bus: Why yes, I can read anywhere. We watched the people around us and peeked into the vestibule of a mostly empty church (it was Sunday morning) but mostly, we just sat and waited with everyone else.

Then it was back to Edinburgh to catch the train for Glasgow where someone was supposed to meet us...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 11

So, there we were in Edinburgh: Edinburgh was a bit cooler than London had been. (No surprise there, since it is so far North)
Many of the buildings were constructed of very old looking, very black stone (this was true in Glasgow, as well). Quite different from anything we'd seen anywhere else. And, of course, there were several of these around:
It was early afternoon but our backpacks already seemed a bit heavier than usual and parts of the Edinburgh streets seem to go straight up, so we decided to do our favorite tourist feet-saving thing: we caught a local bus.
It was quite thrill to ride a bus that went past or on many of the things I had read about in Alexander McCall Smith books (the 44 Scotland Street series).
We rode around for awhile before we realized we'd better find our bus to Peebles (where we would be spending the night). We had to wait at our bus stop for awhile. Older ladies with their shopping bags clustered around and gossiped. Younger people smoked and talked rather loudly. We were the only non-locals. Eventually the right bus came along and we got on. It was a double decker so we moved up to the top.

We saw lots more of Edinburgh as the bus made all its local stops:
And then we were out of the city and into the Scottish countryside. Way into the countryside (green hills and lots of sheep, none of which we took any pictures of, which I now regret). We started to wonder if we had made a mistake. We had reservations for a castle in Peebles, which, as Prince Charming likes to defend himself, looked very close to Edinburgh on a map.

Note: Peebles is not all that close to Edinburgh.

We had asked which stop to get off for the Castle Venlaw and someone told us to get off at the first bus stop in Peebles. Which is what we did. There was a car dealership and a little petrol station across from a great big hill with a sign for Castle Venlaw. We walked into a residential area (behind the car dealership) first but we quickly realized our mistake - no one else was walking here and everything seemed quiet. We walked back to the bus stop and then we saw the sign for the castle - up the hill.

Nothing for it: we started walking up. About 1/3 of the way up the wooded hill we saw a farm house with a large gate. This was not the castle. But it was home to pack of enormous, snarling dogs. Now, I am not generally afraid of dogs and Prince Charming is. But I stopped well back from those animals. Prince Charming urged me to keep walking but I balked. I walked all right, right back down the hill.

"Let's just call a cab," I begged. My feet hurt and I just wanted to get to our nice little castle room without being mauled by dogs. It didn't seem like too much to ask. So we walked toward the little petrol station (the car dealership being closed). We walked in and asked if someone could help us call a car. Answer: no. There were two employees, neither of which was inclined to help two Americans. One suggested we "try next door". Brilliant idea, except for the little business next door was closed, just like everything else.

So now we were walking through Peebles. Alone. Tired. Discouraged. We saw a sign for Tesco (a large grocery chain) we thought we might be able to find a pay phone there. So we walked to the store which was: "Opening in one week!"

Not good.

I think it was around this point that I started to think that if I were to die in Peebles the locals would just step around my body. We found another little store, asked for help and got exactly the same response as before. In desperation we asked where the police station was (thinking that at least they'd have to help us. Or arrest us. Or something). "Just down the road," they told us.

So we walked to the police station which was - are you ready? - closed. Open from 9-5 every day and it was, of course, well after five at this point. I may have thought some very wicked things about Scots at this point. We walked around the building, looking to see if there was anyone left cleaning up or anything. There were several police vehicles sitting in the parking lot. (It briefly occurred to me that we could steal one and no one would be the wiser until morning. There is no night crime in Peebles, apparently).

This trip was seeming less than awesome at this point. Prince Charming trudged ahead but I lagged behind. He may have been heading back to the bus stop (I certainly thought we should. But he couldn't forget the deposit on our nice castle room. And people say I'm the frugal one!) but I was not really heading any where. I followed behind my husband, tears streaming down my face. I wasn't really crying, not really, but I couldn't stop the tears.

"I'm just going to walk up to one of these houses and ask for help," was Prince Charming's next idea.

"Why would they help us, Americans, strangers, when no one else will?" Seemed like a reasonable question to me.

Neither of us knew what to do next and I was about to throw my backpack in the middle of the road and lay down upon it...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 10

(Last installment here) Well, we'd sadly come to our final moments in London (actually, we'd be back for one more day, but we wouldn't have much time to spend and we'd be staying in a different hotel). This is the front of our beautiful hotel:
And this is what our bedroom looked like (just remember: it was nice but it was small):
And this is the the type of money that we lavishly spent:
Funny thing about the money, I didn't have any trouble with the pound notes but their coins absolutely drove me nuts. There are about twice as many as American coins and they just don't look different enough. One shop keeper got rawther short with me over it. Prince Charming used the "just avoid coins and get change" method, so he didn't get in as much shopkeeper trouble as I did.

But never mind all that: Saturday morning we got up early and caught the train to Edinburgh, Scotland. From the train we saw sights like this:

And then this:
And then this (these yellow fields were all over England):
And, the site that most excited me, nearly five hours after our trip started: That's the North Sea. The North Sea! I'm not sure why, but it was seeing this that really made me feel like we were far away from home.

And then, there we were in Edinburgh:

Saturday's Adventures in Scotland To Be Continued...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 9

So, if you can remember way back to my last anniversary post (June 12) we left The Metropolitan Tabernacle and made our way back North of the River. (That'd be the Thames...) Prince Charming had a few game stores he wanted to find. Generally speaking this would not have been a problem, but we kept getting off and on the wrong buses. So it took way longer and way more walking than it should. Then, after finding at least one of the stores, Prince Charming wanted to find an old library one of his mentors had told him about.

Guess what? Yes, we got on and off the wrong bus again. Now it was getting later in the afternoon and we were walking more slowly. OK, I was walking slower. I was about 20 paces behind Prince Charming. I started daydreaming about jumping on whatever bus went by next, with or without him. Not admirable of me, I know, but I'm just, as they say, "keeping it real" here. A long time later we finally found this place:
We had to beg ask to be let in. "No, we didn't have an appointment"; "Yes, we only wanted to see it"; "Yes, we understand there isn't anyone to give us a tour"; "We promise we're just poor little Americans who want to look around so we can tell someone back home we saw it. Please?"

The lady guarding the door did let us in. Prince Charming looked around a little bit while she watched him like a hawk and made inane conversation (she obviously didn't know much about the collection she was guarding). I sat on an uncomfortable wooden chair, much appreciated by my feet, if not by other parts of me.

We left that building and stood on the sidewalk again. Prince Charming had started picking up on the signs that I was not happy. We couldn't decide what to do next, probably because my verbal skills had been submerged in achiness and general crankiness. It was decided that wherever we went next, we ought to go by bus. So we caught another double decker and rode that for awhile.

We ended up going to Kensington Palace. We walked through a gorgeous park and then we saw a crowd of people looking at this: Kensington is still home to many royals ("lesser royals" is how some explain it. Anyone not Queen Elizabeth II = lesser) so there was much speculation over who this might be. First guess would be Prince Charles but he was in Italy during our trip so it wasn't him. (Thank goodness. I'd hate to think I waved that enthusiastically to him.)
Speculation in the crowd leaned toward it being Prince William. Whether this has basis in fact or we all just REALLY wanted it to be William, I do not know. Whoever it was, it was fun to see a helicopter taking off from a garden right in front of you.

We saw beautiful old buildings like this (now a restaurant):
We walked around the grounds a bit:
And we went into the gift shop but we didn't do the full tour. (Money, Time, and Feet all being against it).

My mood had greatly improved at this point. I leave it to you to guess why. So Prince Charming and I caught another bus back toward our hotel. We ended up eating at a darling little French restaurant near there. The food was great and we had plenty to talk about.

Oh, and if you were wondering, we had some fried potatoes at this restaurant. (Prince Charming ordered them) The closest thing to these in the United States? McDonald's. Seriously! If you want genuine "French Fries", MacDonald's is your best bet.

And speaking of McDonald's, that would figure in our visit to Scotland as well. One last night in London and we would be on our way North...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 8

Because it has been so long since the last installment go back to this post if you need to refresh your memory (I did!).
A few Coldstream Guards remained after the others marched out. These guards, yes, you guessed it, marched around some more. In one split second one of them must have broken their tightly woven formation because a higher up stopped them and reprimanded this particular soldier. By reprimand I mean he grabbed him by his bearskin hat and shook it. I'm still not clear on exactly what happened but this poor guy looked close to tears (OK, I may have imagined that part. But he was very upset.) and - this is the saddest part - he was removed from the ranks and marched toward the back of the palace. He didn't get to march out the front gate with the rest of his fellows. They carried on, filling in the empty spot, and marched up toward the palace, by the gate, and then out. It was very impressive but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the one Guard who couldn't get it right.

The crowd began to disperse. Which meant that the female tourist who had been resting her arm on Prince Charming's shoulder (no, not me) had to get down and her male companion had to remove his head from right above mine. Close quarters is an understatement. After such togetherness, I was kind of sad to see them go. Not.

We wandered around the Buckingham Palace neighborhood before heading off to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. (That's a cool sentence, I must say!)
The tower is impressive but so are the lines to get in and the cost. We admired from the outside but decided to save time and money by not going in. I would have liked to have seen the Crown Jewels but hey, maybe next time. (Because there will be a next time. Right?) Anyway, the Tower Bridge is right there next to...wait for it...The Tower of London. Go figure. We got to see the bridge up (at which point Prince Charming took several pictures, all of which I have some dumb expression on my face and hair in my eyes because 1. It was windy and 2. I didn't know he was taking pictures. Of which the following is the least worst): The bridge was up to let this monster cruise ship through: After that ship passed by, the bridge lowered and we walked all the way across. Then we decided to look for a place to eat because it had been a long morning and we still had a long afternoon ahead of us.

We found a nice little pub where we ate in the upstairs dining room. The room was huge with several tables, couches, fireplace, and a great view:OK, just take my word for it: it really was a great view. We walked a long time along streets like this:I longed to be on every bus that passed. (What can I say? It was Friday and my feet hurt!) But we were on a mission to find this place: That's the Metropolitan Tabernacle. We're Baptist; visiting C.H. Spurgeon's former stomping ground is practically a rite of pilgrimage for any Baptist in London. Several things surprised us about this bit of site-seeing:

1. This church is not in a very good neighborhood.

2. We had to ask to be let into the bookstore. ("Yes, we really would like to come in, please!")

3. It really is kind of awesome to see things like this: So we made a few purchases, looked over their service and ministry schedule (which is interesting and a bit different from most churches in the US) and headed back out to the street. Oh yes, first Prince Charming went through a few doors that were closed to catch a glimpse of the auditorium. He didn't stand in the pulpit though, as so many of our pastor friends have described. A lost opportunity, that. Maybe next time.

Anyway, we were back out. But we weren't done with Friday yet. Not by a long, long, way...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 7

Last installment here, if you need to catch up.

We were waiting just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace for the real guards (found out later that we were waiting on the Coldstream Guards). Eventually something began to happen. Unfortunately, I had no idea what because I am, ahem, like Zacchaeus in more than one way. (If you don't catch the reference you might want to go to Sunday School sometime.)

Prince Charming used the good old fashioned "hold the camera over your head and take a shot" technique. With mixed results: And he wasn't the only one trying to get a picture of something we couldn't see: But good things come to those who wait (and wait and wait...) This is one of my first glimpses of the guards:
Pretty impressive even when you're not sure what is going on! Getting there early had paid off. We couldn't have been closer to the guards unless we had been guards ourselves. They marched around a bit: And then there was some type of "meeting of the old guard leader and new guard leader" kind of thing: More marching in different formations was followed by the Coldstream Guards preparing to play us a tune (or two, or three, or more...):
They walked past us on their way to stand in front of the main gate: Where they set up and played several songs (And yes, I am usually pretty good at knowing songs by just a few snatches of melody and no, I have no idea what they played. They played several, none of which were known to me): After the Coldstream Guard played one song the bagpipers played a song. Then the Coldstream Guard band played again. Then the bagpipers. (You get the idea) The Coldstreamers played a third time and I waited for the bagpipes but they didn't play again. So then there was more marching and the bands began to march out of the palace grounds: Followed by the guards that had been there first: But it wasn't over yet...

Awesome Anniversary Trip - Part 6

Thursday evening we rode the train back from Bath to London. We couldn't really decide what we wanted to eat and we wandered around a bit before deciding. We ended up in the Piccadilly area (can you say, "Tourist Trap"?) There were a lot of people around, even more than we were used to seeing. We found out later that Miley Cyrus had been in that area opening her new Hannah Montana movie.

Such a missed opportunity for us...not. Although it did explain why some people were carrying around life size cardboard cut outs of Miley Cyrus, a question we had been too hungry to ponder.
We ended up at a British pub. No, not for drinks. Most of the pubs we encountered had very nice dining rooms (usually upstairs). This meal is representative of several we had during our trip: Yum! Prince Charming still marvels at how good the peas were. He is not normally a happy eater of peas but they were really good in the UK.
Yes, he liked my meal more than his own, but they were both good.

So after another wonderful night's sleep we got up early (again) to go to Buckingham Palace (again). We got there plenty early so we posed for a few pictures:
And explored the monument to Queen Victoria a bit more (and took another picture of both of us):

At this point we thought we'd better stake out a spot right in front of the bars, which we did. It was a good thing we did because it started getting crowded very quickly:
Now, standing as close as we could to Buckingham Palace, without being inside the gates, we...waited.

Prince Charming amused himself by taking many pictures of what was going on inside the gates (not much): After a long wait some mounted guards rode by but I (being the vertically challenged person that I am) couldn't see them very well.
Awhile after that, F Company Scots Guards (matching the guards already on duty)and their bag-pipers (band? detachment? I have no clue) marched in: We could hear the bagpipes well before we could see anyone. Actually, I heard them before Prince Charming. I felt kind of stupid telling him, "I think I hear bagpipes" but, then again, we were in Great Britain. Stranger things have happened. After they arrived, the company marched around, as the bagpipes played.
At this point Prince Charming and I were pressed against the bars by other foreign tourists. One girl rested her arm on Prince Charming's shoulder, occasionally knocking off his sunglasses. I can't even describe to you how close her boyfriend was to me. "Most uncomfortable" is all I'll say about that.

And the Coldstream Guards hadn't appeared yet...