My cousins Sarah and Theresa are living together in Glasgow, Sarah’s doing mission work and Theresa is in grad. school. So in April I had the chance to travel to Scotland with some other cousins to visit them and see Scotland.  We ended up getting an unexpected and unwanted stay in Iceland on the journey.  Here’s a bit of what we did.

April 4th, 2019

• on plane at 7:30 PM, headed to Iceland

April 5th, 2019

• arrived in Scotland at 11 AM
• horrible plane ride – very tired
• toured Edinburgh
• ghost tours in underground Edinburgh
• tried Irn Bru (famous soda pop in Scotland)
• ate fish & chips (mandatory street food)
• mostly cloudy (not unusual)

April 6th

• toured Glasgow
• met some Scots
  • The Jackson’s: Lucy, John Joe, David and John, these guys work with Sarah
  • The Hall’s: David, and Nicholas, Nicholas is on Sarah’s team
• bus tours
• rained today (also not unusual)
• random historic museum
• tried Loren Sausage (Scottish breakfast sausage)

April 7th

• mass at St.Gabriel’s
• toured University of Glasgow
  • memorial chapel
  • Huntarian museum
• high tea at the Willow Tea Room  (complete with array of desserts and sandwiches)
• dinner at Overlee’s Pub and pop quiz
• met lots of people tonight

April 8th

• drove to Loch Lomond
• stopped at Glencoe
• Fort William
• dropped off luggage at airbnb
• walked downtown and ate at Groc & Gruel
  • ate a black pudding burger

April 9th

• Eilian Donan Castle
• Isle of Skye
  • fairy pools  (popular with kids here)
• saw sheepies  (Scottish term for, you guessed it, sheep)
• had a picnic at Neist point Lighthouse
  • only island you can drive to from Scotland

April 10th

• went to Glenfinnan
• tried McDonald’s Scottish breakfast sandwich with their famous “brown sauce”
• had Chinese food that night (pretty much anywhere you go)

April 11th

• went to Inverness  (Macbeth’s old stomping grounds)
• Loch Ness
• William Wallace monument  (Yes, the Braveheart Scottish national hero)
• tried Haggis  (actually really good)
• tried a tea cake
• visited Sterling Castle

April 12th

• Head home… we thought
• flight to Iceland at 1:00
• stuck on tarmac for 3 hours
• stuck in Iceland that night, because it was too windy to have planes fly – 50 mph
• stayed in an Iceland airport hotel (long night)

April 13th

• ate hotel breakfast
• went to continental drift points
• Blue Lagoon – gysers
• Edge of Iceland
• flight canceled again
• stayed at the Grand Hotel
• mass at the Cathedral

April 14th

• ate breakfast at Grand Hotel
• went to airport to find out our flight was canceled again and there were no flights scheduled for us to leave
• traveled the Golden Circle in Iceland  (geysers, blue lagoon, volcanic features)

April 15th

• flight to Canada

April 16th

• flight home (sleep time)

Scotland is really beautiful, people are super friendly, interesting accent and lots of history and interesting architecture and landscapes.  I would definitely go back…would just hope for a smoother flight.

Gallery • 19 Photos

Plane ride there