| SCOTLAND VACATION 2004 May 18 - May 30, 2004 JOURNAL ENTRY 11 entry begun on May 25th, 2004 at 23:00 Kelso Time This morning I got up at 7, an hour before the alarm was to awaken me. I got dressed carefully to avoid waking up Ginger, grabbed my journal, and went out to the nearby news agent (the British equivalent to a convenience store, basically). I bought a Diet Coke and sat out in the cool morning air for half an hour writing in the journal. At 7:40 or so I went and got what appeared to be like a Starbucks Frappucino, to take back to Ginger as a morning treat. It was called a Mocha Latte, and was not quite the same (though still quite tasty and well received). A continental breakfast was delivered to our rooms at 8, made up of corn flakes, orange juice, yogurt, and a croissant (tea and coffee were already available in the room). After breakfast in bed, we got ready, double checked the room, and checked out of the Travel Lodge. In Britain you pay for the room in advance, so all you have to do to "check out" is drop your key(s) off and go. Our first stop of the morning was planned to be Stirling Castle. We thought we had read in a flier that the admission would be £3.50, but we had misread it and in fact the price was £8. Having been in so many castles already, including the terrific Doune Caslte the day before, we decided it would be good enough to take some pictures from outside. Since we had already paid our £2 to park, we decided to walk down a nearby path into a cemetery and take some shots of some of the area surrounding the castle. I went back to the car and got my journal, and made a rubbing of an embossed map we found of the surrounding area (I don't think it will scan well, though, so it won't be included in this journal). Leaving Stirling, the plan was to head towards Roslin Chapel on the way back to Kelso, perhaps finding a spot along the way for lunch and a cup of tea. Mick took us up past Edinburgh Airport to a mall so we could have lunch at the food court there. We had lunch at a place called Mathiesons in the food court, where I had a chicken salsa sandwich, Ginger dined on chicken salad, and Mick had a cheese and pickled… something sandwich. After lunch we went to an Italian ice cream place called Nardini's, where for only £1 each we had great cones. Ginger had the mint chocolate, I had the cherry swirl, and Mick had hazelnut. As is often the case, I chose one Ginger wanted more, and there were attempts to trade (we compromised and shared). We walked through the mall as we ate our cones, looking at the different stores they had. We spent almost an hour in a huge Safeway that was one of the mall's hubs, seeing all the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between their groceries and ours. We got a few things for family and friends, then hit the road for Roslin. IMAGES FROM JOURNAL ENTRY 11 ---> |