February 27th Wednesday

I got up at 9:00am and had some cereal for breakfast. I showered and finished packing. I eagerly got ready for the day. Suddenly our buzzer rang. It was the mailwoman saying she was going to leave a package on top of the mailboxes. I was expecting one from my parents so I ran down to get it. I opened it on the way up and discovered a shirt in it. The shirt had a very pretty design and French all over it. I went ahead and packed it in my bag to take with me. I was worried about the weight limit. I think my carryon was just at the weight limit and just at the size restrictions. Hopefully they wouldn’t try to check it. I went ahead and emailed my parents to say thank you and let them know that it arrived safely.

I hopped on the metro and took it to the Beauvais airport bus stop. I went up to the ticket window and the man said something. I didn’t understand so I just asked for a two-way ticket. He said “Yes, but which flight are you catching?” I couldn’t remember the flight number so I just said I was on the one to Glasgow. He said “Dépechez-vous!” (hurry up!) I was confused and said “Dépeche-moi?” He said “Yes! The bus is about to leave!” I was under the impression that we could take any bus out to the airport but I hurried up and fumbled for my credit card. After paying I ran to the bus and loaded my bag. Then I hurried on… and waited for about 10 more minutes before the bus started moving. Hurry up indeed.

Finally we started on our way to Beauvais. It was the normal scenery of green fields and Buffalo Grills. One interesting thing was that, pretty close to Paris, we were behind a trailer. The car was stopped but the trailer was shaking back and forth. It looked like there was an angry animal in it. I thought that maybe it was a farmer taking an animal home from the Salon d’Agriculture. Then I got a look at the car pulling the trailer. That’s right- a car. There was one of those old, dinky little French cars pulling the trailer. It was a strange sight to me. I didn’t know cars could pull a trailer.

I got to the airport just fine and went to stand in line. I was worried because the check-in line was going very slowly. I got through the line with 15 or 20 minutes to spare on the final check-in time. I even got through without having to pay the fee at the desk! Lucky me. I still had to wait a while after security though.

We boarded the plane and I made it through the flight okay. I was very sleepy. Then, I looked out and saw some green hills and sparkling water. We landed in Scotland!!!

I made my way through the airport to the passport control desk. Since I’m not a member of the EU I had to step aside and fill out a form. The woman at the little podium gestured me forward. I came up while eyeing a girl frantically searching through her luggage. The woman leaned over to say “Ma’am, can you move aside to search for your passport please?” The girl looked up with eyes almost about to cry, “No, I most certainly can not!” This didn’t bode well.

The woman started out with normal questions that proceeded to become tougher. I felt especially stupid when I had no address to put down for where I was staying. I hadn’t asked Megan for that information. I just put down the town. Then the woman asked for my friend’s name. All I could think of was Megan. I couldn’t remember a last name. I was interrogated about where I met this person and why I was staying there. She also asked how many times I’d been into the UK before. By the time I passed the check point I felt extremely guilty for some reason and was wondering what my own name was.

I made it through though and eventually saw Megan sitting in some chairs waiting for me. I was worried I wouldn’t recognize her in a crowd, but I saw her! It felt just like old times seeing her again. We stopped by the Starbucks in the airport to get a lemon chicken sandwich and some water. Then we went out to find Megan’s car in the parking lot. We plopped my bag in the trunk and I got in the front left side of the car. The plan was now to go to Culzean Castle.

I got used to riding on the left side of the road pretty quickly. I only freaked out when I thought Megan was turning into the wrong side of the median. I also noticed that there are a lot of roundabouts in Scotland. We made our merry way south along the coast toward Ayr and the castle.

The scenery was beautiful. There were bright green hills dotted with sheep. These green hills turned into steep cliffs that dropped down to the sea. We got lost a couple of times. We stopped in on the town of Ayr to ask for directions in a kid restaurant called Pirate Pete. I’m very glad I don’t work there. Since we’d stopped for directions, we walked the few yards to the coast to look out. It was beautiful. It was also very cold. We looked and snapped a few photos before climbing back in the car.

We eventually found Culzean Castle. I asked “So you don’t pronounce the Z?” Megan replied “Not in Culzean but we do in normal words like ‘zebra’.” It was fun chatting on the way. When we got out of the car the parking lot was basically empty. Apparently not many people like to tour Scotland in February. We peeked in a garden but it was closed. The castle was amazing. It sat atop some rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean. The castle itself was closed but we were able to wander around the outside of it on the grounds. It had a large lawn with a fountain in it.

After the castle we started our drive north to go into Stirling. It took about an hour and a half and we passed through Glasgow. (Here I saw a hotel called Hotel Menzies. http://www.menzies-hotels.co.uk/hotels/glasgow/menzies_glasgow I had to explain to Megan why I found that hilarious. Apparently they don’t use that word in Scotland.) I was fairly sleepy by the time we made it into town. Megan took me on a little loop past Stirling Castle. This castle was also up on a ridge and looked impressive all lit up at night. We also took a swing by the Wallace Monument where we got out of the car to go up the hill a ways. This is a tower dedicated to William Wallace, a national hero. There’s a statue of Wallace outside the gift shop and information center. The people of Stirling were disturbed though when the statue bore more of a resemblance to Mel Gibson than Wallace. His shield even says “Braveheart.”

Megan and I got back in the car and finally made it to her apartment. We were both quite hungry at this point since it was around 9:00pm or so. I helped Megan make some dinner. We cut up different vegetables and cooked them with tomatoes to be served over rice. We also ate some salad that had tomato, avocado, and feta cheese on it. Megan made a mustard dressing to go on it.

After dinner we had some chocolate. I also gave Megan the Oreos I’d discovered in BHV. They’re her favorite cookies. I also had some hot water with lemon and honey in it. My throat was starting to get very sore. We chatted and caught up. We had the television on in the background. We ended up catching this very strange ER show. We saw two different men get their… areas sewn up. That was when I discovered that you could show all of the male anatomy on Scottish TV.

We ended up going to bed around 12:30. I even had my own room to sleep in.