France. I'm in France.
Anyway, moving back in time to bonnie Scotland where I believe we were just traveling to Glasgow. Now as a city I wasn't super impressed by Glasgow (sorry Scottish friends) but the place that we stayed in was absolutely gorgeous. It was an old converted house that to my understanding was owned by a few of the residents and the rest of the room rented out (like the room we stayed in). We were met by Felix the renewable energy engineer and Toby (I'm not sure what he did). They showed us around the place, gave us the Wifi password and Netflix password and then gave us a map of Glasgow with places highlighted that were good to eat. After that welcome we settled in for the night ready for our exciting day to follow, slightly exhausted from the hike we had done that morning of Arthur's Seat.
We awoke. Which was good because we had a tour booked that day to go to (drum roll please)... the Highlands. This included Glencoe, Loch Lomond, and Loch Ness (cue gasp of awe). We walked into Glasgow and successfully found our minibus. With the sound of bagpipes coming through the speakers we started our tour with our tour guide; Grant. First place we drove pass was Loch Lomond. This was the first loch I've seen and it didn't disappoint. Even our brief look driving by was enough to fill the soul with awe of creation.
Loch Lomond
We then moved on to start driving through the highlands, stopping regularly in order to have photo opportunities. I can't tell you much about the places but I think that pictures speak louder than words, so prepare to be bombarded.
That's snow... I was freaking out!
Glencoe
We then got to Glencoe where the sad tale of the MacDonald massacre was told to us. It was hard to fathom that such a beautiful place could hold such a sad history. It's hard to know how to write the wonder and awe I felt when looking at these beautiful sights, words do not seem sufficient to write about the colour and the splendor of the mountains and valleys. Every shadow, every cloud, every tree in perfect placement to create the picture of absolute majesty. The heavens do indeed declare the glory of God and the earth displays his power. Even in it's corrupted state it is beautiful. Praise seems very appropriate in these places.
Emo cow (also known as a highland cow)
Loch Ness
"IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!"
Found Nessie... you can stop looking now.
We drove all the way to Loch Ness, stopping at another loch, the name of which has escaped me, where Amelia had a whiskey tasting. At Loch Ness we had a boat cruise for an hour, which was amazing! Surrounded by Scottish countryside (keeping an eye out for Nessie) and on a boat... doesn't get much better than that! Needless to say we had no sightings of the monster but we got an eyeful of beautiful mountains and a castle! It was phenomenal!
The drive back to Glasgow from Loch Ness was only interrupted by one stop to stretch our legs and get some refreshments. Back in Glasgow we went to a Scottish pub for dinner where Amelia decided to try some haggis. For those of you who don't know what haggis is (and after you hear what it is you might wish you had stayed that way) it is "Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock," (Wikipedia). After she had taken the first taste I then tasted some myself. It wasn't too bad at all, just tasted like really rich meat pie filling.
That day was the first we hadn't walked massive distances and it was wonderful to have that break. Little did we know that the next day would have enough stress and bother to cover a week.
The next day was the day that we would fly out to Dublin. We decided to have a lazy morning just relaxing as we did not need to get to our plane until 12:30. Finally we packed up and walked into Glasgow with our packs on our back. We manage to find the bus stop we needed and caught the bus with just enough money (down to our last pence!). About 10mins into the bus trip we see a sign: Glasgow Airport. Then we saw a sign pointing in the opposite direction to where we were heading reading: Glasgow Prestwick Airport. With sinking heart we then realized that we were headed to the wrong airport. Turns out that Glasgow Prestwick Airport isn't actually in Glasgow. Crazy Scots. We then look up where we were supposed to be and it is 40 minutes away from the where we currently were and we were about 10 minutes away from Glasgow Airport. We knew that we would miss the flight due to the fact that we would miss the chance to check in luggage. So we called up Ryanair on a pay phone (6 pound later) where they tell us to head to the other airport and they would sort us out with another flight. So we literally turn around and catch the exact same bus we had just hopped off back into Glasgow. From there we caught the train out to Glasgow Prestwick (took us 40 minutes). At the airport we walk up to the desk to ask what our options were. We were then told that the next flight to Dublin was tomorrow at 1:30pm. We had no idea what to do. We asked what our other option were and were told that there was a flight leaving that night for Dublin from Edinburgh and we might be able to make it. We decide to go for the flight and pay for it. We then hopped on the exact same train we had just caught back into Glasgow. On the train we booked a Megabus to Edinburgh for that afternoon. In God's mercy we made our flight and we landed in Dublin safely!
In Dublin we caught a taxi to our accommodation and I have never experienced a scarier drive in my life. The driver was cranky due to not earning much money that day and this was manifested in driving in no particular lane and really fast. I think we almost died multiple times, but the Lord obviously wasn't done with us yet. We arrived and we actually had lovely accommodation with a lovely Irish woman who told us of things to do in Dublin and surrounding areas. And there dear friends I will leave you, but with this thought.
After such an awful day both Amelia and I were struggling to feel happy (obviously). There may have been tears and the sinking feeling that comes to you when you realize what has happened is truly awful. That night however when we were waiting for our flight I flipped open my Bible to this verse: "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad." (Psalm 118:24) This was hard to grasp. After such an awful day, where we ended up in 3 different cities, and spent a lot of time and money we were supposed to rejoice? I realized that yes, today had been awful, but God's mercies and his provision was so much greater, that even if I said that the day was terrible, I could still rejoice in that God gave me an opportunity to serve Him in every situation. I rarely grow at all in moments of comfort and when everything is going well, when I'm tested it forces me to grow in trust and faith that God will ALWAYS pull through, even if I can't seem to see it. So with that little reminder here is two last photos.
The drive back to Glasgow from Loch Ness was only interrupted by one stop to stretch our legs and get some refreshments. Back in Glasgow we went to a Scottish pub for dinner where Amelia decided to try some haggis. For those of you who don't know what haggis is (and after you hear what it is you might wish you had stayed that way) it is "Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock," (Wikipedia). After she had taken the first taste I then tasted some myself. It wasn't too bad at all, just tasted like really rich meat pie filling.
That day was the first we hadn't walked massive distances and it was wonderful to have that break. Little did we know that the next day would have enough stress and bother to cover a week.
The next day was the day that we would fly out to Dublin. We decided to have a lazy morning just relaxing as we did not need to get to our plane until 12:30. Finally we packed up and walked into Glasgow with our packs on our back. We manage to find the bus stop we needed and caught the bus with just enough money (down to our last pence!). About 10mins into the bus trip we see a sign: Glasgow Airport. Then we saw a sign pointing in the opposite direction to where we were heading reading: Glasgow Prestwick Airport. With sinking heart we then realized that we were headed to the wrong airport. Turns out that Glasgow Prestwick Airport isn't actually in Glasgow. Crazy Scots. We then look up where we were supposed to be and it is 40 minutes away from the where we currently were and we were about 10 minutes away from Glasgow Airport. We knew that we would miss the flight due to the fact that we would miss the chance to check in luggage. So we called up Ryanair on a pay phone (6 pound later) where they tell us to head to the other airport and they would sort us out with another flight. So we literally turn around and catch the exact same bus we had just hopped off back into Glasgow. From there we caught the train out to Glasgow Prestwick (took us 40 minutes). At the airport we walk up to the desk to ask what our options were. We were then told that the next flight to Dublin was tomorrow at 1:30pm. We had no idea what to do. We asked what our other option were and were told that there was a flight leaving that night for Dublin from Edinburgh and we might be able to make it. We decide to go for the flight and pay for it. We then hopped on the exact same train we had just caught back into Glasgow. On the train we booked a Megabus to Edinburgh for that afternoon. In God's mercy we made our flight and we landed in Dublin safely!
In Dublin we caught a taxi to our accommodation and I have never experienced a scarier drive in my life. The driver was cranky due to not earning much money that day and this was manifested in driving in no particular lane and really fast. I think we almost died multiple times, but the Lord obviously wasn't done with us yet. We arrived and we actually had lovely accommodation with a lovely Irish woman who told us of things to do in Dublin and surrounding areas. And there dear friends I will leave you, but with this thought.
After such an awful day both Amelia and I were struggling to feel happy (obviously). There may have been tears and the sinking feeling that comes to you when you realize what has happened is truly awful. That night however when we were waiting for our flight I flipped open my Bible to this verse: "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad." (Psalm 118:24) This was hard to grasp. After such an awful day, where we ended up in 3 different cities, and spent a lot of time and money we were supposed to rejoice? I realized that yes, today had been awful, but God's mercies and his provision was so much greater, that even if I said that the day was terrible, I could still rejoice in that God gave me an opportunity to serve Him in every situation. I rarely grow at all in moments of comfort and when everything is going well, when I'm tested it forces me to grow in trust and faith that God will ALWAYS pull through, even if I can't seem to see it. So with that little reminder here is two last photos.
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