Scotland <3

On Friday, March 13, 2009, Mike took me down to a beach in Vancouver, told me nice things, and asked me officially to be his girlfriend. He didn’t realize at the time that it was Friday the 13th, and luckily (for him) I said yes. Since then, we don’t really celebrate on the year anniversary, we celebrate on Friday the 13ths. We had one this August, so we decided to hole up in a cute little cottage in rural Scotland.

We trained it from London to Glasgow. It was about a 6 hours train ride. Parts of it were really pretty, but it was looooong. I was certainly ready to be OFF the train by the time we reached Glasgow. Our rental car was a block away from the train station, so we walked over and picked up our car. Here we are in the car, before we actually started driving it around. You can tell it’s before because we’re smiling.

We got talked into a slightly larger model by the very friendly car rental guy, which was pretty much too big. It made it a little stressful when needing to reverse and park and whatnot. Also, stupid dumb old Garmin GPS doesn’t know diddly squat about Glasgow. It was all directing us to turn the wrong way on one ways and stuff. We FINALLY made it out and headed toward our cottage, with a brief stop along the way to grab some groceries. Also, Mike stalled the car a good 8-10 times. Anyone who has ever driven with Mike knows how bizarre this is – he almost never stalls out. Of course, I made sure to make fun of him, even though I am too much of a chicken to do more than drive around a parking lot (which I did this trip – WITHOUT stalling) in the UK. Way to stall the car, Mike!

Finally, we were in our sweet rental cottage. Here is the view from our window:

There were cows in that field, and living in a kennel not far from there were real live working sheep dogs. Super friendly, super well behaved, and SUPER EXCITED TO GO TO WORK. Lovely dogs, and very nice sheep farmer.

The cottage left us some champagne, so we took it outside and drank it while chatting and watching the sunset. Very, very sweet and romantic end to our anniversary day.

Of course, it couldn’t be all kissy face and sweet talk – that gets kinda boring after a bit – so we dug out some games to play. I don’t think Mike understands the rules of Jenga.

Slept SO deeply that night. No noise pollution, no light pollution, just deep dark quiet. It was lovely.

Saturday morning, we decided to go exploring. We always have these great plans about relaxing and doing nothing, but we’re pretty much like chihuahua puppies on speed – neither of us can sit still for very long. We decided to ask stupid dumb old Garmin what the nearest attraction was. We were so remote that the nearest attraction was over 12 miles away and required a ferry to get there. Not even kidding. But it was totally worth it. Dunadd Fort was a perfect mix of exercise, pretty views, and solitude.

As we were driving to Dunadd Fort, I noticed a sign for a castle. I freaking love castles – not sure if y’all noticed by now. Mike is an awesome boyfriend and generally indulges me in these things, so up we went. Carnasserie Castle was another bit of a hike – not too far but pretty much straight uphill. It was actually pretty awesome – it’s not one of the “Big Deal” castles, so they let you walk around what’s left of it unrestricted. A couple areas are fenced off for safety (it was bombed a long time ago), but other than that, it’s open. They even let DOGS in this one. Also, it’s free. Free is good. As are fantastic views.

We then decided that we’d take the long way back (ie: no ferry) and pass through some different countryside. We popped into Inveraray to grab groceries for dinner, and stumbled upon the Inverary Jail, which was a bit of an interesting history lesson, but mostly just filled with hilarious mannequins.

This fellow has been caught on the pot..

This guy is apparently insane. I think he looks a bit like Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies:

After that, we headed home and ate our faces off. Junk food galore. Seriously way too much. I felt ill after. Mike and I cuddled on the couch – him watching movies while I read a biography on Queen Victoria. Apparently I am now about 85 years old. I read for fun, and not normal stuff – no, biographies on Queens. Sigh.

Sunday morning, I woke up and went for a run – the Week 2, Day 3 run. I think RunKeeper got confused or something. I know my times were the greatest, but I could pretty much stand still and do a pace greater than 49:12. I don’t even know. The point is I did it, right?

We then cleaned up and drove back into Glasgow. Dropped off the car, then hung out in a series of pubs until it was time to catch the bus to take us to the airport. On the bus, some girl was freaking out and crying and trying to think up excuses for why she was about to miss her flight because she screwed around until the last second and wasn’t getting on the bus until after she was supposed to already be checked in by. It was a 30 minute bus ride. One of her stress case lines was “Why do I always do this to myself?” I have to admit, I lost all sympathy for her at that point. It wasn’t any good reason, she was just having fun hanging out with her boyfriend and didn’t leave on time. I was a little bit meanly happy to see she had missed her flight when we were going through security.

Our flight was delayed (possibly karma for my mean feelings towards Little Miss Irresponsible?), so we hung out in an airport lounge, drinking and defacing colouring pages we got in a Disney Princess activity set. Being an adult is pretty rad. You can have candy for dinner, and no one scolds you if you draw a penis on Flounder from The Little Mermaid.

Made it home safe, sadly coming down with colds. I forced myself to run this evening even though I’m all snuffly. My thought is then I don’t have to feel TOO bad if I’m all sick and skip Wednesday, right? Times were again, shitty, but I’m getting sick and was running into the wind for a fair bit of it. Frankly, I’m just proud I went.

In other news, NINE short days until my mom lands here. I’m pretty stoked. I love and miss my mommy like crazy! I wish my dad was coming out as well. Maybe we can talk him into it later…