Homeward Bound!!

Happy 31st Birthday Michelle!!

Woohoo!!! We are homeward bound! So what if it's 5:30am, we're going home! We got up and on the road early as we had a very long trip ahead of us, 10-11 hours. At 8am we stopped at a rest station for a big breakfast. I was in and out of sleep for most of the journey. Somewhere along the wonderful M6 was another accident. We were stuck in traffic for an hour getting through this. Fantastic. We eventually made it home around 4:30pm with Keith driving every inch of the trip home and 99.9% of the entire trip around Scotland. I'm not disappointed he gets bored in the passenger seat and would rather drive. I on the other hand would have us in the ditch because I'm gawking at everything I see. We were both very happy to be home.

We had a fantastic trip and couldn't have covered more of Scotland if we wanted to. It was a bit ambitious but it was a great way to see as much as we could and know what we want to go back to see and what no to. My favorite part of the trip was definitely St. Andrews, then the Scottish highlands. Oban was also a favorite. For what I saw of Edinburgh it is a beautiful city and I definitely want to revisit. With such little time spent there and most of it in the dark, we really couldn't enjoy it's full potential. We have learned the max time for a trip of this sort is 10 days and will keep that in mind for next time!

Some of my observations on our trip - the Scots are generally friendly people, the accents range from easy to understand to thick as can be depending on what part of the country you're in, I believe all street signage is in both English and Gaelic (it definitely is on the Outer Hebrides with some signs in Gaelic only), Scotland has different money from England -I assumed they had the same as it's all British pounds but it's issued by the Bank of Scotland and England's by the Bank of England (makes sense really) and even though it's the same currency apparently the English sometimes will not accept the Scottish pound, but the Scots will always accept the British pound. A point I have learned since moving here is don't get the Scots mixed up with the English. Most English prefer to be called English rather than British and the Scots always want to be called Scottish - being called British makes them too similar to the English and they don't want to be anywhere similar - I compare it to us not wanting to be mistaken for Americans. I'm sure I made many other observations during the trip, but am drawing a blank at the moment.