Scotland

Waking up at 3:30 am the morning we flew to Scotland felt really horrible since we left TGIF the night before at almost midnight! We arrived at Ryanair again, and weighed in our luggage. The lady wasn't as nice this time so those of us slightly over were doing some quick rearranging and the infamous GAP bags were starting to look as worn out as us. When we got there, we were excited to find out that there was a shuttle to our hotel from the airport. Upon arriving at our hotel, I was completely enchanted with my surroundings. We pulled up to a castle, that has been converted into a hotel, out in the countryside near Edinburgh. It felt like a dream...maybe it was I was soooo tired at that point. The hotel was beautiful and situated right on a golf course. Thanks again Bryan for all the great hotels!!
I immediately fell into bed when we got there. I barely heard Jared's last remarks as he left to go golfing with the guys. No time for naps for the guys when St. Andrews is just up the road...the birthplace of golf. Jared was way excited about St. Andrews. They were able to golf a round and take in St. Andrews. It must have been amazing.....they didn't return until 8 pm and had many golf souveniers to prove it.
After our naps the gals headed into Edinburgh. A really cool city built around its famed castle that sits atop a hill right in the middle of the city. Its not just a little hill either. It is very high and has jagged rock and terrain below it. The castle has a sordid history about being taken over and won back etc.... We didn't actually tour it this day. We walked around the city, found a great pub, and toured a cemetary. This cemetary would be the coolest setting for Halloween. Huge jagged stones haphazordly strewn about covered in moss, shaded by enormous trees, and broken tomb stone pieces everywhere. It was a little creepy even in the middle of the day! One interesting thing about Edinburgh is that it always smelled like roast beef. Strange! After visiting the GAP and some souvenier shops we headed back to the hotel.
We ordered SCONES from the lounge at the hotel. They are different than what we think of scones. They are more like a biscuit, but less flaky. The serve them with "clotted" cream and all kinds of jellies...black currant, strawberry, apricot. They were really good!! We also ordered drinks which proved to be difficult because everything has alcohol in it and they didn't know how to make anything with out that!! The boys returned exhausted from St. Andrews and showed us all of their souveniers.
Our Castle hotel



St. Andrew's--The Birthplace of golf built in the 1800's?

The next day we slept in and all went to the buffet breakfast together. It was really good. Jared tried "Haggis" and some of the other guys tried blood pudding. I stuck to pastries and fruit.
We headed to town to check out the castle tour. The castle is more like a fortress with many buildings. Its a city in and of itself up there. They have cannons that shoot off every day, and lots of look out points. Then you can tour the many buildings. It also boasts the cleanest "Lou" in the UK so I for sure had to check that out once or twice. We saw a really cool bagpiper at the top playing for a wedding and a little boy about 5 named James fully decked out in traditional Scottish attire. He was adorable. We tried to sieve through Scottish history as we went to see the crown jewels. The history was very confusing! The crown jewels however were amazing. One of the swords was as tall as me.
After the tour of the castle we headed to the Walter Scott Monument. Half of the group hiked the monument and the rest of us shopped at H&M. We ended up at Hard Rock Cafe for dinner where we got great service and hearing loss all wrapped up into one. The food was good! Then we decided to do a "Ghost Tour". It was more like a history lesson and tour of the cemetary. Only one part of it was actually scary when a worker jumps in on the group and yells "Boo"! So a little dissappointing. We got caught in the rain walking back to the cars. It was crazy!!
I enjoyed Scotland's green landscape, the tartan plaids everywhere, and the amazing castle. I will definitely go back and spend more time there.
A very rainy far away castle picture






Little James--SO CUTE!!
Walter Scott Monument

Ireland

We got up early and caught a flight on Ryanair from Paris to Dublin Ireland. This is an airline that does really cheap flights between all of the European countries. Its actually decent too....except for the fact that you can have one check in bag no more than 15kg (33 lbs.) and one carry on. They are very strict about it too! So we had to all do some reaaranging of luggage and carryons and used big Gap bags to help.
When we got to Ireland I noticed a couple of things quickly. They have row houses with brightly colored doors, its very green, they have a lot of rod iron gates, and they use a lot of dark woods in the decor of their pubs, hotels and stores. I LOVED it! We explored their downtown area in the shopping district. The streets were very clean, had a lot of hanging flower pots, and the people were noticeably more attractive then the other countries we had already been in. We found a great pub for lunch and pretty much took over the whole upstairs. We sat on nice leather couches and ate our lunches on the coffe tables. It was nice to relax. We dined for a long time. Which is true to all of the places we dined the whole week. I think we had to ask for the check every time because they just expect you to sit for a long time. Jared had "Bangers and Mash" very traditional to the area. Sausage and mashed potatoes drizzled in yummy gravy/sauce.
For our evening entertainment we went to see "River Dance". I was enamored with it. It was riveting! The dancers were beautiful and the sound their feet made was so powerful. We had great seats on the 3rd row. The guys all took turns dozing off during it and the gals couldn't stop ogling over the main dancing couple who were beautiful. The man was so nice looking he was pretty, but not in a "gay" way. He looked very irish to me and it made the show that much more amazing. The after show performance in the street in front of the theatre from our activities director Doug was pretty amazing too, although I think he pulled a muscle in his hip!




Bangers and Mash

River Dance!!
The next morning we woke up early and flew down to "CORK". Its an area in the southern coastal region of Ireland. It was amazing to fly into. Very overcast, green, and well, umm more green. The guys headed off to golf while the girls headed to the "Dingle Peninsula" (I swear I'm not making that name up!) It was a long drive to get there, but provided an amazing loop of road snaking along the coast that we drove on to see so much of the country and farm area. This is where parts of Far and Away were filmed.
We saw lots of sheep, green farmlands, coastal outlooks, and teenagers. The teenagers are sent to schools to learn traditional gaelic in this region in the summer. We got rained on a bit, but I enjoyed the change in weather. Jeans and jackets in July? Way okay by this Las Vegan. We tried a deep fried Mars bar for fun in one of the cities....because apparently they aren't fatty enough as is! It was served with ice-cream and had deep fried batter all around it. It was pretty good, but we all shared one and that was plenty!
We flew back to Dublin that night on Ryanair (barely making our flight) and headed to TGIF for some American food before heading to bed. Ireland was one of my favorite stops because the people were beautiful, the streets were clean, they seem to live simply, and I loved "River Dance".
Where the guys golfed

OUR BIG TRIP!!

Jared and I were lucky enough to move into a ward during Medical School back in Maryland 10 years ago where we met and became friends with some really great couples. We have kept in touch over the years and when we can, vacation together. The great thing about this group, is that the wives all get along, and the husbands get a long too. I didn't know it was such an anomoly until we moved and tried to find that again! We love to get together, and have such a great time when we do. These are great people and we feel blessed to know them and are inspired by them. One of the couples lives in England currently working for the Air Force as a Radiologist. They invited us all to come and volunteered to be our tour guides. They are so fun and Doug entertained us the whole week. The only thing better than touring Europe is touring it with your own personal stand up comedian! Thanks Doug and Missy for 9 unforgettable days.... and a tour of four countries (at break neck speed). In attempt to summarize something that is not summarizable (I think I just made up that word), I will break up my posts into the 4 different stops we made.

First up: PARIS
We got to ride the "Chunnel" to Paris from London which is where we flew into. We were able to tackle a lot in a short amount of time. We toured the louvre which rudely closed on us 45 minutes after getting there. Not before we caught a glimpse of the Mona Lisa however. We headed to Notre Dame Cathedral where we got some great pictures. We ate at a nearby cafe. I tried chicken and fries pronouned "frites" in France. Good thing for frites or I may have starved the first few days on our trip. We enjoyed our $6.00 cokes without ice and quickly learned to stop converting things to dollar amounts because you figure things out like your warm coke cost $6 dollars! I also learned how to squeeze into small bathrooms starting at this cafe. No "small" task for a 7 month pregnant lady. After dinner we enjoyed a walk down a quaint street and took pictures by the river. It was beautiful with the sunset behind us and Notre Dame in view. It was hard to believe that it was almost 11pm at this point and the sun was still setting. We got back on the Paris Subway with half of Paris smooshed up against us and traveled to the Eiffel Tower. The people were always nice to give me a seat on the Subway though. It was really cool to see the Tower at night. It is lit up in blue right now since France is becoming Presidents of the E.U. this year. It also has stars on it in a circle which I believe is the symbol of the E.U. Every half hour it lights up like a giant sparkler right now. Not sure if that was for the E.U. thing or for Bastille day which is the French independence day on July 14th of every year....some how we managed to be there for it!
I'll let you pick out the comedian of the group!
The entrance to the Louvre

Notre Dame Cathedral
The Whole Group


Paris day 2:
We woke up on Bastille day and decided to head to Versaille. First we loaded up on french pastries for breakfast. I can't think of a better way to start a day than eating a maple eclair filled with pudding. It was a beautiful day as we approached the gold laden gates and gigantic palace of Versaille. Thank you Louis XIV for this amazing edifice. We extensively walked through the palace enjoying the different rooms with interesting art work. All the women in the art looked the same. The men didn't look a whole lot different except they were slightly prettier and had longer hair. Interesting! The back gardens were equally impressive. With statues and cylinder trees lining all the walks. The grounds were filled with people dressed in all white. In honor of Bastille Day they dress in white. We chased down our pastries from breakfast with "Magnum" ice-cream bars for lunch.
We rode the subway to the infamous "Sewer Toure". Doug and Missy had heard it was really intersting and that it actually didn't smell. Why oh why did we believe him? So we all 10 trapesed down a stair case and found ourselves inundated with a fowl odor and rivers of murky water. After about 20 minutes of trying to be polite, we quit the charade and started plugging noses, and hiding our faces in our shirts. Terri had tears welling up in her eyes and kept gagging. After wandering around seeing some rats and smelling way more than needed, half of us darted for the stair case and to fresh air. Something I never thought I'd say in France! Relief came once back on the street, but we discovered our hair and clothes had not escaped the smell. YIKES!!
We walked to the Tower down the street for daytime photo ops and enjoyed chocolate crepes and more frites while veiwing the tower in daylight. Yes, we ate pastries, ice-cream, and crepes now. Yummy! After the Eiffel Tower, we headed to Sacre Ceour Cathedral. (Sacred Heart). A lovely town once you managed to hike up about 400 stairs to get to it. I really felt pregnant that day. This town was awesome! It has a cool cathedral with great views of Paris and is a artist haven. We loved all the art displays and vendors and ate some pizza for dinner. We were serenaded by a piano player while eating. He was amazing...ranging from Scott Joplin to ColdPLay, never pulling out a sheet of music. After rading a GAP store for bags....a long story, (Thank you Jared) we headed to the Arch de Triumphe. We went to the top and saw all of Paris. What a day!!

Versaille



Can you smell it?


Crepes and Frites rock!!
Sacre Ceour

Arch de Triumphe-Napoleon had it built to honor himself

Lake Mead with the Johnsons

Cost to change Chris' flight to one day earlier....$200

Gas for the boat for 8 hours....$100

Gas for Suburban and Camry.....$55

Food and drinks for the day.....$40

An unforgettable day on Lake Mead boating with the Johnsons......Priceless.