Scottish Excursion

Greetings from West Calder!

Hi Everyone! Sorry, I've been slacking a bit on the updates, but honestly not much has been going on. Mostly coughing...

Saturday morning I left at the wee hours of the morning to make my way to the airport. My cab picked me up at about 4am and we headed through town. Now I've never seen Dublin at 4 am before, but it sure is an experience!! Loads of people in the streets and taxi traffic blocking everything. But after making our way through the masses, I was dropped off at the airport, with plenty of time to spare, especially consindering how few people were in the airport. I checked in fine than headed to security. I did get stopped and they went through my bag, the hold-up was my shady looking garage door opener, and headed down the corridor to my gate. It took me awhile to find my gate, because after a few loops around terminal B, I discovered that my gate was one of the 6 that were on the floor below. So I continued my way down the creepy, empty stairs, and to a security checkpoint that was completly empty, so I continued my way on through to find my gate waiting area to the left. When I got there, there were only about 5 other people waiting for the flight. Out little group of 6 remained to be the only passangers there until about 20 minutes before the boarding time, when the rest of our flight companions joined us. I got on the plane fine, granted I had to walk across the tarmac to my plane. See, I've learned that in Dublin, it doesn't matter how big your plane is, they simply do not believe in jetways and force you to walk to your plane and climb some rickety stairs. My plane was a good distance out (aprox 150yrds). Once I made it on I happily grabbed my seat (seat 20C...lol) and enjoyed getting the row to myself! The seats on this AerLingus plane were much more comfortable than the ones for my flight from Dulles. Which annoyed me, because this flight was only 45 mins!! Once everyone took their seats, the doors were closed and we got prepared to taxi. There must have been some confusion to how to get the plane into taxi mode. we started going forward, then reversed, then forward, then reversed, then backed up while turning, then forward, then backed up turning again, and again, and again until our plane was doing reverse doughnuts on the tarmac. We actually picked up a good ammount of speed, and got to watch the airport terminal whoosh by a few times before the lights started to blink, which I believe was the plane saying "stop! I'm dizzy". So we finally stopped spinning and got the plane facing the proper direction to head to the runway. The rest of the flight was nice and calm, and very short.

I arrived in Edinburgh and was prepared to go through immigration to get my passport stamped, which was one of the main purposes of this journey. I followed all of the signs for the baggage claim and exit hoping to find a short line at immigration. I didn't have any checked luggage, so I passed the baggage claim and continued through some doors, to find myself at the arrivals reception. I looked around confused, knowing I had to have missed something. I found a woman, looking fairly official, sitting at a desk right by the door I had just walked through. I went over to her and asked where immigration was, because I thought I had accidently missed it. She explained that Since I was comming from Dublin I didn't need to go through. I explained to her my situation, that I needed to prove that I had left the country. She said that she didn't have a stamp, but doubted I'd be in trouble, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. While I hope she's right, we'll see how it goes for me getting back into Ireland tonight, let alone the states in May...fingers crossed!

Laura and her Mom were nice enough to come pick me up at 7:30am, and I greatly appreciated it! We headed back to the house and had a nice leisurly breakfast. Laura and I relaxed for awhile before heading into Livingston for lunch. We ate at a really good sandwhich place, which was insanely filling. After eating, we headed over to the Cinema across the street. We went to see "He's Just Not That Into You" Despite being a chickflick I kind of liked it. It was a nice simple story with good acting. I think the reason I liked it was the cast. This movie is riddled with celebrities, which I think lended a hand to it's success. Later that evening, we headed out to Wal-mart and made some dorky shirts. We had a good time though!!

This morning, we had a nice relaxing morning, which I greatly needed, then headed to the beach! We drove to Portebello and walked along the beach. It was a really nice day, but very windy, which doesn't really compliment sand...
After the beach we drove through downtown Edinburgh on our way to South Queensferry, which is a nice coastal town. We were hoping to go to this desert place that Laura was raving about, but the town was absolutly mobbed with people! So we wandered around before driving back to West Calder. Tonight, Laura and I are going to make a stirfry before she takes me to the airport. It's been a nice weekend out of Ireland, and I've really notice how much I've missed being in a rural area and away from the city! Everyone keep your fingers crossed for my immigration experience and hope I make it back to Dublin!!

Hope all is well!
-J