Super Nice Scottish People

Oh my.......Overnight Flights are not my thing. I slept 2 out of the 6.5 hours of my flight, so I was very shaky upon arrival to Glasgow. Now, what was I doing landing in Glasgow when my tour starts in Edinburgh? I got a cheaper flight and had read online that it was super easy to catch a bus between the two cities (maybe for most people, not for me). I had already purchased the bus ticket online as I am super anal about having all my tickets for travel. The only ticket that I could get was for two hours after I arrived, so I thought that I would have to wait at the airport and twiddle my thumbs. Luckily, the super nice lady who sat beside me on the plane told me that was ridiculous. The shuttle bus to Glasgow City Centre leaves from the airport every ten minutes and that I could catch a bus to Edinburgh from Buchanan Bus Station. Thank goodness for nice and helpful Scottish people!

The super nice Scottish bus driver from the airport let me use my ticket even though it was for a different time. He even helpfully pointed me in the right direction to where my next bus was going to be located. Thank goodness for super nice and helpful Scottish people.

For the next leg of the journey, the driver checked my ticket and did not mention anything about the incorrect time, so I was grateful and settled in for the hour long bus journey. When we arrived in Edinburgh, people would randomly ( at least I thought so) hit the stop button and disembark. There were no announcements of stops, no digitalized signage within the bus either. WTF? Oh man.....thankfully, I asked the lady across the aisle, "Do they not announce the stops?". She replied no, asked me where I needed to get off and told me that it was the stop immediately after hers. We then had a pleasant conversation of my upcoming tour and she hoped that I would have a great time in Scotland. She suggested that when she got off the bus that I should go sit by the driver and to tell him where I needed to stop. I thanked her for her help and did exactly what she told me to do. Thank goodness for super nice and helpful Scottish people!

Cab drivers in Edinburgh are.....wait for it.....super nice and helpful too! They are also very talkative.
My hotel is great! My room is beautiful and I have a super view of older buildings and a river in the distance. I was so very exhausted, showered and decided that I would order room service and rest before taking a haunted tour of Edinburgh in the early evening.

First thing: room phone didn't work . I was basically in my jammies and did not want to change and go to reception, I was able to flag down a cleaning lady in the hallway and she got her boss to see what the problem was. He was a charming young Polish man who kept calling me Madame, as I kept looking around the room to see who he was talking to. He explained to me that the hotel was installing new phone lines and was encountering some problems. Would I like to move to another room? I said no, I loved this room, never used the phone, only just this one time for room service. Well then, he took my order and he returned with my food about 15 minutes later. I thought it was delicious, unfortunately within an hour or two I started feeling a bit queasy. I chalked it up to jet lag and being overtired. I did not want to miss the Haunted Edinburgh tour that I was supposed to go on. I should have stayed in and rested.

I went on the tour as scheduled thinking that I could handle it as it was only about an hour and a half long and that I had already paid for it. The young men running the tour were a hoot! It was both entertaining and educational! At about the hour mark, I got a splitting headache and started feeling extremely nauseous. Oh noooooo. I needed to leave then and there. I split from the group, flagged down a cab, talked to the super nice cab driver while mentally willing myself not to puke in the cab.

I got to the hotel and my room just in time. I won't go into detail, let's just say that it was a miserable experience. I vowed to never eat again and I soooo wanted to be at home in my own bed. I was able to get a good night's sleep after four hours of intermittent heaving. I actually slept in. After my vow of never eating again, I went down to breakfast and ordered the plainest thing on the menu ( a scone) and ended up with Eggs Benedict with salmon. My stomach did a little turn, I sent the food back even though the surly ( if a five foot nothing Polish girl can look surly) waitress gave me quite the look. I ended up with what I wanted and my stomach seemed fine. I wanted to add that I don't think it was my room service meal that made me sick, rather my hamburger at Glasgow airport, I will never know.
Whew! Longest post ever! So did I get food poisoning? I am going on a......wait for it....walking food tour of Edinburgh this afternoon. Wish me luck!!!!!Read more