Throughout school and summer, with few exceptions, I do the same things at the same time and go to the same places every day. Of course there are some variances, but it helps when there is some semblance of normalcy. Every once in awhile, routine gets chucked out the window. This usually happens whenever I travel, but for the most part the break in the norm is a welcome change. It can get exhausting, though.

Leaving

Since my dad had vacation last week we talked about taking a trip somewhere. Initially, he mentioned Las Vegas, but after having enough trouble running in the heat here, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to survive out there. This led us to look for interesting places that had seats available on flights. Glasgow looked promising, with plenty of space both ways, so we left last Wednesday night with the intention of coming back on Monday. My sister didn’t go since she said she couldn’t get off work, so it was just three of us.

I was able to shift my running schedule around a little so I could still do what I needed without doing anything major while we were gone. I also worked for a few hours on Wednesday before we left for the airport, which was good. The flight to Philadelphia was pretty uneventful, but I think it left a little late.

I’ve flown on several red eyes and I’ve found that the best way to deal with them is to get up early and not take any naps the day you fly. That way, I’m exhausted by the time the flight leaves and can sleep most of the way through it. Fortunately, this was the case on the leg to Glasgow, since I had been up at six to run and was pretty busy the entire day. The flight was nearly cancelled because of some kind of problem with the HF antenna. Fortunately it was fixed, but we left late.

One weird thing I’ve noticed with crossing the Atlantic at night (at least in the summer) is that no matter how late it is, there is still light on the horizon. It’s probably because it’s so far north. The other weird thing that happened this time was that it was fairly dark for most of the flight and then the sun just suddenly popped up and blinded everyone in the whole plane. It made it tough to sleep. On the way over, I messed with my GPS watch, which I had only previously used for running and biking. It was kind of funny to see the reading at over 400 mph and the elevation in the thousands of feet. The watch was interesting to use on my runs since I got them all plotted out on Google Maps when I got back.

Scotland

We got to Glasgow around 8 or 9 in the morning local time since there was a five hour time difference. Then began the first interesting task: driving the rental car to the hotel since it was right hand drive. This was the first of many things I encountered that were similar to things in the U.S., but differed in some small but annoying way. Some other things that were like this were:

- Prevalence of “brown sauce” over ketchup. It had a similar function, but tasted more like a weak steak sauce
- No crackers or pretzels in the supermarkets. Instead, there are “biscuits”, which are a sort of cross between a cookie and a cracker
- Also, many juices sold in supermarkets are concentrated and must be diluted. I made the mistake of buying a bottle of lemonade, only to find it was about as strong as battery acid
- Hotels charge for air conditioning (if they even have it)
- Some public restrooms and store parking lots require you to pay to use them
- There are only a handful of roads in Scotland; many of them are one lane and have wider spots allowing two cars to pass
- Roundabouts are everywhere. I remember this from Ireland, too. Traffic lights would be a lot more efficient.
- Electrical sockets are a different shape and are 220 volts. Even with an adapter, plug in something that doesn’t have the tolerance and ka-boom!
- No local TV stations — the BBC station covers news throughout all Great Britain
- Bizzare signage: both on the roads and elsewhere. Several times we had a good debate as to what a particular road sign meant. “Smoking Kills” is consisely and prominently labeled on all cigarette packs.
- Sports: rugby and cricket appear similar to football and baseball, but at the same time have quite a few differences

Fortunately, my dad drove the whole time we were there (about 800 miles total, too), so I didn’t have to deal with driving on the other side of the road. I did drive the car a little, and it was real strange with the gearshift in the left hand and the feeling that there was “too much car” on the left side.

The car did have a navigation system, which helped in the cities, but had a voice that got pretty irritating after a while.

After we figured out how to get to the hotel in the center of Glasgow, I was able to get out for a run, take a quick nap, and then we headed out for lunch at a place down the street. Glasgow isn’t really the most upscale of cities — I could compare it to Cleveland or Pittsburgh in the United States — very industrial. It wasn’t very fun running in the city, but there was a bike path that avoided cross streets for the most part. For the rest of the day we walked around in a shopping district and then over to an ancient cathedral, which had a graveyard that looked like something that was right out of a horror movie. A steep hill was packed with giant headstones and statues. Later, we went near Glasgow University to an italian place for dinner, which was pretty good. We ate pretty late since it was still fairly early at home.

Even though we left the restaraunt well after 9 PM, it was still daylight outside. That was one cool thing about the trip — lots of daylight. Farther north, in Iverness, the sun came up before 5 AM and it was still twilight at 11 PM. Winters probably are the reverse, unfortunately.

The next day, Friday, we drove to Edinburgh and went to Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh was definitely a cleaner city than Glasgow and had a huge rock outcropping on which the castle was located. The whole thing loomed over the city and it was quite the walk to get up there. The castle was pretty cool and had some great views of the surrounding area, looking way out over Edinburgh towards the North Sea. The crown jewels of Scotland were also in one of the buildings of the castle.

Following that, it was back in the car for a drive to the north. My dad just said he wanted to go north and wind up in either Iverness or Aberdeen that night. On the way out of Edinburgh, we passed by the famous Forth Rail Bridge, and then were introduced to the small, windy roads that covered most of Northern Scotland. We headed into the Central Highlands and were met with some insanely steep hills and tight turns in the road. There wasn’t much in terms of vegetation or civilization — just the occasional tree or town and plenty of steep hills covered in grass and flowers. Some had chairlifts for skiing in the winter. There were plenty of motorcycles that blew by us on these roads and I couldn’t figure out how anyone could navigate them so quickly.

About the time it began to get dark, we reached Iverness and attempted to find a hotel. Every hotel we found was full as well as every bed and breakfast we came across. It almost came to the point of sleeping in the car when we found a b&b that had one tiny room available. Everyone was almost to the point of panic when we found that place. I had to sleep on a cot on the floor and we missed dinner since we spent so much time trying to find a hotel room.

On Saturday I wasn’t able to run in the morning like I had before, since the owner of the house served us breakfast. There was also an Italian couple staying there that ate with us, which seemed awkward. The hostess had a ton of food including bacon, eggs, toast, cereal, fried tomatoes, fruit, and all kinds of juice, but there was no way I could eat all of it, especially since I was supposed to do a long run that day.

One thing I noticed after watching some TV and reading the papers was that people in Britain/Scotland had a different outlook on the world than those in the United States. The TV and papers had all this stuff on Floyd Landis and doping accusations, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t covered nearly as much as in the U.S., since cycling isn’t as popular. They didn’t appear as willing to jump to conclusions as with most drug scandal reports in the U.S.

The whole outlook on the latest Middle East conflict was different too — In the U.S. there seems to be an underlying justification for the things Israel does (and hence a slight bias), but in the UK, it’s more of “everything is a mess and something must be done to end this.” In the U.S., there doesn’t seem to be any will to end the conflict. Also, it appears from TV commentary that most Britons think of Blair as Bush’s “poodle” and desperately want their country to distance themselves from the U.S. in foreign policy.

Saturday morning after leaving the B&B and ensuring we had a hotel reservation for the night, we headed north once again, this time to the northern coast. It took well over two hours to get there with more narrow switchbacks and steep grades along the North Sea. The road reminded me a lot of the Pacific Coast Highway, but a lot less navigable. There were more small towns this time. Upon leaving one town, a sign proclaimed: “Thank you for visiting: Haste Ye Back!”. Once we got up toward the northern coast, the terrain flattened out and there was absolutely nothing. Nothing. No houses, no people, no trees, no large mountains. Only some grass. After awhile of this, we hit Thurso, which is on the northern coast.

In Thurso, there was a tourist information place that had a woman working there that told me about a good place to run a little ways across the coast to the east. We also walked through this outdoor marked that had all kinds of interesting food.

By this time, it was mid afternoon and we got back in the car and drove a short distance to Castletown, where I started my long run. This was a great place to run, minus the headwind on the way back. It was a completely different environment than at home. I headed along the beach towards Dunnet Head and into some kind of tree farm that had some good trails. In the tree farm/woods, I got attacked by something and my legs got all scratched/bitten up. After spending awhile in there, I continued on to the north and made it as far as Dunnet before turning back. Along the way back, I saw some cyclists that I had also seen while in Thurso, which was interesting. The closest this could come to anything I had ever experienced was when Keith and I ran through Casey, Illinois before Nationals. A relatively flat place with nothing around and strong wind. You could see for miles. Casey didn’t border on the Atlantic, though.

After my run, we drove past where I had run and went to Dunnet Head itself, the northernmost tip of Great Britain. You could see the Orkney Islands from there and there were some giant cliffs that towered over the ocean. From there, we headed to the east and then back the way we came, to Iverness. Since the hotel room selection was minimal, I had to sleep on a cot again that night. The place had no air conditioning, so it got pretty hot. In fact, the weather was really nice almost the entire time — 60s and 70s and it didn’t rain all that much, either.

Sunday morning I did another great run along the River Ness and along the towpath of the Caledonian Canal. There were some small pedestrian suspension bridges that crossed over to some islands in the middle that swung all over the place when I ran across them. There was also a brutal hill on the way back through the town to the hotel.

At breakfast, I had my first introduction to haggis and black pudding, both of which weren’t bad. Apparently, authentic haggis can’t be found in the U.S. due to regulations preventing food from being made out of animal lungs.

We drove from the hotel to the Glen Ord distillery that made scotch. The place looked like a factory level out of a computer game, with catwalks, warehouses, and large machines. Some of the machinery looked old, like it was steam powered or something. They also had a tasting at the end of the tour, which was cool. I’m not much of a drinker and hadn’t had scotch before, so that was a new experience. Pretty powerful stuff.

The distillery was only a few miles from Loch Ness, so we headed that direction and drove along the Loch. Funny that it was a bright, sunny day, and the only pictures I remembered seeing of Loch Ness had clouds and fog. From there, we began the drive back to Glasgow, but going out of the way a bit to go to Fort William. There were ruins of a castle in Fort William that were kind of cool. Unfortunately, it seemed like there weren’t nearly as many castles in Scotland as there were in Ireland. I remember seeing castles all over the place in Ireland, but there weren’t that many here, or maybe we were looking in the wrong places.

Fort William was also next to the largest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis. We went to the base of a trail that led to the top, but apparently it takes a whole day to walk it. After getting home and looking on the Internet, there is a foot race that goes to the top and back, which is about 10 miles. The record is an hour and 25 minutes, which seems fast to me since the mountain looks to be about straight up and down.

On the way back to Glasgow, we passed by Loch Lomond, which had a bike path that ran along nearly its entire length. You would never see something like that in the United States. Furthermore, when I was running on the roads, cars would slow way down, put on their turn signal, and move into the oncoming lane, which was also something I would never see at home.

It was back to the same hotel we stayed at in Glasgow initially and early to bed, since I had to get up early on Monday to run before our return flight. I got up at 6 AM on Monday to run along the same bike path as before. This time, I noticed signs along the path for Loch Lomond, which was nearly 25 miles away. I could barely believe that that bike path went all that way, but the signs said it was part of some kind of national cycling route. We were out of the hotel by 8 AM and at the car rental place by 8:30.

The Return

Sometimes a seemingly remote and unimportant event can affect you in a devastating way. At least that’s what happened on Monday.

At the car rental place there were some other Americans who had just arrived. Apparently, they flew American Airlines to Glasgow, but were stuck in Chicago for two days because their plane had a mechanical problem. You always hear about those things after the fact from other people and don’t think much of it.

We go into the terminal and stand in line at the check in counter for the return flight to Philadelphia. It was a big line and it took forever to get to the desk. We thought there would be easy going home, since there were plenty of open seats. No problem flying standby. But that isn’t what happened.

We get to the agent at the counter, who immediately says we won’t be getting on the plane because it’s full. Full? Apparently, the American plane that had the mechanical failure left a ton of people stranded, so as many as possible were rebooked on other airlines, including US Airways. This event was the first of a whole cascade of problems on our way back.

Unfortunately, since US Airways only has one flight per day from Glasgow, we initially thought there was nothing else we could do. But then my dad has the idea to get a standby ticket elsewhere. We go to all the other ticket counters: no room to the U.S. Apparently, this cancellation has been a wrench in the works for everyone.

Then, we get to the Aer Lingus desk and realize that by going through Dublin, we can get back to the U.S. through either Boston, Chicago, or New York. How we get back from there is another issue. The time until the next Dublin flight left quickly shrank as the agent cranked out some tickets. People are all over the place in large lines, the biggest of which is behind the American counter. We get the tickets to Dublin 15 minutes before the plane is supposed to leave and rush towards the gate.

When we get to the gate, however, no plane! It hadn’t even arrived yet. All that rushing for nothing. The plane finally got to the gate and we boarded (via airstairs from the rear, how weird), but then we sit there for another 20 minutes. The plane is nearly an hour late leaving for Dublin.

We get to Dublin, rush off the plane, shuffle through an immigration line and tell the officer we are only going to be there an hour. Then, we wait for another eternity to get our bags since we were forced to check them. Normally when flying standby, you don’t check your bags in case you don’t get on the plane. After getting the bags, it’s upstairs to the ticket counter to try to get on the flight to Boston, which had available seats. When we get there: no dice! The plane was supposed to leave in ten minutes and check in was closed. If only the first flight hadn’t been late!

So then began an entire day in the Dublin airport. We had to stay outside the gate area since we didn’t have boarding passes. It really sucked. There were mobs of people everywhere and nowhere to sit down. My dad checks all the Aer Lingus flights to the states, but they’re all more or less full. A few had open seats and we waited to see if they would take us, but there were other standby passengers that went ahead of us until the plane was full. The single Dublin US Airways flight had already departed for Philadelphia before we arrived in Dublin, so that was out.

Then, as it turned out, there was an extra US Airways Dublin – Philly flight that was supposed to leave Dublin at midnight local time due to an earlier cancellation. We wait all day and nearly all night to see if there is room and we can get on. We stand in yet another huge check in line. At the last minute, the agents say there’s room and we get on the plane just before it leaves.

The seven hour flight arrived at Philly yesterday (Tuesday) morning at 2:30 AM. Since I was up for 18 hours rushing around, I was out like a rock on that flight, waking up once to see the Aurora Borealis out the window. Another first for me — I had never seen that before. I felt like a zombie walking off the plane in the middle of the night and going through immigration yet again. The immigration officer seems pretty mad to be there too. My dad talks to a ticketing agent who assures us there is room on the first Norfolk flight, but it doesn’t leave until 8 AM. I collapse into a rocking chair in the terminal and try to sleep for a few more hours. The darkness seems to last forever. I could tell it was disgustingly humid outside since the windows of the plane fogged right after we landed.

Around 6 AM we get up and sit in the food court, which is just opening. Suddenly, the departure information monitors light up with all the day’s flights. Two flights out of a couple hundred are cancelled. One of them: ours. We aren’t getting to Norfolk from Philly since all the remaining passengers on the cancelled flight will spill onto the next one.

My dad lists us on the next Charlotte flight, which leaves around 6:45, and we get on it just in time. The idea was that we might be able to get back to Norfolk from there. I spend yet another flight catching up on my sleep as we head towards Charlotte. Once we arrive it seems like a 10 mile walk to the commuter terminal where the next Norfolk flight is.

There just so happens to be three seats, just enough for each of us, to get back home around 11 AM Tuesday.

So, after about 800 miles of driving, 3 countries, 5 airports, and six flights, I am finally back. Wow.

My parents dropped me off on the way back from the airport yesterday so I could run. It was horiffic outside: well over 90 degrees with a dew point in the 70s. You could even see smog in the air. I suffered — it was a far cry from the excellent weather in Scotland. Today wasn’t much better, either. Even at 6 AM, before the sun came up, the heat was unbearable.

So now it’s back to work for another two and a half weeks, and then back to school. Routine takes over yet again.