Scotland2005: Hi From London

As much as things change, they still remain the same by and large. It doesn't feel like we were here just two years ago, and here we are, back in London, sitting at the same Internet cafe, just across from Victoria Station. British keyboards are differenly laid out than US ones and generally SUCK! I make lots of mistakes, so it takes a while to type, andI have to hunt and peck, as the keys are in different spots. Victoria station is still the same and seems very familiar as does Gatwick airport and the Tube system. I also still forget to look "right" rather then"left" when crossing the road, the money is big, and people smoke way more here. Can you tell I'm a tad grouchy from lack of sleep?

They say that the getting there is half the fun -- no it's not. Yeah, we had first class seats, but when you add up the time spent waiting at airports, as well as time in the air, it all becomes mind-numbingly boring, and time seems to drag. Even first class seats are hard to sleep in, and though we both took OTC sleeping pills, we both got maybe a couple of hours sleep on the flight. So we are both a bit grumpy and red-eyed. One of the perks of Delta first class is the use of a hotel room at Gatwick to shower and freshen up and change, which we both did. That woke us up a bit, and we took the Gatwick express to Victoria Station.

We are only spending one night here. Our hotel is a dowdy old lady, built along with and on top of Victoria Station, and very cool in that old hotel sort of way. Our room overlooks the train shed, which is great for me being a train watcher. Our room wasn't ready when we got here, so we stowed our luggage and took care of some errands.

First thing we needed was some of her majesty's money. So, we stood in a long line at the ATM. Then we needed Underground tickets, so we stood in a long line at the tube station. After that we needed to activate our railpasses, so we took the tube to Kings Cross station and stood in a long line at the GNER ticket office to validate the pass and get seats reserved for tomorrow's trip to Edinburgh. An afternoon out standing in line! We found out as well that there was to be major track work on the main London-Edinburgh line, and thus we'd be taking a train to central England and changing at Newcastle -- it will take a bit longer, but we aren't in any hurry.

We desparately still need to adjust to London time -- we landed at about 1130am GMT (that's +8 hours for those of you on Pacific Time.) So we are staying up as late as we can before crashing tonite, and when we get up we should be on the correct time zone. However, the lack of sleep is making us bleary eyed and grouchy - and even confused at times. We decided to head out to the big London Harley-Davidson dealer to kill some time. It's a long tube trip from Victoria station, and we got on a train, which I thought at the last minute was a wrong one -- and so we hopped off. Now I owe Tony $10, as he was right -- it was the correct train. We bought cool t-shirts at the London HD dealership that should be the envy of our local HOG chapter, and found out their chapter is having a ride on October 16th, the day before we head back to the US -- so who knows, maybe we'll tag along. We also saw "my" new bike! The one I have on order back home, and I've sat on similar ones, but never actually seen one in the color I ordered, and I'm even more anxious to get her and try it out.

We'll get some dinner soon (it's about 630p GMT as I write this) --something British, as we had Burger King for lunch. It likely will have peas and carrots, since everything here seems to have that particular side dish -- reminds me of elementary school lunches. Then we'll stay up for some more until we can't stand it and then hit the hay -- so much for Friday night party guys (not that we do much of that back in Seattle either I suppose). Tomorrow we leave early for Scotland. The weather has been quite warm and muggy here in London, and calls for a bit more sun tomorrow up north, so we are crossing our fingers.

Grumpy, sleepy and hungry at the Internet Cafe across from Victoria Station --

Gary and Tony

Scotland2005: In Seattle, for one last night

Well, here we are, packed up and ready to go. Off again to Scotland for18 days, almost two years to the day since the last trip! Tony has worked his magic in packing us into two medium sized bags, and we've just buttoned up the house.

In the morning Tony will take the dogs to the kennel while I attend one last fundraiser breakfast with a client. Then it's home, where M&M will graciously take us to the airport, and off we go-- 1st class on Delta (damn the bankruptcy, full speed ahead)to the worlds largest and messiest airport, Atlanta -- then off to London.

Just like last time, we'll endeavor to create an e-mail travelogue of our journey, stopping at Internet Cafe's to let you know what's going on. Itis great fun for us to be able to share our adventure with you, and we hope you have as much fun reading our notes as we do in writing them.

We'll arrive in London at about noon their time on Friday 9/30. We'll spend one night there getting onto "London Time", before boarding a train at King's Cross station for Edinburgh -- GNER Railway's "Flying Scotsman"(and no, not Platform 9 3/4 -- that's the train for Hogwarts). We've booked four nights in Edinburgh, and that's it -- we'll go where our railpass, the roads, or winds take us (and maybe motorcycles too -- sorryMom, but we did find a Harley dealer in Glasgow who will rent us bikes). We have some places we want to revisit, and a huge list of places we haven't yet visited.

Hopefully we'll be able to bring you regular updates, but we do plan ons pending more time out of the bigger cities, and Internet access might notbe as easily found as it will be in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

So we'll be headed off to bed shortly -- we feel like kids on ChristmasEve, with a nervous energy and butterflies in our stomachs. We'll likely talk to you next from London..

In Seattle, for one last night..

Scotland2005: Only a few days until we leave

Well, it is Sunday, September 25th and we are pulling out the luggage and making sure that we have everything we need for our trip. When we first starting planning what we were going to take, we realized that we had picked a lot of the same travel clothes that we took with us two years ago. So to avoid this, we went shopping!

So off to REI and Eddie Bauer we went. We have some good travel wick clothing, so they will dry pretty quickly and will not need any ironing. Now I just got to figure how we are getting this all into two rolling suitcases.

Anyway, our flight leaves just before noon on Thursday, September 29th. We will fly to Altlanta before connecting for our overnight flight to London. I am sure we will have another update before then.

(Note: This picture is from our last trip in 2003)

T & G