Epic European Adventure, Volume 6A

The Highlands! (Please hum the theme song from the show Highlander while reading this post.)

Hugh decided that he wanted us to take a day trip to see the Highlands in Scotland. We discussed renting a car and driving on our own, but after looking at the landscape (rough inclines) and thinking about driving a standard on the opposite side of the road; we decided to go on a tour. Hugh looked around on Tripdavisor and discovered a tour called “The Hairy Coo”. I’m not joking. It’s supposed to be a play on words in order to sound like “hairy cow”, not a porno tour. The way this tour works is that it’s actually free. They simply work on a tips only basis, and they had good reviews. Hugh reserved us seats for a tour and we were set.

Now before I begin telling about all the cool things from the Highlands you’ll have to take a step back in time to the night before we left for the tour. We had to meet at a specific location between 8:30 and 8:45 on Friday morning. The location was on the Royal Mile, and we were staying about 2 miles away, down a very large incline. The night before we decided to go down the street to a nice little pub called The Orchard. It had great drinks and an incredible atmosphere. We thought we’d get a light dinner and one drink before turning in early since we had the tour in the morning. Well…..we ran into the guy that owns the property where we were staying and he invites us to join him. He starts buying us beer and the time slips by. Hugh and Stephen then move on to some whisky, and even though we know we have to get up early we just decide to go with it. We were on vacation and having a good time. It was after midnight when we all three walk the 300 yards back to where we’re staying. As we’re falling into bed, I set the alarm on my watch for 7 a.m. local time.  

I wake up to Hugh telling me that we overslept like crazy and that I have 20 minutes to shower and get ready before we have to leave. I stumbled into the bathroom trying to force myself awake and take the world’s quickest shower. We leave with Hugh wearing the camera and I have the backpack with our rain gear and other stuff.

 This is the street view of the hill. We walked to the red "X" and then would take a quick left and walk up an even STEEPER hill to the Royal Mile. I NEED all of you to understand that this is more of a taxi situation.

We start up the hill. It’s lined with businesses on both sides, but it’s very steep. Hugh informs me that we have fifteen minutes to get up the hill and find the place that we’re supposed to meet the tour. I want to remind you that it’s in the upper 40’s and we are literally half-running up this hill. Let me share some dialogue:

Jenn: “Shouldn’t we take a taxi?”

Hugh: “No, we can make it. We just have to run a little bit.”

Jenn: “Um. I’m sweating and it’s cold out here. I didn’t know we were working out this morning or I would have brought my inhaler.”

Hugh: “I don’t want to spend seven pounds on a three minute taxi ride.”

Jenn: “@$#% @%$$*@@$%)%”

We make it up the hill with about 7 minutes to spare. At this point I’m thinking that The Hairy Coo better be worth all of this effort. I was confused and sleepy. I couldn’t figure out why my watch alarm hadn’t gone off, and I was pissed that I’d just taken a shower to simply sweat like a man before we even left town.

We locate the meeting place, but it’s closed. In fact, other than a few delivery men around, everything is closed. We start wandering around thinking that we must have the wrong address. We were approached by a woman that asked us if we were lost. Let me share our lovely conversation with her:

Nice Scottish Lady: “Are you guys lost? Can I help you find something?”

Hugh: “Yes! We’re looking for so-and-so pub on so-and-so street. Can you tell me if this is the right place?”

Nice Scottish Lady: “This is the right place. What time are you supposed to be there?”

Hugh: “The tour information says that we have to be there between 8:30 and 8:45. We’re starting to get worried since nobody seems to be there.”

Nice Scottish Lady: “Well, um…it’s only a quarter to six.”

Hugh: “WHAT?”

Jenn: (in background starts to laugh hysterically)

Nice Scottish Lady: “Yes, it’s actually only a quarter to six. You’re quite a bit early. This is the right place though.”

YUP!! That’s right. We were a bit early. Hugh had woken up to go to the bathroom and decided to check the time on our iPod, which was set to Houston time. He did the math in his head and decided that we had overslept. MY BANKER HUSBAND apparently had a small problem adding. Instead of waking me up at 7, he woke me up at 4. We had less than three hours of sleep and were standing in the middle of the street pouring sweat in the cold. Hugh started apologizing like crazy. I wasn’t mad at all; it was obviously an honest mistake. However, I was a bit pissed that we hadn’t taken a taxi. We ended up walking around and exploring and then sitting in a Starbucks to have a hot chocolate and warm up. While we were sitting there my watch alarm starting going off. 

I simply let it beep until it had finished, looked at Hugh and said, “It’s time to get up.”

Side note: We’ve told a few people this story and everyone asks the same question. “Why didn’t you realize that it was earlier since it was obviously dark outside?” Well- it’s not dark outside for more than about 4 hours in Edinburgh during the week of the Summer Solstice. It’s very similar to Alaska where they get periods of all light and darkness. In fact, if we’d traveled a few hours north we’d have been in Aberdeen which stays light all summer long.

I'll do the actual post on The Highlands tomorrow. I'm exhausted from reliving this situation. ;)