I don’t even know how to begin this blog of my epic trip to the UK. I guess at the beginning. I left Friday afternoon on a 2 hour train to Malaga to fly to Liverpool. My friends Rachel, Julia and Jan took an earlier flight because they do not have to work Fridays, and I was going to be meeting them at the hostel in Liverpool. When I got to Malaga airport, I noticed that all of the flights to London were being cancelled due to snow, so I thanked my lucky stars that I was going to a place without snow. Upon getting through security, however, I discovered that my flight also was cancelled, and I began to panic. There were no more flights that evening to Liverpool, all flights to the UK were being grounded, and I had nowhere to stay in Malaga. My parents were able to get my refund for the ticket and book a ticket for the next morning to Glasgow, but I still had to figure out where to stay. So I stood in the EasyJet line… for two hours. Finally, they told me that there was a shuttle taking people to a hotel for the night, so I got in line number two. The bus dropped us off at a nice looking hotel and proceeded to take off into the night. When all 60 passengers got to the reception desk, however, we learned that the hotel had no vacancies. So we were all stranded on a dark and chilly Malaga sidewalk, waiting for a second bus to come along, unsure if it would. About an hour later, we were back on bus number two, and I was ready for business. The second we were dropped at another hotel I was going to book it – if there was only one room in that hotel it would be mine. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea and it turned into a stampede, as if the doors had just opened for a sample sale at Neiman Marcus. I expected this behavior from the Brits, but the Spaniards, who can barely saunter down the sidewalk, I expected to take their grand-old time. I got my place, however, and went to bed awaiting my flight the following morning.
Luckily, I got a message to my friends that I wasn’t gonna make it, and that I would meet them at our second destination, Edinburgh, on Saturday evening. I like to think of this as just the beginning of a trip where everything possible went wrong. I made it to the Malaga airport for the second time to discover that ALL outbound flights were cancelled. The air traffic controllers of Spain had decided that today was the day to go on strike. Panicked again, and unsure as to when the strike would ever be resolved, I got in the EasyJet line for the second time and waited another two hours. They told me that I could get a flight Sunday morning to Belfast, which I noted was across a body of water from Scotland but figured, those are just minor details, I’ll take it. So I was shuttled to EasyJet hotel number two. I got a connecting flight from Belfast to Edinburgh, and told the girls that I would hopefully be meeting them in the hostel Sunday evening at 6:30.
The next morning I arrived at the Malaga airport for the third time expecting the worst. I did not think I would ever see Scotland. Miraculously, however, my flight was scheduled, and I was on my way out of Spain. Upon arriving in Edinburgh, I was welcomed by freezing temperatures and snow, which led my flight to stand on the runway after arriving for an hour so that they could de-ice the area by the terminal. I grabbed a taxi to the hostel, as at this point it was already past the time I said I’d meet my friends, and the taxi driver started giving me a lecture about the city, which I may or may not have understood due to his thick Scottish accent. I arrived at the hostel, finally, after 60 hours of attempted commuting, and was ready to get my vacation started.
We went out for dinner that night at a Thai restaurant, and our fun began. Unable to control ourselves, we went into giggles over the foods that we were ordering (including the words poo and thong) as if we had never had any Asian food before. We are four years old. We called it an early night, however, because they had had a long day of sightseeing and I had had several long days of sightseeing in the Malaga airport.
Monday morning, we awoke to the lovely sight of large, fluffy snowflakes falling to the ground. The city was magically covered in a beautiful white coating that was a sight for my sore eyes. The city of Edinburgh is basically the most charming and beautiful city, aided only by the blanket of fresh snow. We got a breakfast of bagels in a cute café before heading to our first destination: the castle. Well, the castle was closed due to weather, we found out. So, standing in the snow with cold feet and wet coats, we decided to hit up the Scotch Whiskey Experience – a tour and a tasting of scotch. Turns out none of us are destined to become Scotch connoisseurs, as we could barely choke down the tiny glasses we had. But the warming sensation as it hit my stomach felt quite lovely, and made my wet socks feel not so cold against my feet.
After the experience, we went to lunch at The Elephant House, which boasts being the birthplace of Harry Potter. This is the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the very first pages of Harry Potter, coming every day to buy one coffee and spend the entire day at the window overlooking Edinburgh. From this table, you can look out on a graveyard that includes the visible names McGonagall and Moody – inspiration? The food here was great, and I obviously loved the elephant themed decorations. My favorite, however, was a Harry Potter toilet seat, at which people inscribed messages to J.K., thanking her for changing their lives. Pretty cool.
After lunch we tried to go to the National Museum of Scotland, but it was also closed due to weather. I’m sorry, but how can snow affect artwork? I don’t get it. So, figuring that most attractions would likewise be closed, and sick of walking around in wet shoes, we went to the movie theater near our hostel to see Harry Potter, which was pretty cool to see at his place of birth. For dinner, we ventured out to find a cozy Italian restaurant where we had an amazing meal and warmed up from a cold day.
Tuesday was our last full day in Edinburgh and we had lots to see, so we headed out nice and early. We stopped for breakfast at Elephants and Bagels, the twin restaurant to the birthplace of Harry Potter which, as the name suggests it, had bagels. We then headed up to finally see the castle. The views of the snow-covered city from the castle were amazing and made up for the not that interesting museum inside. After the castle, we did a little shopping and headed to lunch for some haggis and fish and chips at a Scottish pub. Although the description of haggis sounds revolting (hint: it includes the word “innards”), it was actually quite good. After lunch we still wanted to see the palace, but soon decided against it when the alternative of getting a tasty treat was suggested. We went to a place called Choclate Soup, where we got breakfast the day before, and got some munchies before heading back to the hostel to grab our bags. We went to the bus station to get a bus from Glasgow to Edinburgh, as we were flying out of the Glasgow airport early the next morning, but all buses had been cancelled due to weather. At this point in the trip, we were all hoping against hope that our flight would be cancelled and we would be stranded in Edinburgh forever. Don’t get me wrong, Sevilla is a great place, but Edinburgh stole my heart and I did not want to leave. We sadly found out that the trains were running, however, and decided that we had to say goodbye for now to our new favorite city.
If you thought the train ride would be smooth sailing, however, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to our horrible luck this trip. The board said that the train we intended on taking at 4:30 was delayed and there was no boarding platform mentioned. At 4:29, the platform appeared, but the status still said delayed, so we sauntered outside to the platform… where we learned that the train had just left. Even though the platform number was not added until a second before. I’m pretty sure an empty train was just sent to Glasgow. So we had to wait for another half hour in the freezing cold for the second train. When they let us through to get on, we all started running, eager to get on before it left again. Little did I know that the real motivation for our running was the stampeding crowd of people that seemed to form out of mid air behind us, all racing towards the same door. We did make it however into the car with no heat, and remained freezing cold for the hour long journey. This is when things started to go downhill. Fast.
Getting off the train, we were eager to get into a warm bus or taxi that would take us to our hotel near the airport. After noting the taxi cue, we decided to wait for the bus… which after several minutes of waiting and a chat with a nice woman, we were convinced wasn’t coming due to the snow. So we got back in the taxi line, which we waited in for what seemed like forever, freezing cold, with no taxis in sight. At this point, Rachel got the idea to try for the bus again, which was miraculously rounding the corner and we ran to like fools. Now, our first hint that something was fishy with the hotel should have begun when the airport bus driver had never heard of our so called “airport hotel.” We decided we would just get to the airport than get a cab from there. Our second, a bit more obvious hint that something was up with our hotel occurred when we asked the taxi driver if he had heard of it and he replied “unfortunately”. Our third and most blatant hint that we should have run away screaming for the hills did occur when we pulled up to what we individually described as “a mental institution” and “the kind of place that you enter and never leave.” Somehow, even joking this aloud as we walked up the icy steps to this haunted mansion, we still rang the crooked and falling off doorbell. Now, before the door creaks open, let me set the scene for you all. A foggy, cold, snowy night in the middle of nowhere Scotland. A cab that had just driven us up a long alley filled with nothing but abandoned factories, that has now skidded away to get the hell out of here. And a creepy, Victorian-era structure that looks to be held together with tape. And then the door creeps open, and a man so far gone he could only half open one of his eyes is there to greet us. Why we did not go running after the taxi, I do not know. The signs were all there: the creepy alley, the creepy Lurch-esque door opener, the foggy night, and four innocent American girls. The stage was perfectly set for a horror movie.
Conditions did not improve upon our entrance. The drugged out man did not have our reservation, and yet still had a room waited for us, and asked us to pay in cash up front (20 pounds each). I still do not know why we paid him, but we did, and started heading up the windy staircase to our rooms. Jan had her own room, because she booked separately, and only opened the door a crack before running over to our room screaming “I can’t do it, it’s The Ring. I CAN’T DO IT.” The room, indeed, looked like a scene out of The Ring, complete with suspicious looking stains on the rug. Nothing thus far however prepared us for the bathroom, which I can only describe as downright terrifying. The toilet was overflowing with what smelled like month old potent urine, spilling over into the tub, making both appliances unusable. Is it too much to ask to be able to shower and pee? I don’t think so! Luckily we took the situation well, and started hysterically laughing for about 20 minutes. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my entire life. We then decided to take photos to document the experience, which Jan noted will probably reveal creepy ghosts or demon in the background. I honestly would not have been surprised in this setting. At this point though we decided to get real: we could not spend the night here. Unless we wanted to start becoming cannibals, which probably would have been fashionable in this hotel, we had no food, and no potential for dinner in this creepy slum. So we decided that we were going to get the hell out of this place, and ask for our money back. We decided that Rachel should do the talking, and she did a great job, but this man would not budge. He even lied, saying that we paid online when we all just handed over cash about ten minutes ago. Eager to head outta this place and never look back, except to take this man and his hotel down, which we are working on btw, we asked him to call us a cab so we could leave. Bad news was the cab was going to take an hour to get there, so we figured screw this, and started walking. After taking a few steps out the door, thinking the night could not get any more ridiculous, Julia’s legs flew out from under her and she landed on her ass on the ground. We all immediately started dying of laughter, and said that this moment was probably the 14th cherry on top of an epic trip.
Walking down the dark alley, I think our adrenaline took over and we were booking it, trying not to think about how crazy it was to be walking around aimlessly on our own. There seemed to be some sort of civilization up ahead, so we headed towards it, and ran into a teenage boy eating chips. We asked him how to get to the airport, and he told us no buses were running and we should call a cab. Yeah… already struck out doing that. He told us it would be about an hour walk, which we did not want to make in our frozen shoes. So we headed towards the lights, where we found another line for taxis. The first guy in line was clearly on something, had a black eye, and was shouting things in a crazy Scottish accent. We were pretty glad when he got into the first cab and drove away. So we found ourselves again, in the freezing cold night, waiting in a line for a taxi that may never come. It did, however, and our destination was the Ramada hotel that we saw across the street from the airport. When we told our driver where we were coming from, he responded, “Lomond hotel? That’s a shit hole.” Too bad he wasn’t there to tell us that in the first place. We instructed him to never bring people there under any circumstances.
To say that the Ramada was light years better than Lomond is an understatement. I cannot begin to describe the sight to my sore eyes that was food, a working toilet, a shower, and beds that didn’t look infested. We heardon the news in the hotel that the Scottish infrastructure was falling apart due to the snow, and that it was a week that would soon not be forgotten in Scottish history... just our luck! We grabbed a dinner in the lobby, took showers, and went to bed, not really hoping anymore that our flight would be cancelled after the day we had had. I would have loved to go back to Edinburgh, but I was ready for some warm Sevilla weather to thaw my bones.
So the next morning we got up bright and early to get to the airport, which of course did not run smoothly. To think that it would have would have been foolish given our weekend. However, looking back on it, it was all the crazy incidents that made our trip what it was. Sure, I would have saved some money by not having to go to the Ramada, but what a great story does the Lomond hotel give me? I also would have liked to not sit in an airport shuttle on the runway for half an hour in the fog at 7 am trying to find our lost plane… but it sure was an experience. So, to finish up, all that can be said was that it was an epic trip indeed.
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