We got up this morning feeling like we are now “atime-atised” to this time zone.  We head down for breakfast.  Just as the elevator arrives a young man joins us to go down.  He seems “dressed for golf”.  Stu asks if he is playing today.  He smiles and says “The Old Course today”.  He tells us that his foursome were drawn in the lottery 10 months ago.  You need to apply online and wait for the lottery to find out if you have a chance to play The Old Course.

We select our food items from the buffet and look around at the varied crowd of visitors to this place.  There are the Golfers, there are the Spiritualists that have a conference here this week, there are people like us that are just travelling through.  Then there are people that we can’t put into a category.  Interesting place.

We asked at checkout about the building and students.  We were told that September through May it is Student Housing.  Outside of that they open the residence to travellers like us, the golfers and the Spiritualists.

We pack up and walk to the bus depot where we get on the bus to the Edinburgh bus depot.  We are on the bus for almost 2 hours travelling through interesting countryside.

We arrive in Edinburgh about 1pm.  We have an app that tells us what bus to take to the accommodation we have booked.  Generally we would walk the 20 minutes, but we are packing an electric cooler to store the medication I need at the end of the month.  The bag itself weighs a bit.  When you add the ice packs it starts to weigh you down, so we take the bus.  Just 2 stops, and about 150 meters and we are at the Destiny Student Murano.  This is also a student residence that takes tourists and travellers during the summer.

Check in isn’t until 3pm, so we check our bags and go wandering.   We end up in the center of town next to the Balmoral Hotel.  Pretty fancy digs!  They have a seasonal patios set up in the plaza so we grab a table, order an appy and a couple of half pints of Guinness.  We enjoy the live music and the people watching.  The sun is shining and the temperatures are warm.  We couldn’t ask for anything better just now.

Click an image to enlarge.

Walking home we find an actual phone booth.  It is hard to believe that in today’s age anyone actually uses this, but it appears to be still functional.

We decide on Italian for dinner and since our student housing is a studio with a kitchen, we bring home leftovers.  We can pick up a salad at the nearby grocery store and have a cheap dinner in the next day or so.

This is the view from our little studio.

Tomorrow we plan to do a tour of Edinburgh Castle and since the Fringe Festival is happening at the moment perhaps a performance of some sort.

We wake up this morning to a drizzly day.  Well it is Scotland after all.  We cross over to the Old Course to walk along the road of “The Road Hole” .  There is a foursome playing so we stop to watch.  One guy shooting from the other side of the green crosses the road and is lying about 8 inches from the wall.  We’ve seen this shot before 🙂  He has a caddy who shows him the spot on the wall he should bank it from.  One of the foursome who is safely on the green says that he can move it a certain distance for a one stroke penalty.  The guy with the tough shot says “how often can you say you banked it off the wall on the Road Hole??”, so he’s going for it!! Banked off the wall, but still didn’t quite make the green, but a memory to last a life time!  My photographer didn’t get the shot of it however.  He did get one other guy chipping from the rough along the green.

The rain is picking up so we feel a museum coming on.  The British Golf Museum it is.  Here the seniors rate begins at age 60!  Score, we  save 4 Pounds!!

We see some very interesting things.  The history of the game, the early balls made out of leather stuffed with feathers, the next edition made from gutta-percha gum (called gutties), the early wooden clubs and best of all the rules.  A few examples that should bring a smile to your face.

Once we are finished at the Museum the rain has subsided so we explore the town of St. Andrews.  It is a university town and we pass many many university buildings.  All of them museum worthy in their own right.  A beautiful example below.

This is part of the Castle that remains.  The Castle has a storied history.  Here is an excerpt from the museum web site.  We have remarked many times already that this year Canada is celebrating 150 years.  It seems like we are still an infant compared to this country.  This Castle alone has a 450 year history!

Protestant preacher George Wishart may have been imprisoned in the castle’s bottle dungeon. Cardinal Beaton’s murdered body was certainly kept in the dank and airless hole. The assassination sparked the brutal siege of 1546–47, when opposing sides dug the remarkable mine and countermine into the rock close to the castle battlements.

We head towards the ruined Castle and Cathedral at the south end of town.  Even though it is a grey day the ruins are spectacular.  This is a shot of the ruined Castle taken from a spot a bit south of it.

Across from the Castle there is a row of quaint little cottages.  This one was particularly charming.  I think this photo  would complement one that we have in our dining room that we took in France.

We then get to the ruined Cathedral.  There are some beautiful imposing towers that are still standing.  The Cathedral grounds is a cemetery that is the home to some very old graves.  Some stones tilting looking like the will fall soon, some already have.

We have decided eat at Agnes Blackadder Hall tonight.  There is a bar on the ground floor, so it will be nice to be close to the bed tonight.  One our way home we decide to try to find a Geocache near the 18th hole of the Old Course.  On our way there we spot this gate that we have passed before, but not noticed.  Had to get this shot!  🙂

Another great day!

After we slept for a few hours we dragged out groggy selves out of bed and head back into town to find some dinner.  The light is very different than it was earlier today.

Here is the map of the courses.  There are more than “The Old Course”  🙂

From East to West there is the Jubilee Course that runs along the ocean, the New Course, The Old Course, the one we are most familiar with is in the middle, the Eden Course, then Strathyrum and Balgrove Course.  The Castle Course is a bit farther south.

We wander around the town in the fading light.   We come across the massive brick building at the end of the 18th hole.  We discover that it is called the “Hamilton Grand”.  They are converting this into high end luxury condos.  Can’t imagine the prices!!

We find the “Free Tours” but sadly will not work with our schedule.

If you don’t know what to do with your old golf shoes, here is a wonderful idea!!

We decide on a little place called Ziggy’s for dinner.  It pays tribute to Bowie mainly, but lots of memorabilia from many artists on the walls.  After dinner we make our way back to our dorm room at the University of St. Andrews.  Have a glass of wine in the bar and head to bed happy with our first day here!

Our flight deck managed to make up the time we lost while they looked for the baggage they needed to remove.  We landed even a few minutes earlier than scheduled.  So the 8 AM bus is still a possibility.   As we were in the back of the plane we were among the last to disembark.  We gathered our checked luggage and headed to the immigration area.  Two lines, one EU and one Non EU.  The Non EU was the longest (of course).  It did not take too long, we had a very friendly Immigration Officer, then we were off to find a cab to Buchanan Bus Station.  Stu enquired and was told that a cab would be about 40 GBP and the bus would be about 5 each.  The timing was the critical issue, so we asked at the bus.  We were told 7.50 GBP each and about 20 , minutes.  We had an hour so we decided the bus it is.  It is 7 AM on a Sunday morning, traffic in Glasgow is very light, the bus has only a few passengers so we make very good time to Buchanan Bus Station.  The ticket office does not open until 8, which is the departure time for the bus.  We don’t have tickets.  We are to ask the driver if he has room on the bus for us, if so, buy the tickets to Dundee from him and then buy the Dundee to St. Andrews left when we arrive there.  There are a number of people waiting.  When the bus arrives it is a two level one, so we feel fairly confident we will make it.  We wait while the other passengers board the bus.  The baggage guy hollers, “Any other bags”??  I approach him, he goes to grab my bag, but I explain that we aren’t sure there is room for us yet.  He tells me that it will be no problem, he’ll tell the driver.  So he takes our big bags and loads them in the cargo area and tells the driver he has done it.  He was right we can make it on.

Once we get into the  bus we find the configuration is that of tables and seats.  It reminds me a bit of the West Coast Express setup.  A lot fewer seats than we had expected.  We find a four person table with only one young woman, so we join her.  Not long into the journey and porter comes along with a tray.  He offers us packaged biscuits (cookies), which we decline.  The passengers around us accept and we are surprised to see that these are complimentary.  Not long after he also offers hot or cold beverages, also complimentary.   Even though our bodies think it is the evening when we don’t usually have coffee, we accept as our brains know it is morning.  Our journey takes about 90 minutes and we travel through some interesting country side.  Interesting farming methods that I hope we see again so that we can photograph them not from a rocking bus that is moving at 100 kph.  🙂

We arrive at the Dundee Bus Station, line up for the St. Andrews bus.  Not the fancy type bus we just got off, but a normal city bus that is very crowded.  This trip takes about 25 minutes.  We arrive about 10:45 am.  We find our way to our booked accommodation, about a 10 minute walk.  The rooms will not be available until 2 so we check our bags in the luggage room and head for the Old Course.

It is Sunday and the course is open to the public to walk.  A great opportunity for us.  This is the birthplace of golf.  The history here is amazing.  Truly a bucket list day for us.  The weather was great even if we did get a bit of rain.

Click on any of these photos to open the gallery to view them larger.  So many shots today.

Headed into the town for a bite to eat.  Lots to choose from.  We picked a pub nearby and ordered fish and chips and a couple of beers.   Plenty for us to share.

The fit bit says that even though we sat on our butts on the plane for over 10 hours, we managed to walk 23,033 steps and over 15 K today.  Woo hoo.  We are pooped!!  We have been awake for over 27 hours so we head back to get checked in and have a nap.

This is Agnes Blackadder Hall.  It is basically student residence.  This top image is the layout of the place.  It is literally a maze.  We turn so many corners, go through about about 8 fire doors before we reach our room.  It is in the spot on the left that has the blue glowing triangle.  The room is basic, but clean and has all we need.

When we arrived in Toronto the flight crew made an announcement about a number of flight cancellations, they advised those affected to see the Customer Service desk to rebook. We then start making our way to our next gate. This is a very large airport. We saw a sign that pointed towards the E Gates and saw a very long line. We assumed that there must be another security check here so stood in line with many many other people. We then understood from the people in front of us that this was the line for Customer Service. Their flights had been cancelled and they had been re-booked on a flight 36 hours later. They had no idea where their luggage was. They were not happy travellers at all!! We on the other hand were pretty happy that this was NOT our line! We then passed about 300 unhappy people standing in the line and followed the signs to the E Gates.

We have a couple of hours before we take off, so we head to a bar. I have seen bars like this before, but have not used one. Each seat at a bar or table has a tablet. All that the bar has to offer is listed here. You choose what you want, pop in your credit or debit card and the next thing you know your order is delivered to you. We were thinking that this isn’t too smart as the servers don’t get a tip, until we notice that it is already added to the bill. 😉

On our way to the gate we stop at a news stand as Stu really wants to see if they have a hockey magazine that he has been scouring the lower mainland for the past week for. No luck at home. But interestingly enough Toronto, the Centre of the Universe has it!! He is pretty pumped as we head back to the gate.

We board the plane and find that unlike the Vancouver to Toronto flight it is much calmer and definitely not full. That’s OK. Also unlike the Vancouver to Toronto flight the meal is complimentary. That also is OK.

We are late leaving Toronto as they had to dig through the luggage compartment to find bags that belong to some people who did not make the flight. Presumably they were affected by the large number of cancelled flights. I was wondering how they do this, it is obviously a difficult job as we pull away from the gate 35 minutes past our departure time. We are thinking that the direct bus to St. Andrews that we were planning on taking at 8AM from Glasgow may be a be a no go. Oh well, there is another bus, not direct, but not bad either an hour later. We will get there when we get there.

This flight does not have video screens. They have an entertainment app and in flight wifi that you are supposed to be able to connect with your device. I am able to connect my phone and watch some content on. I tried on my tablet but it needed to download Adobe Flash. It took quite a long time, it looked like it installed but still could not get the content to play. So we resort to the old school entertainment SCRABBLE!! The first match of the trip. Stu smashes me soundly (100 points), however I may have cheated myself by not recording one of my scores, probably my highest score!! I concede, but this match has an asterisk ***

We are having a glass of wine and decide that since it is 4AM in Scotland that we should try and get some sleep. We’ll see how that works.

We woke up seconds before the alarm went off.  Great internal clocks.  The phone rings while Stu is in the shower asking if we could get the shuttle at 6:00 instead of 6:30. Hmmmmm??  OK.  Now the rush is on. Not too much to do, but now we have pressure 😃

We get the shuttle with another family heading home to Bangkok. They have lived all over the world, the parents starting in the Philippines, son born in Montreal and the daughter in Belgium.

We do the automated check to get boarding passes and luggage tags, drop the bags and head to security where I am concerned about my medication and ice packs. Turns out it is no big deal.  They just needed to swab the ice packs and analyze that. No problemo.  Phew!

This is my system. This little cooler with a 12 volt plug with an adapter to 110volt. Here we are plugged in at the airport. I have my weather station sensor inside the bag so that I can monitor the temperature inside. 😉

Continue reading August 12, 2017 – Vancouver to Glasgow Part 1 →

Well we’re off!!  Michael picked us up just after 4PM today to drop us at the skytrain on his way to work.  We have a hotel booked in Richmond that has a shuttle to and from the airport.  We get the skytrain at Braid Station, travel to Waterfront Station then switch to the Canada Line that takes us to the airport.  Once there we call the hotel to arrange for the shuttle bus to pick us up.  About 15 minutes later we are on our way to the hotel.  It is the Quality Hotel Airport South.  We are paying $189 for the night and have booked it quite some time ago.  I feel it is pretty expensive, but couldn’t really find anything cheaper that had airport shuttles.  I decided to check the prices last night in case there were some great last minute deals.  This hotel is now going for $340 a night.  I guess I feel better about the $189!!

It takes some time to make this trek.  We don’t often take public transportation and muddled through purchasing the “Compass Card” at the Braid Station, but did it without help from anyone 🙂 .  We are glad that there are fare gates now installed at the stations, even though it refused to open for me.  I just scooted through the open gate from another passenger.  From there on they worked flawlessly and told us when we tapped out at YVR that there were no more trips on the card.  It amazes me that they can get electronic info on a simple looking paper transit ticket!  We began our vacation people watching as we traveled the route.  Vancouver is truly a multicultural city.  So many languages being spoken around us.  I was surprised to hear so much Spanish.

Our journey took us  almost 2 hours, but we are in vacation mode, so no problem.

After we check into our hotel we head out for a bite to eat.  We have stayed at this hotel before and know there is a pub just across the street.  I forgot that it was an Irish pub, so it was the obvious choice for this vacation.  We had a good meal and head back to the hotel to set the alarm for 5:30.  Our flight is at 9 AM, but I have medication, a cooler and frozen gel packs to navigate through security, so we want plenty of time.  The hotel shuttle leaves on the quarter hour so it is 6:15 as 7:15 feels a bit tight.

Off to bed.  The real adventure begins tomorrow!!

I am awakened early this morning by thunder.  Stu didn’t hear it at all, but heard the pouring rain that came after.  We are meeting a friend, who has recently moved to Banff, for lunch (at the restaurant she is now running with her brother, in Banff), sooooo we have some time to kill this morning.  A rousing game of hearts gets the day off to a good start.  🙂

The weather report for the Banff area is calling for thunder storms for most of the day.   Not what we wanted to hear.  We are looking forward to enjoying the mountain views on our trip through the Rockies!

The sun is shining now as we pass by these paddles along this fence.  I am not sure what they were advertising as I missed the sign.  They look very cool though.

It is still shining as we approach the Rockies.

And still as we arrive in Banff.

We are meeting Lori.  My friend who was our run leader for many years with the Running Room Run for the Cure Clinic.  She has recently left the Running Room to buy a restaurant in Banff with her mother and brother.

Lori’s Restaurant right next to the lululemon store.

McDonald’s in the Banff style

More people than we have seen for a while. Bustling place Banff!!

We have lunch with Lori and catch up on all the news before we head of west again.  We have traveled a little while from Banff when the traffic comes to a halt.  There are people parked on the left side of the highway, most of them out of their cars looking at and photographing something that we can’t see from our car.  Not too long after that we begin to move and see what the commotion was.  These guys were just hanging out on the road.  They move pretty fast, so this was all I could catch of them.

We have been following the news about the wild fires that are burning across so much of B.C. just now.  We have a motel booked in Sicamous for tonight and we think the road will be OK to there.  There are route options in Sicamous, so we will re access in the morning.  We are losing our sunshine, but we have seen a lot of great scenery.  Now we are having a downpour.

We are starting to see and smell smoke.

First sign of smoke

Aircraft that I assume is involved in fighting the fires

Our flag in front of a smokey sky

As we get closer to Sicamous the air gets smokier and smokier.  We discuss our options as staying in a place with such poor air quality is not ideal.  We have missed the cancellation window for the motel we have booked, so we will pay for it no matter what.  Traveling another hour or two will not likely find us clean air.  Continuing on to home, another 5 hours or so, is also not a smart option.  So we decide we will stay in Sicamous.  The motel is an older motel, but it is so clean and comfortable.  We are glad we decided to stop.  We find a nearby pub for dinner.  This is the view we have of the mountain across from us.  That is the sun beginning to set in the west.

We have our dinner and head back to the Pines Motel for an early night.

We wake up today and decide that since we haven’t seen Pat’s farm at Strathmore, we should take a drive west from Calgary to see where Pat and her husband Brian (Stu’s Mom’s youngest brother) spent 18 years together.   The people that bought the farm were out.  A former neighbour who looked after the new owners son was there.  She remembered Pat and allowed us to come into the house.  It meant a lot to Pat to see the home that she and Brian had designed and built.

On the way back to Calgary we stopped to take a photo of one of the irrigation systems that were working in one of the fields along the way.   Stu took a cool shot of it in action.

Just as he was getting back into the car, we saw a crop spraying plane coming towards us.  We call to Stu so that he can take more photos of the plane.

Stu feels that he is better at kitchens or living rooms, not things moving at high speeds.  We think he did pretty good.  🙂

We are going to have dinner with Pat’s family tonight.  Her daughter Michelle, her son Greg, his wife Sandra and their children Alex and Robin.  We have reservations at the restaurant in Bowness Park, an island in the Bow River.  

We have a wonderful meal and have a family photo on the dock after.

Back to Peter’s where we teach them 31, a card game that we play often and taught our grandchildren at Christina Lake this year.  This game requires 3 coins.  I am not sure why we like this game as we seem to always lose!!  Tonight was no exception.  Pat and Peter took all the money!!!

Another night of cards and laughter.  We are done in.  Off to bed.