Scotland Trip: Days 14-17

Friday, July 24th
Today was an incredibly busy day! A lot of what has kept me from posting this blog was the decision about whether or not to post photos of Eileen's wedding now or to wait and give them due credit in their own blog. I've opted to wait and give them their own post when I get home where I have the ability to truly edit them and make them amazing!

Regardless, it was a fantastic day! It started with Eileen's hair and makeup. This was not something that I had done for my wedding - or really any other big event and it was fun to watch her get all fixed up! Hazel, the hairdresser was so sweet and very patient, working from one person to the next starting and stopping as needed on Eileen. Jules, the makeup artist, was so fun and spunky, she was very easy going and was willing to do whatever was necessary to help Eileen feel like a princess on her big day! Eileen's bridesmaid, Frankie, and her daughter Amy, who was the flower girl, were there as well and Amy was having a grand time meeting everyone. She was quite taken with Sam until David decided to get involved and then she was like David's shadow and wouldn't let him go, grabbing his hand and following him wherever he went.

After everyone was ready we made our way to the Bearsden Registry Office for the actual ceremony. It was in a quaint little room and was very intimate. Although Eileen had sworn she'd cry, there were no tears! The ceremony was lovely and Eileen and Paul looked and, I know, were happy!

Some of the beautiful flowers outside the registry office.

After the ceremony, everyone headed toward the reception at the Dumbuck Hotel. I had been promised a true "Scottish" wedding and the beginning didn't disappoint. As soon as we entered the hotel, there was a table set up with beer and wine for the arriving guests. We grabbed something to drink, checked into our room and headed down for dinner.

My handsome husband who told me he felt like he was dressed as a waiter!

We were very lucky in that Eileen and Paul had ordered a buffet style dinner for their guests. It included a little bit of everything: chicken curry and rice, vegetarian lasagna, mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, mini hamburgers and chips, roasted chicken legs, and vegetarian Pechora balls. We ate and then we were sent out while the DJ set up for the night.

When we got back, the room had transformed. There were lights all over the place and the music was lively and upbeat. While I didn't expect everyone to dance, it was rather a let down on the dancing side. Every few songs or so a few people would get up and dance - which I suppose is to be expected from any event, wedding or not. Mostly I hung out with Andrew's girlfriend Leslie, who was just as happy as I was to sit back and enjoy the entertainment of those crazy dancers! David and Andrew had quite a bit to drink and they were always up dancing. It was quite a hoot! I can barely get David to dance in a sway kind of way, and yet here he and Andrew were, doing the sprinkler and one legged dancing. They were a riot!

There were a few things that I loved though that were very much a Scottish thing, I'm sure. At one point they called all the McKechnie men up and they danced to Rhinestone Cowboy. They all had a different part in it and it was fun to watch. As the night wore on, the buffet ended up with more food: cake, potato scones, sausage rolls, and much more! We loaded up on the food and they the boys got back to dancing. Leslie and Andrew kept us in drinks which was very gracious of them! I kept to cute little strawberry daiquiris. I was able to meet a few more people which was nice to just get to know people.

At the very end, the DJ called all the remaining guests to the floor for this kind of dance around the couple sort of thing. We danced to 500 Miles by the Proclaimers and The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond which I learned was traditional and always a good way to ship the new couple off to their new lives! It was wonderful!

After dumping David into bed and getting showered, I quickly fell asleep as well. It was a wonderful day and I'm so happy for Eileen and Paul and wish them all the best for their lives!

Saturday, July 25th
Honestly, Saturday kind of flew by in a blur. It has been a while since we've stayed up till past 1:30 in the morning and in such an atmosphere as a wedding party. We came home and all I wanted to do was sleep! It really was a lovely day too, to match Friday's beautiful weather, so it was rather a shame that we didn't do anything, but I honestly would've been ridiculously grouchy I think if we had.

Really not much to talk about, so I suppose a very short entry!

Sunday, July 26th
To make up for doing nothing yesterday, David's parents decided to take us up to Luss today. We needed to get some sand from Loch Lomond for my mom. Luss is a very small little village and it's located right off the banks of Loch Lomond.

We were able to feed some of the ducks and even some swans - who were quite scary because they weren't afraid to come right up to us and stood almost as tall as us! David almost got bit! We walked down on of the piers and took some photos off the pier and then headed in to the town.

This is just an ironic photo. The seagull isn't really on the swan's head, but it's all in timing!

Water dripping from his beak!

I couldn't get my wide shot lens on quick enough, this swan was the height of David!

I just liked this fence haha

I was able to find some more of the items on my souvenir list, which was lucky!

These homes have been redone and they are all beautiful and timeless!

The gnomes though!

A war memorial for WWII servicemen.

I looove these walls!

Ok, so these kinds of walls are EVERYWHERE throughout Scotland. My biggest question: where on earth do all the rocks come from???

We wandered down to the bridge and were able to get a few pictures of this beautiful Celtic cross before the rain really started up. We headed up to the little chapel and I was rewarded with another old cemetery. I actually found a stone from 1759! It's the oldest I've seen so far. Aside from that, the chapel was absolutely beautiful! It was built in 1835 and is just very reverent.

A view from the bridge.

Just some more pretty flowers.

Sam and Linda :)

The oldest gravestone I've been able to actually read. It's quite crooked.

Apparently I have a love of flowers lol but I'm curious as to what these ones are, and that's why I took the picture. They grow in a bush and are super fluffy.

After that we headed back toward the car and grabbed an ice cream before heading out. Sam wanted to drive up to Helensburgh, another little waterside city. It was a nice drive, but a precarious one as the road was very narrow. When we got there, the rain still hadn't let off. We saw a cruise ship docked in Greenock. I figured out that it was a Princess cruise line and didn't realize that they had cruises that came through Scotland.

The Princess cruise ship in Greenock.

An old ship that has been stuck there for a while.

We had planned to walk around Helensburgh but because of the rain, we decided to just stop and grab some chips and head home. I have finally realized why my husband has always felt that eating pasta, corn, and fries is totally a fine thing! This little chip shop was very clean and served everything you'd find in chip shop, as well as handmade pizzas. But here's the thing, you could buy a pizza and chips. Pizza and fries??!! Seriously? Weird! Definitely a Scottish thing! We had to wait for our chips - they were fresh made - but they were absolutely delicious! We had chips and cheese and it was definitely worth the wait.

When we arrived home I noticed something that Eileen had dropped off for me. I honestly feel as though I just did what anyone would've done to help out on the day of her wedding, but Eileen insists I went above and beyond. In thanks, she and Paul bought me this amazing cookie! We had some that night for dessert with some ice cream.

We came home and had a lovely dinner and just hung out the rest of the night.

Monday, July 27th
So again, another waiting, relaxing day. Eileen and Paul stopped by to grab some of the things Eileen had left during the day of the wedding. We made plans to go out, she and Paul and David and I on this coming Saturday after our trip to Inverness. Because it's another kick back day, I will take this time to explain some more things that are differences between Scotland and the US.

Outlet Switches
Ok so this is an interesting one. David keeps getting after me because I forget to turn off the outlets. Here, every single outlet has it's own switch and if you turn it off, it's, in essence, turning off the flow of electricity to that outlet so that you save on electricity. It's just something I'm not used to doing! When I went to Australia it was the same thing, but living with it on a daily basis has been such a different thing. It's quite a smart idea and I wonder why the US hasn't jumped on board.

Both of these switches are currently off - oh and the shape of the plug itself...definitely different.

Tax & Mandatory Recycling
Ok so the first part of this, is the tax. There is actually no sales tax on anything. It's really nice knowing that what you see is what you're going to pay. But it's been rather tricky not wanting to just pay with bills, because they have a £1 & £2 coin I tend to keep my coins - which are now out of control - and not spend them. The second part sounds rather accusatory. But what it is, is last year they passed a law on shopping places so that they could push more recycling. Now if you go to ANY store - clothing, food, electronics, it doesn't matter - if you want a bag it costs 5p. Not a ton of money, but eventually it adds up. So we've gotten very used to carrying shopping bags everywhere so that we don't have to pay the tax for the bag. Pretty smart way to cut back on use of plastic bags I would say!

Petrol (Gas)
My last one for the night. Gas here is called petrol - something I've struggled to call it from day one - and it is expensive! The UK runs in liters obviously and so rather than price per gallon it is price per liter. There are 4 liters to a gallon and the cost of their gas ranges from £1.14-£1.19 per liter. That's roughly £4.56 per gallon - roughly $7 a gallon!! And we thought we had it bad! I have yet to figure out if you buy a car with x miles per liter or per gallon here though.

Oh and this. It makes so much sense considering where we are, but still.

Anyway, aside from packing for our trip to Inverness, today was pretty uneventful - which was fine by me!