Arrival in Scotland

Our flight to Scotland was pretty uneventful, other than they didn't offer any complimentary snacks or beverages on the flight, which was really lame because they wouldn't allow anything carried on to the plane with the security screening at the gate.  By the time we reached Scotland, it was mid-afternoon. 

We flew into the Inverness airport, which is a tiny airport.  Our plane was the only one arriving at that time, and it took forever to get through customs.  They only had one customs agent, and she was very strict.  There was a lady several people ahead of us and she didn't know the name and address of the hotel she was going to be staying at while in Scotland.  The customs lady wouldn't let her go through, even though her husband had just cleared moments before.  The lady became quite rude and belligerent, while someone else in security went to get the husband.

Emily had all our info on her phone, however, she had been counting on wi-fi access to obtain the information.  She had to deactivate her cellular plan upon her departure from Japan, so we were relying upon being able to have wi-fi when we reached the airport.  However, the wi-fi didn't extend to the customs area and we started to get really nervous about being able to make it through customs. 

Luckily, Emily knew the address of the people with whom she would be staying in England, so we were able to put that down.  The customs lady was actually fairly nice to us, even though we didn't know the exact name of the cottage we would be staying at in Scotland.  She accepted the address in England and let us go on our way.  Whew!  I think the difference was our attitude--we weren't pulling one, and we were really respectful.  From now on, whenever I travel out of the country, I will make sure to have a hard copy of our hotel accommodations so that experience never happens again.  

We wandered the small Inverness Airport for a short time while waiting for Nikki to pick us up.  Both of us felt like we narrowly escaped something really bad, so we ended up waiting outside. 

The Aldourie Castle--we affectionately dubbed it our castle

For our stay in Scotland, we were meeting up with Emily's friend, Nikki, who also was an ALT in Japan.  Along with Nikki was a former roommate of hers, Jamie, and her sister, Alex.  The five of us were in a cottage on the grounds of the Aldourie Castle which sat along the shore of Loch Ness. 

How cool is that?!

Our cottage for the week

The keys to the cottage--the door locked on both sides only with the keys--you had to have them to get in and out

 

The cottage grounds:

 

 

 

Our room

 

A claw bathtub!

 A brief glimpse of the city of Inverness:

A Ford!

They still have old VW vans!

Sheep in Scotland are everywhere

The Inverness Castle