This was the earliest day that we needed to be up so far. Our flight left at 12:05pm. We got an email a few days before asking us to be there 2.5 hours early. It’s a European airport, and we weren’t taking any chances, so we wanted to be there by 9:35am. Tavistock was 2 hours away from the Bristol Airport, so we needed to leave by 7:30am. We also needed to turn in our car, so call that 30 minutes. We needed to leave by 7am. We were out before 7:15.
There was a little bit of struggle with the maps, but we got there on time. Security was a breeze. We were throught by 10am. This is when we saw that our flight had been delayed until 1:05, and they wouldn’t give us the gate information until 12:15. Classic case of hurry up and wait. We got some breakfast. We read. We people watched. Before you know it, 12:15 came and went without any gate information. The message on the boards changed from “Gate Info at 12:15” to “Gate info shortly”. Around 12:35, the message changed to “Flight delayed 2:45. Gate info at 2:15”.
Now we had a problem. It was an hour long flight, and our car rental place in Scotland closed at 4pm. Well, the website said 5pm. The woman on the phone said 4:30pm, and our travel agent said 4pm. At any rate, we were going to be cutting it pretty close arriving at 3:45. Our first hotel was a little over an hour away from the airport. Our travel agent suggested that if we miss the car rental, we should take a train, and he’d arrange a car for us the next morning. So we had a backup plan, but we were still going to try to make it.
At some point the arrival time updated to 4:45 instead of 3:45, and we figured we’d be going with plan B. 2:15 came and went without any gate info. Aaron got on the phone to see if we could go ahead and arrange a car for the next day. Then, at around 2:25, the board said ‘Go to gate 8’, so we hung up on the travel agent and ran to gate 8. When we got there, the doors were closed, and it was just a few confused people standing around. Within a few minutes there was a huge line of confused people standing around behind us, and a flight attendendant popped out from behind security doors and asked us what we were doing there. Apparently, the plane wasn’t close to being ready. She tried to send us all away, but then 5 minutes later, she let us through the doors anyway. The lone flight attendant was no match for the angry mob.
The flight went fast. It was way more comfortable than the flight from Dallas. We got off the plane at 4:30, and Aaron tried to call the rental car company just to check. They transferred him to a district office, because the office didn’t answer the phone. The woman on the district line said the office closed at 5, and it was probably just busy. “Have your wife get the bags, and catch the shuttle to the rental place, and you should be good!” Once we got to baggage claim, Aaron ran. But there were 3 different busses and shuttles outside the airport with long lines, and none of them went to the rental place. So Aaron called again at 4:46. This time, they did answer the phone. “I just closed up dear, it will have to be tomorrow.” So, defeated, Aaron made his way back to baggage claim.
Our first hotel was in Stirling, and about an hour away by train or by car. Our travel agent suggested the train, but it was a little complicated to get there. So, after some thought, we decided to pay the extra money for a taxi directly to our hotel. It was a nice hour long ride without having to wrangle our luggage. It had been a long day, so it was worth it.
The outside of our hotel was amazing looking, but the inside was a bit out of sorts. There was a lot of hussle and bussle in the lobby, and the front desk looked like a mess. We checked in, and the lady at reception asked for money even though we had already paid for it as part of a package with our travel agent. We said there must be some mistake, but the system said “pay on arrival.” It was busy in the lobby, and we were tired, so we paid. Once we got up to our room, we took off our backpacks, and called our travel agent again. The lady at the front desk gave us our refund shortly after. Boom!
We ventured out into Stirling to grab some dinner. Beutiful little town, but it was a bit dead Sunday evening. We went into a place called TJ’s for food. It was a perfect combination of BJ’s and TJI Fridays, so it was named appropriately. It wasn’t until the end of our meal that we realized it was an American themed resteraunt. So we flew all the way across the world just to eat at an American chain resteraunt.
So much for short blog posts.
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