Day 6: Finding our Car

At breakfast, we got a disappointing email. Our car was back in Glasgow. It wasn’t all the way back at the airport, but it was still about an hour away. Once we got our car, we still had another 2 and half hour drive to our second hotel. By the time we read the email, it was already almost 9am. This didn’t leave us a lot of time to explore the town of Stirling, so we ate breakfast quickly. Aaron tried black pudding for the first time, which is basically a mix of sheep's blood, barely, and other spices. He’s still on the fence about the taste.

The only thing we really had time to see was Stirling castle, which was great! It was basically a giant museum with lots of really interesting displays. It made us very aware of the fact that we don’t know much about Scottish history, so we added Braveheart, Mary Queen of the Scotts, and Highlander to our list of movies to watch. We’re pretty sure that should cover everything.

After a quick lunch at the castle’s cafe, we decided to get a cab to our rental car place instead of trying to navigate public transit back to Glasgow. The cab driver was quite the character. He brought up the most politically divisive topics he could think of, and threw out some pretty unbelievable facts about Scotland and his own life, all while swearing in his own unique Scottish way every few minutes. For the entire hour.

We were finally able to pick up our car with only a few more calls to our travel agent to clarify the booking details and we headed up to our next destination. The drive was two and a half hours of windy and wet roads with Aaron white knuckling everytime a local rally car driver passed on the right. We stopped off at Loch Lamond for a snack and then later at a scenic stop where we hiked down toward a small river and waterfall. Oddly enough, the highlands look a lot like south Iceland. We made it to our hotel in time for dinner overlooking another lake before heading to bed. We weren't able to explore Fort William due to the delays and our hotel was still pretty far from the city center, but it was a nice evening.

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Day 9 & 10: Ice Ice Baby

Get ready for a two-dayer! Day 9: Like every other blog post before this one, we woke up. The breakfast at Fosshotel wasn't very substantial, and the options were pretty limited. The continental breakfast was a few slices of cheese, meat, and cucumbers. Kaylea had some lackluster pancakes. We had a glacier hike to get to, so we ate as much as we could. After that, we spent a little time working on the blog and getting ready before we made our way out. We put on all of our thermal gear, and a bunch of layers, and hit the road. We were only about 20 minutes away, but 20 minutes in snow gear in the car gets pretty hot. We pulled up to the meeting spot for our tour, and our guide was just wearing a long sleeve shirt. We got out and asked how cold it's going to be on the glacier, and she said "It's like this. Maybe just bring a light jacket." So we had to take off a bunch of layers in the parking lot. We met some of our fellow tourists, and hopped in a van to head to

Day 4 - Nations Divided by A Common Language

We got a pretty late start this morning. We had a lot planned for the day, but nothing was too time sensitive, so we got some much needed rest. However, it wasn't the best sleep of all time. The walls here are paper thin, and people were constantly letting this door right outside our room slam shut. Also, Aaron smacked his head on the bunk bed during the night but has no recollection of it. Once we got up and going, the hostel was pretty much empty. Or rather, empty of kids, and filled with the cleaning crew, who didn't seem to like us being there. After they wouldn't let us into the kitchen to fill up our water bottles, it dawned on us that we're having a little bit of trouble communicating. First thing we did was head to the Tower of London. We didn't get to go inside the first time we visited, so we decided to go back. It was a pretty great museum (K - "meh"). It started to get really crowded towards the end, and the line to see the crown jewels wa

The Journey

We have so many places we want to see! Here is our list of major cities we plan to visit, with flexibility of course. London, UK Paris, France Munich, Germany Prague, Czech Republic Salzburg, Austria Vienna, Austria Budapest, Hungary Zagrab, Croatia Split, Croatia Athens, Greece Rome, Italy Florence, Italy Pisa, Italy Venice, Italy Milan, Italy Palma de Mallorca, Spain Barcelona, Spain Madrid, Spain If you have any suggestions for visiting these locations or places nearby, please feel free to share! Travel advice (including tips for couples) is more than welcome. :)

Beauty and the Beard:
Bound to Wander

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