this morning, i was supposed to get a wakeup call at 8:30, but it never came. the phone rang, and it was paul. it was almost 10am. shit. i got up, put on all my clothes (i slept naked again), rushed out for my smoke, came back up and took a dump, and headed out.
we walked to the department store (john something or other) and had breakfast. paul and i both ordered the "scottish breakfast" for $9, and it came with mushrooms, hash browns, sweet beans, a sausage, bacon, toast, and most interestingly, "black pudding." the black pudding looked like a black piece of burnt sausage patty, but it tasted pretty gross. i took two bites: one to taste it, and one to make sure i would never eat it again.
then we drove two hours to glencoe. at first, it was really annoying, because even though we were on a "highway," we had to slow down every 3 miles or so for a roundabout. i guess roundabouts are how they do exits here. but once we got to the countryside, exits were much more rare. parts of the road were very narrow.
and the countryside was beautiful. the car said the temperature dropped to as low as 1 degree celsius, which is in the mid 30's fahrenheit. that's fucking cold. but it was damn awesome. there were snow-capped mountains, and it did start snowing at one point. gorgeous valleys and rays of sunshine shown through the clouds. we stopped at least a dozen times to take pictures. hopefully some of my pictures turn out well. paul ran through his 2GB memory card in no time.
we stopped in the glencoe visitor center to warm up with a latte (for me) and a hot chocolate (for leeya, and she is totally addicted to those things, she has at least two a day). then we drove back, stopping some more for photo ops. yup, two more hours of driving, and this time in rush hour traffic in glasgow.
we freshened up in the hotel, and then went next door to waxy o'connor's for dinner. the menu didn't look too good to paul and leeya (although i was gonna get the irish stew), so we left. we were going to get thai food across the way from walkabout (where we went last night), but we spotted a kfc and went there instead. both paul and i wanted to get this spicy chicken panini sandwich, but they ran out. fuck. so we just got the usual american fare instead. the place was a sty; there was trash all over the floor.
after finishing up, i came here, and now i'm typing this. after i finish, we're going to use up our free drink coupons at waxy's and call it a night.
i am really happy we saw the country today. tomorrow, we're going to have breakfast, walk about a bit, eat a quick lunch, and head back to edinburgh. it's supposed to rain tomorrow in glasgow, but edinburgh will be spared, so that's why we're heading back there. and then, tomorrow night, we fly out of scotland to dublin, ireland. and thus begins our ireland journey. i don't know if i'll be able to blog tomorrow, so stay tuned.
oh, on the glasgow city bus tour yesterday, there was this semi-cute asian girl sitting behind paul. i really wanted to talk to her, but we were all listening to the tour info on headphones, so i didn't want to interrupt her. she was with her two parents. i am guessing she was chinese, as all of the asian tourists i have seen in scotland have been chinese, but i wouldn't have been surprised if she was korean. and when we got off at the museum, that was the end of my opportunity to talk to her. drat.
there haven't been that many hot girls. i haven't seen any girls here that have made me do a double take. so far, the hottest girl has been olga kurylenko on the 007 movie billboard.