Edinburgh, Scotland

So far Brandi and I have been on a whirlwind trip. A flight that departed on Friday and arrived Saturday morning at London's Gatwick Airport. Being bold travellers we chose to try the Gatwick express train to Victoria station (easy to use and quick). We then got on the Underground Victoria line to London's Kings Cross train station. Fortunately, we were able to get on an earlier train to Edinburgh which departed at 1:00pm. We were then on a train (1 change) for 7 hours. We finally got into our Bed and Breakfast at about 8:30pm. It is important to note that I woke up early to get the score of the Penn State game on my iPhone. It was a good morning to find out that Penn State won and Florida lost. The only thing that could have made it better was if FSU lost so JoePa could open up a two game lead over Bowden.

Needless to say, our journey to Edinburgh was quite exhausting. But it did get better from there. Sunday we spent the day at the Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile and Holyrood Park - which included a failed attempt to hike up to Arthurs Seat, an ancient volcanic vent.

Monday we booked a tour to Stirling Castle and Loch Lomond. The trip was a 9 hour tour that gave us extended time to tour Stirling Castle and walk around at Loch Lomond. The weather wasn't the greatest as it rained on an off all day. When we got to the Loch, it was raining sideways. Nevertheless, we did get a chance to hike some of the waterfalls (pictured) and trails that border the loch. The most memorable part of the trip was the persistent car sickness. There are a lot of single lane roads (only fit one vehicle at a time) where we had to stop constantly for oncoming traffic. This constant stopping, starting, curvy roads and pot holes made for a long day of willing ourselves not to throw up. A few times I looked at Brandi and new she was on the verge of losing it. But our perseverance paid off and we made it back to Edinburgh without incident.

Now, were on our way back to London on the train. I am writing this on the train since the train has been the only place I've had a free Internet connection. And back to work it is for me. Meetings Wednesday and Thursday and then more site-seeing Friday and Saturday.