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Oban Bay
Looking Northwest across Oban Bay, the white building in the middle is the Oban Inn where we had Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding SUnday evening.When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was get my little mini-Maglite out of my suitcase and put it on the nightstand, just in case I have to get up in the middle of the pitch black night again.
Though I awoke at 7:10am, I remained warmly ensconced beneath the thick covers until 7:45. Today is to be our "easy" day of staying close to the cottage and village of Oban so as to shake off the last vestiges of jet lag and weariness. That was a decision we had made prior to leaving because we expected to be tired and "off" on our first full day here. It turned out to be a good decision. Though we all woke fairly refreshed, by the time we reached mid-afternoon we found our energy exhausted and our bodies tired.
When we woke, there was a light drizzle of rain falling and judging by the puddles and soaked ground outside, it had been falling for a good part of the night and morning. The temperature outside was about 40 degrees but the dampness made it feel even colder. Cindy made us "Scottish Porridge", a dish akin to oatmeal
Oban Bay
Looking Southwest across Oban Bay. in its consistency and blandness of flavor without sufficient sweetener of some type. I drank a glass of my favorite breakfast drink, pineapple juice, while everyone else enjoyed cups of steaming hot tea.
After hot showers all around, we went outside and took some pictures around the castle and grounds. The rain had lightened up considerably, though it was still sprinkling on us. Then we got in the car and headed for Oban.
Oban, by the way, is Gaelic for "Little Bay", though the bay that the place I've deemed "larger than a village but not quite a town" surrounds seems quite large to my eyes. This European "Mayberry" is a popular tourist destination (Queen Victoria herself declared it "...one of the finest spots we have seen." and it was one of her favorite holiday spots), but we have arrived earlier than the usual tourist season. That has its good and bad points; the town and surrounding areas are not packed with people, but the rainy season is still here and combined with the cold temperatures it can be uncomfortable at times.
Today is a holiday in Scotland, so no official offices (banks, postal, governmental, etc.) are
open, but most of the businesses are. Our first stop was the Tourist Information Center to supplement what we had already researched before leaving the states. The Center had an Internet Access center of 3 terminals and cost 1 pound for 15 minutes. Since we had not been able to buy a phone card at this point in order to advise family members that we had arrived safely, I quickly logged onto my web e-mail account and sent a message to that effect. It was 11:30am our time and thus 6:30am for my recipients, but I stayed online for a few minutes just to see if there were any replies. Then Cindy took the remaining minutes to e-mail some of her friends before we departed.
We walked through the western part of the town taking pictures and stopping at a few clothing stores because I needed a hat and some more insulated gloves to deal with the weather. We found a couple of cute keychains for AnnMarie and Amber, our keychain collecting children. At the Tourist Information Center they told us that tonight is the kick-off of the Scottish Musical Show at McTavish's Restaurant, a sort of dinner show,
Oban City Street 2
Notice the Woolworths store. We were surprised to see one of those. so we stopped in there and made our reservations for dinner at 7pm followed by the 8 to 10pm show. I also found the Internet Cafe I was looking for and after speaking with the manager ascertained that I could connect my own laptop to their broadband connection (something that couldn't be done at the Tourist Information Center) and that they were opened from 9:00am to 5:30pm (which I thought a bit early for a closing time, so I'll continue looking to see if there are any that close later) and that the connection costs 1 pound for 30 minutes, which seemed reasonable. We also bought phone cards and Cindy called Amber to see how the house and animals were doing and Cindy's mom and dad called the person who was house and Robbie-sitting for them.
Then we found a little out of the way cafe down an alley where we stopped to have a light lunch. We were confused about what the actual name of this cafe might be; the sign that first caught our attention read "Coasts", then the sign above the door read "Costa" and the menus had a heading of "F'eats". Regardless, the food and
Oban City Street 2
Notice the Woolworths store. We were surprised to see one of those. service were excellent in the cramped little dining are that seated about 20 people. Our table had a couch for sitting on one side and cushioned stools on the other and again the server seemed shocked when I handed her a tip after paying for our meal.
So now I'm trying to find out; do service industry employers here in the UK pay their servers an actual livable wage and that is why tipping is so foreign to them, as opposed to in the states where employers pay service industry people below the minimum wage, necessitating tips from customers to supplement what employers don't pay? If anybody knows, please feel free to educate me.
We stopped at a bookstore and Cindy bought a few books on local birds, flowers and animals then we retrieved our car from the pay for parking lot and drove to Tesco's for more groceries. Cindy's mom pointed out that the store had security tags attached to the liquor bottles and I just had to grab a quick shot of that. I'm thinking of writing an entire entry on the notable differences between life in the states and here in the UK. It makes
Jeff with new Hat and Gloves
Don't I look like a dapper gent? LOL you painfully aware that we in the U.S. don't necessarily have the ONLY way to do things and opens your mind to the variety of life and culture in the world.
We arrived back at the cottage and while Cindy and her dad took a nap and her mom read a book, I worked on writing for this blog, the Man About Town blog and some pieces for when I return to the U.S. Then we readied ourselves and drove back into Oban to McTavish's for our dinner.
McTavish's is 2 floors with a sort of self-service breakfast/lunch facility on the first floor which allows customers to walk in off the street during the day, and on the second floor is the formal evening dining room and performance stage for the musicians, singers, bagpipers and dancers. We all ordered Steak Pie with 3 of us ordering vegetables and salad while Cindy indulged herself and ordered her favorite...french fries. The dish is more akin to a stew without the vegetables but with a light, flaky pastry-like crust lying on top. The beef was tender and tasty, the gravy was just the right consistency and the pastry topping was both
Cindy's Mom & Dad at F'eats
In the little cafe called F'eats. crispy on top and soaked with gravy on the bottom, making a nice contrast. Cindy's mom had a glass of wine while her dad had hot tea and Cindy and I ordered Pepsi (I would have preferred a glass of iced tea, but that is a completely foreign beverage here, though the server was quite apologetic about not having any to serve). When she brought our glasses of Pepsi I was disturbed to find a slice of lemon floating in it and quickly removed the offending fruit. What is up with that? I'll have to find out. Dessert was apple pie (which seems to be a prevalent favorite here) with either ice cream or clotted cream (just the name is unappetizing to me as it conjures up visions of curdled cream). I skipped dessert but everyone assures me it was delicious.
The show was a traditional Scottish music and dance "review" with an award-winning fiddler, accordion player and bagpiper in addition to a singer and dancer, all dressed in iconic Scottish garb such as kilts, vests, high socks and accompanying knives (yes, knives) tucked into those high socks. The show was very entertaining and though the dining room was
Meeting a "Westie"
Cindy, her mom and dad meet a friendly "westie" nowhere near filled this early in the season (there were about 55 of us) there were 6 different nationalities represented (we were the only Americans). I've decided that people from Luxembourg are the rudest I have ever seen, followed closely by the people from the Netherlands. That's not true, of course and I'm not really judging all people from those countries by these morons, but they were aggravating me tremendously. Both those parties talked, laughed and made assess of themselves during the show and got disapproving looks from other diners. I wanted to get up, go over and speak to them about employing some common courtesy, but Cindy begged me not to so I didn't. What I should have done was asked management to quiet them down, but I thought that was something they should have done on their own. Would I have been the "ugly American" I have tried so hard to avoid being while a guest in someone else's country? Maybe, but this time I would have felt a lot better, lol. Oh well, we had an enjoyable meal, the show was good and we walked through the main street of Oban to where we parked the car
Liquor Security
Security tags on each bottle of liquor. enjoying the crisp, cold air and the last rays of the sun which did not set until 9:30. We took a few moments to watch swans gather near a bay wall as a woman threw food to them from the railing, then drove back to the cottage for a good night's sleep.
P.S. I'm actually posting this on Thursday, May 4th. Just wanted to let all know that it is difficult to find Internet access during all our travels (Today we're actually in Edinburgh and I'm using an Internet Cafe here to post this), so please forgiv ethe gap between posting. Tomorrow (Fri) I'll b eposting at least 2 days of fun and pictures from the Internet Cafe in Oban, which is only open 9:30 to 5:00pm so it doesn't always work into our schedule, but tomorrow it will. Miss you all'Jeff & Cindy.
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AnnMarie
non-member comment
There you are
I was wondering where you were, but also figuring you had limited time and limited places to access the internet. I love the pictures (thanks for including one of you!). Great entry. Talk to you soon!