Driving in Scotland...without killing each other

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Our first "real" trip was this past weekend...we flew to Edinburgh, Scotland on Friday, with plans to play golf. So since we were golfing, and the golf was outside of the city, we decided Edinburgh would be a good place to have our first driving on the wrong side of the road experience...and an experience it was...

We landed just before rush hour and picked up our Renault Scenic, compact car, which actually drove pretty nice. We got an automatic, b/c driving a stick on the wrong side of the road could have been a disaster! With the exception of not having the best directions to the hotel, and actually passing the hotel b/c we were looking at a big old castle...it wasn't so bad. When we were trying to make our way back to the hotel that we passed, we accidentally wound up driving on a street that was only for taxis and buses, but thankfully no one caught us. Once we landed at the hotel, we went out on the town and made our own pub crawl to some of Edinburgh’s oldest watering holes...Evan has really taken to the ales, so we try to find as many of the local ones we can find. We ended our night at a Mexican place, I know, why would we do that in Scotland...but England doesn't really have Mexican, so when we found it, we had to have it.

On Saturday we played golf on the water, about 40 minutes outside of Edinburgh, Evan again did a wonderful job driving, until I accidentally told him to get in the right lane (I thought it was a two lane road) and to our surprise, we were met with an on-coming car as soon as we went around the corner...it was ok, it wasn't as bad as it sounds. So the course and club house were really old...it was all locals, links style, and right on the ocean. We talked a few locals in between holes and out on the course, mainly when I had to retrieve my ball from their fairway! So when we were done we went to the clubhouse for some lunch and being the only foreigners, we were a bit of an oddity, but they were very welcoming...one even made fun of me for hitting some bad shots...the whole place laughed at me, but it was pretty funny.

On Saturday night, it was back to the Rugby, it is a pretty big deal...although since the Scottish hate the English they were all rooting for the French. England won, and that made us happy b/c they play in the finals this weekend so there will be a lot of excitement around if they win.

On Sunday we toured The Castle, which has an amazing history, dating back to the dark ages. We took some funny pictures with a cannon that used to take 100 men to prepare it to fire. After the sightseeing, we began our journey home...driving. We made it out of the city to learn that the main road to England was actually closed, so we had to do this crazy detour through a beautiful part of the country, but the roads were so incredibly narrow I nearly passed out watching Evan drive. After we made it to the right highway, I took the reigns. It wasn't so bad, it actually made me more calm driving vs watching, so I drove all the way back to London (total trip was about 7 hours)...everyone at work thought we were crazy for doing it, but it was def. an experience and we are glad we did it...but it is so incredibly nerve-wracking, we don't need to do it anytime soon...worst was driving it back to the rental car place Monday morning in rush hour traffic...I left that one to Evan...it wasn't fun. But good news, we are both still alive and still getting married in two weeks!

So that's about all, you're caught up on what we've been up to...so far we have booked trips to Barcelona, Amsterdam, Innsbruck, Munich, and Bath...hopefully France and Italy will follow...so more to come soon and we'll be home next Thursday...we can't wait to see you all!!

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Photos

The first hole...
...note that we are hitting up the hill...