Goodbye, Summer Abroad

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Andorra, Asia, Austria, Case Western Reserve University, Czech Republic, Dublin, England, Europe, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, London, Monaco, Northern Ireland, Poland, returning home, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, student, summer abroad, Switzerland, tourism, travel, Wales

Packing in the morning was difficult because I was exhausted and had no motivation to leave Europe.  I can hardly believe I started this trip in India in May… it seems so long ago and yet not so long ago and I miss it.  As I put my things in my bags and checked out to find a cab with Dan, I began thinking about everything I did this summer.  This was really no vacation at all… everything I did was hard work.  Even India was a struggle.  Sure, I had teachers and students and a set itinerary – the closest to a vacation I could have.  But it had been 120 degrees Fahrenheit and I had a severe lack of sleep with all of the traveling we were doing.  I was required to submit papers and powerpoints during the summer alongside with articles for my column at home.  I left India to travel a touch on my own before meeting Juraj.  That was relaxing, but I was still working on homework and trying to keep in touch with my university.

When I finally left Juraj’s place, I had to start living out of bags again.  Hungary with Eva was amazing, then my delayed train to Germany started to stress me out.  This is when I really started lacking sleep and walking like a madman through every city I could to see as much as I could before I had to leave.  I remember almost missing my train out of Munich because I had gotten caught up in the sites and had to call a cab to run me back in time.  Then, Italy was hot.  So much hotter than central Europe which was under a cold spell and floods.  I got lost trying to find my hostel in Venice and then I got burned trying to eat in such an expensive place.  I found out I wasn’t going to meet my friends from home in Italy, then I met Jade.  And then…then I missed my train and got stuck an extra night.

Getting to France was horrible.  I had five consecutive trains and I was suddenly thrown into a no-English world.  I had to meet 25 other students who had already met each other and then I had two nights of rest before my biggest fear of the summer: moving into a host family.  My French host mom turned out to be great, although she doesn’t speak English (just some Spanish), and I was one of the few students completely alone.  My classes were easy and I started taking advantage of the trains to nearby cities, but it was hard to show up to class on time, do my homework, AND be traveling to other countries.  Having Johannes come down for the first weekend was amazing for Andorra and Spain, going to Lyon and Switzerland with Alex wasn’t too bad, but going to all of the other places my myself was miserable work.  Revisiting Spain was great, but Madrid was rough and my weekend in Nice and Monaco completely drained me.

Riding to Paris with Ariana was a treat, and I was so glad to spend the day with her and Dan.  Being with Dan…wow, I realized how little we have actually seen each other in person.  I hadn’t been to California for a few years.  It’s crazy how time flies.  The day we went out to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo was great and the views were amazing, but that’s when our troubles started.  The next day we missed our train and I got robbed.  But London was incredible, Stonehenge was fun, Wales, England, Dan’s family… seeing everything I wanted to see in Scotland up until we got stranded in Glasgow and spent an extra day in Campbeltown.  Then we’re back to where I left off, in Northern Ireland and Belfast…what a summer.

My flight in the morning took me on Aer Lingus from Dublin back to London.  I had to say goodbye to Dan.  I was so tired and trying not to acknowledge what was actually happening because I didn’t want to start trying.  Truth is, all I wanted was take Dan on that plane with me back to London and to not leave England.  I absolutely loved England, the people, Dan’s family, everyone.  And Dan seemed to fit right in, too.  I didn’t want to think about leaving because leaving meant not traveling and not seeing Dan for… who knows how long.  When I got to London after a short nap on my plane, my transatlantic flight was extremely delayed.  I sat at a restaurant to eat, work on my computer, and drink tea until it was almost time to leave.  The board outside of the restaurant still didn’t show a gate, so I went to Starbucks and waited until the gate appeared.  The line was ridiculous when I got there and everyone was upset.  I met a couple who had stayed four weeks in Scotland; the now live in Oklahoma but the wife is originally British.

I didn’t sleep at all on the plane.  I watched several TV episodes and some of Toy Story 2 until the connection failed.  I watched a movie on my laptop until the battery was about done.  Then I sat and wrote several pages in my diary, preparing a letter of all the things I never got to say when I said goodbye.  My arrival at Chicago was a rush as I was pushed into a line where a purple paper on the wall that read “DeVault” had my new plane tickets.  I was taken off of American Airlines and placed on United Airlines.  I had to find my bags, pass a million security points, go through customs, then come back to a counter to re-check my bag, take a shuttle, get to domestics, go through security again, then run to my gate to find a pay phone and call my mom just before the gate closed.  I left a message.  The flight to Pittsburgh was 55 minutes long and, thankfully, everyone was there when I arrived.  They were wearing the things I had sent them from home, my mom, my grandma, and my brother.  My dad was nowhere to be seen which is standard anymore.

I was exhausted and wanted to sleep, but we had to drive a couple hours to get shakes and drinks at Get Go near Bridgeville then drive my grandma back home near Connellsville.  Grandma had read all of my blog and had print outs of my pages.  She gave me a feather bracelet that I had wanted at a Pow-Wow.  It was made by General Grant, my favorite vendor.  The bracelet is hand-rolled silver and quite expensive.  Inside, she had “KAYLA / BUTTERFLY / GMA” engraved on it.  She also gave me a paper on which she had hand-written “I am Kayla, hear me rooOOAARR”.  The drive from Connellsville to my house was then another hour.  I ended up going to bed at what was 7AM in the UK.  I had hardly slept for several days now and I was ready to pass out and mildly confused that it was only 2AM here.

Giant’s Causeway and Belfast

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Ballycastle, Belfast, Bushmills, Camel, Campbeltown, Coleraine, Europe, ferry, Giant's Causeway, Granny, Great Britain, Kintyre, Northern Ireland, rock formations, rocks, Scotland, tourism, UNESCO, United Kingdom

In the morning, we checked out of our hotel and slowly made our way down with our bags to the docks.  We stopped at a bakery on the way to buy tea and toasties.  We ate them beside the docks where we could watch seagulls and jellyfish until our tiny ferry had arrived.  We wheeled our bags down the dock and onto the boat.  There were only a couple other passengers.  Shortly, the boat was pulling out from Scotland and we were on our way across the sea towards Northern Ireland.

On the way to our destination, Dan and I watched the shoreline disappear then turned to several episodes of British TV and Bewitched that I had saved on my laptop.  The episodes were just the right length and soon we were coming in to Ballycastle, Northern Ireland.  When we arrived, we quickly unloaded and found the tourist information to get a map and bus itinerary.  Deciding on which bus to take, we realized we had a good hour or so to walk around the tiny town.  This was done in minutes, so we settled on the only hotel in town to sit outside with our bags for a quick meal and drink until the bus came across the street.

This bus, 172A, delivered us straight to Giant’s Causeway, a natural rock formation on the northern coast of Northern Ireland and the only UNESCO site in the country.  The bus was nearly as expensive as a cab and we regretted having all of our luggage when we arrived on the country road stop.  We pulled our things up to the top of the hill to a hotel where the staff let us leave our bags under a staircase at our own risk.  We then took off to the museum to pay our entry fees and walk along the coast with audio recordings to the best part of the rocks: the onions and the chimney formations.  These onion formations are just strange bulbous bits of rock jutting out of the cliffs.  The chimneys are the famous pillars that line the coast in the most bizarre shapes.  There were also formations such as Granny and the Camel, silly outlines of rocks with even sillier interpretations.  We spent two hours here before retrieving our bags and calling a cab.

Originally, I had thought seeing Bushmills Distillery would be fun.  However, we were short on time if we wanted to get to Belfast at a reasonable hour and the distillery was actually closed.  A cab turned out cheaper than the bus, I believe, and we were privileged that our driver paused long enough to let us photograph the distillery before continuing on to Coleraine.  At Coleraine, we bought train tickets for Belfast.  The two hours on the train were passed by watching more episodes.  At Belfast, we checked in to our luxurious hotel (the cheapest we could find!) and headed out for some drinks on the town (at McHugh’s).  We ended up grabbing some late night pizza with kebab meat before wandering back to the hotel for the night.

Dan in the bakery.

Docks at Campbeltown.

A jellyfish.

Me on the rocks at Giant’s Causeway.

The rocks were so unusual.

Some scenery at Giant’s Causeway.

Fleeing the Tattoo for Campbeltown

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boats, Campbeltown, car rental, dock, Europe, ferry, Glasgow, Great Britain, haggis, highlands, Kintyre, Loch Lomond, neeps, port, Scotland, Tattoo, turnip soup, United Kingdom

We woke up in the morning and called frantically to change our bus tickets, ferry tickets, and book a night in a hotel in Campbeltown.  Once that was cleared up, we drove the car back to the rental place, took a cab back to the bus station, and had a Scottish breakfast as we waited for the bus to arrive.  I bought some Lilts and Walker’s for the four-hour ride and we boarded the bus.  We sat quietly for some time as we passed Loch Lomond and started into new territory, then Dan and I opted to watch a movie, pausing here and there to photograph the incredibly blue skies and green mountains.  When we stopped at a port halfway to Campbeltown, I got out for the short break to photograph the boats and the lake that looked like a giant, still mirror.

Upon our arrival in Campbeltown, we checked in to our hotel, thankfully showered (the first time in several days!), and headed downstairs for some dinner.  We indulged in a full meal (haggis, neeps, turnip soup, etc.) with a bottle of wine.  We didn’t finish the wine at the table but instead took it back to our room where we finished watching our movie, watched a second movie, and sat up talking instead of getting a solid night’s sleep in.  The day was not very eventful but we were relieved to have things relaxed for a bit.

Loch Ness, Isle of Skye, and Glasgow

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anglais, booked city, castles, Edinburgh, English, Europe, francais, French, Glasgow, Great Britain, Isle of Skye, Kyle of Lochalsh, Loch Ness, no vacancies, red foxes, rental car, Scotland, Scottish highlands, sleeping in a car, sleeping in a parking garage, Tattoo, tour, tourism, tourists, United Kingdom, Urqhart

We woke up to a cold, clear morning on the banks of Loch Ness.  We packed up the little that we unpacked and took off out of the campground before the owners found us.  We drove north a little ways until we saw the Urqhart Castle on the shores of the lake.  We stopped and waited for the castle to open, chatting to a nice groundskeeper who told us the best things to see in the area and explained why some castles were free and some have admission fees.  This one, he said, was strategic because it was the best way to see Loch Ness…and everyone wants to see Loch Ness.  We paid our fees and joined the long line of tourist bus visitors as we made our way downstairs for some soup and coffee.  We watched a short film on the castle’s history and were left to wander the ruins along the lake for a couple of hours.

When we finally left Loch Ness, we headed northeast a bit towards Inverness so we could catch a scenic route through the Northern Highlands of Scotland.  Our destination for the night was Glasgow, but our midpoint was the Isle of Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh.  We still had our camping food and wood in the car because we couldn’t find a suitable place to light a fire.  Who would have thought camping in Scotland could seem so difficult when it’s a right to park it anywhere?

The drive through the highlands consisted of several stops at photo points where we could see vistas, sheep, waterfalls, castles, lakes, and even once where we ran across train tracks after a short train passed.  The drive reminded me of my time in Alaska: very few people and very sporadic weather.  This time, though, we encountered mists and rain rather than blizzards as I had seen on my way towards Fairbanks last winter.  At one stop, we encountered French tourists.  It took me a moment to realize they were speaking French; I automatically comprehended.

Kyle of Lochalsh was busy.  We rolled in through the town and passed little village after little village.  There were frequent campers and boats at sea.  Numerous inlets lined either side as we crossed the large bridge onto the Isle of Skye.  We were originally going to go the length of the island, then we realized how big it is.  We chose instead to set up a fire along a beach and cook our mountain pies.  A seal of some kind paid us a visit as it peered out of the water along the intertidal, seaweed-littered shoreline where we were burning our kindling.  We found an old tire with a small crab in the water inside and realized how alive the shore was where we were sitting.  We opened sheets of foil and lined them with potatoes, corn, and beans, then wrapped them up with long handles and set them on the open fire until the flames died out.  We scooped out the food with what we could find and ate a nice hot meal.  No one bothered us.  We could watch the boats in the distance.  Before long, we decided to put out the coals and head towards Glasgow.

The drive continued to be beautiful, green, and slightly damp.  We stopped at an inn before we reached Loch Lomond’s reserve.  There, we bought some toasties and coffees before setting out again.  The last stretches before Loch Lomond were incredibly barren.  I found it hard to believe that a place can be so sparse after millennia of human inhabitation.  When we finally reached Glasgow, we parked our car in a large lot and were dismayed to find that every single place was packed for the night due to the Tattoo.  After a few failed attempts at getting a room and booking a room (and taking a cab to find it was closed), we skirted around drunk strangers and potentially rabid red foxes running the streets before we made our way back to our parking garage.

We were stuck.  Our rental was due back early in the morning, our bus was leaving before 7am (the only bus to catch our noon ferry from Cambeltown), and the parking garage wasn’t going to open until far later.  There was absolutely no way in or out; everything was locked.  We racked our brains for ways to take the car with us and pay to leave it in Belfast, anything to avoid messing up our schedule.  Sadly, we had not anticipated a packed city and a locked parking garage and had to make due.  I found a narrow hole in the bars blocking off a window on the first floor.  By scaling the decorative metal artwork on the façade, I was able to slide through this whole and jump into the garage.  Dan followed me and we ended up sleeping in the car for the night, accidentally setting off a security alarm but hiding in a dark car long enough for us to get away with the cold and uncomfortable night in a Glasgow lot.

Dan in front of the visitor’s center at the castle.

The castle and Loch Ness.

Stones at the shore of Loch Ness.

Statue of Loch Ness not far from the castle.

A random stopping point in the highlands with a nice view.

Dan overseeing the fire on Isle of Skye.

Misty drive towards Glasgow by Loch Lomond.

From the Lake Districts to Edinburgh and the Highlands

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anglais, architecture, buildings, camping, castle, Edinburgh, England, English, Europe, festivals, Grange, Great Britain, Keswick, Laggan, Lake District, Loch Ness, Loch Ness monster, Moffat, mountain pies, Nessie, Scotland, sleeping in car, Tattoo, tourism, Traffic, United Kingdom

We woke up to a drizzling morning.  Our car was freezing cold.  We rolled quietly out of the camp site and started back down the winding road towards Keswick.  This time the roads weren’t so intimidating and we could see how amazing the view was.  Some stray sheep darted across the road as we made our way out of Grange.  We passed back through a quiet Keswick on our way to Edinburgh.

When we found the highway, we started driving and I noticed on my map a town called “Moffat” that was just across the Scottish border.  ‘Moffat’ was my great-great-grandfather’s name.  Dan and I stopped in town just long enough for me to buy postcards and take photos.  We also stopped at the Mill to buy some souvenirs.  We chose to take the scenic route out of Moffat towards Edinburgh and photographed many scenes of sheep and steep, rolling green hills.  Before long we had arrived in Edinburgh were it was necessary to dart around the throngs of people attending concerts and the Tattoo in town.

We parked at the Omni center in Edinburgh and ate at a local place that had Wi-Fi for free.  We made the castle of Edinburgh our destination point, passing and photographing several other sites along the way as the city plans to install a new rail system.  We passed several magnificent buildings and picturesque streets full of crowds.  We made the way up to the castle, passing through the arena where the Tattoo plays and buying tickets to continue through the castle on a self-guided tour.  We could see the whole city from the hill, including the extinct volcano and islands surrounding the region.

After we had walked around enough, we headed out of Edinburgh for the Highlands.  We had decided to make Loch Ness our goal: we wanted to see Nessie!  We drove and drove and drove through endless hillsides, stopping once in Laggan for restrooms and later gas and snacks.  We bought some kindling, canned food, beer, and tin foil with the intentions of having a cookout.  By the time we reached Loch Ness, however, we weren’t able to pinpoint exactly which campground I had mapped out for us to use..  We found one which was probably the one I had found before, but there was no one at the gate.  We slipped in to find no tents whatsoever and chose to pull into an empty lot again.  We rolled up jackets in our windows and played Easy A on my laptop while drinking our beers and shivering against the definitive cold that lingers in northern Scotland.  It was a long day and we were longing for a shower, but the air was too cold to use the shower houses and the dark fog floating around Loch Ness was intimidating.

Scenery outside of Grange, England.

Moffat, Scotland!

A street in Moffat.

Me outside of Moffat on a scenic route in southern Scotland.

Sheep!

Laggan, Scotland.

Edinburgh, Scotland.

Edinburgh from the castle.

Me within the castle walls.

Me with Edinburgh in the background.  You could see the volcano from the hill.