Today was a dreaded transition day. Alarm goes off at 6:30 so we can be up and bathed and fed and out by 8:30 and off to the airport. Check. Then we return the rental car and have to try to convince the Hertz agent that the dent was there when we picked it up (it was) and we have photos to prove it (we did) but we were told that next time we should ask one of the rental agents to make anote of it on the paperwork. I’ll be interested to see what the outcome is because something similar happened with a rental car we got in Vermot earlier this year where we tried to get the rental agent to come and make notes about the damage and he told us it was “all in the computer” yet we recently got a letter from ‘Avis asking for details on the accident we were in….
Once in the terminal, we faced the dreaded baggage Nazis of Ryan Air. I paid (lots) for each of us to get 20 kilos of checked luggage and last night was a frenzy of trying to get all the cases to be equally heavy and we were crossing lots of fingers that we would be under the limit. My case clocked in at 19.6 kilos. Whew! Then after that, the gate agent piled all the cases on the scale at once and didn’t seem to be even remotely interested in how much things weighed. Grrr. I could have gotten at least 2 more bottles of wine in the cases if I hadn’t been so worried about the weight!
Then it was lots of “hurry up and wait.” Bergamo airport is pretty small for an international airport so there wasn’t much to do and we had lots of time to do it. Luckily, we had reserved seats (which I paid extra for) in the exit rows so we didn’t have to rush unto the plane to get the “good” seats – Ryan Air is like Southwest but with fewer rules and crabbier passengers. The flight was a bit late but pretty uneventful and we landed in Scotland just past noon.
Where we managed to be last out of passport control since we had to fill out landing cards that the airline didn’t make available in advance. Ours were the last cases left on the carousel, which of course makes it easier to find them, and we were the last ones to the rental car counter. So more than an hour after touchdown, we were finally ready to load the cases into the Volvo rental and be on our way.
Except for the part where the cases wouldn’t fit. Not even two of them. Between the size of the cases and the odd design of the Volvo’s trunks, we were going nowhere with this car. Thirty minutes and 200 extra pounds later, we were off with a brand new Ford Mondeo estate car with plenty of room for everything. It was now getting pretty late in the afternoon so we stopped for a quick bar lunch on the road and then headed straight for our new digs.
The flat is lovely – two bedrooms, two baths, fully fitted kitchen, separate front room, washer and dryer, wifi, etc, etc. And in the safest neighborhood around – across from the Stirling police station! We got unloaded and then headed out to see the family. We hung out at Jim and Therese’s house with my mother-in-law watching Wimbledon for a while – Andy Murray was playing so we had to watch – before taking a short break to do some grocery shopping. I’m not sure how we managed to spend 100 quid on snacks and stuff for breakfast but there you go!
Then back to Murrayfield Terrace for drinks and a bountiful Indian takeaway feast – with more drinks. We stayed until it started to get dark – half past 10 at night – and then started the walk home. We got back to the flat about 30 minutes later and it still wasn’t completely dark! We are certainly farther north than we were in Italy.
But we are home. In a land where we speak the language (sort of and with funny accents), understand the food and the culture, and have family to spend time with. It feels good to be a little more settled even if we need a completely different wardrobe for the rest of the trip: it was around 30 Celsius most days in Italy and the high in Scotland today was 18! But it didn’t rain… yet.
Steps: 12, 915 or 5.55 miles
Nuns: 0 but we weren’t really looking
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