The Rain in Skye

Ryan and I couldn't have had more different weather for our trip to the Isle of Skye. Ryan had plenty of sunshine to capture cute lambs and beautiful sunrises.

Our group endured steady rain and fierce winds. Basically the Scotland I expected but hadn't experienced the first few days.

We made it further than halfway up the Old Man of Storr trail because of the conditions. 

The Isle of Skye has beautiful views. A few tips for planning your visit:

• Make dinner reservations ahead of time, parrticularly if you're traveling in a larger group. There don't seem to be enough restaurants to serve the number of tourists in Portree, the Isle's largest city.
• Bring waterproof pants, jackets, hats and gloves if you want to hike.
• Many shops on the Isle will be closed or only opened limited hours on Sundays. Keep that in mind when planning a longer trip that runs through Skye on the weekend.
• Don't skip visiting the Fairy Pools (according to other visitors) or the views of Kilt Rock.
• Check out the pottery shops in Uig and Edinbane. 
• Keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather!

Alyse with Kilt Rock in the background. We had trouble "seeing" the kilt from this angle.

When we tried to hike to the highly recommended Fairy Pools, we found the stone path across the river blocked. Chris and Paula debated our next move. 

Alyse scouted ahead to see if another crossing or bridge existed. It didn't.  

An Isle of Skye tourism poster through the rain splattered train window.

The Castle at Dunvegan. This is still a privately owned home.

On the bright side, the rain made sure the waterfalls were more than a trickle. 

The donkeys of Venice

Venice reminds me of an adult version of Pleasure Island - that super happy fun-land carnival in the Disney version of Pinocchio. You know, where Pinocchio and the other boys go and play games and eat candy before getting turned into donkeys.

Venice is beautiful. It has wonderful food and tasty sweets. It has lots of shopping. It has roving bands of musicians waiting to serenade lovers, and around every corner you'll find gondoliers whose sole job is to ferry people through the canals past the stunning pastel buildings.

On Rialto Bridge during our first afternoon in Venice.

View of the canals.

A building Ryan particularly liked.

Because of all that, it’s infested with so … many … tourists.

It's Venice. There has to be a bridge shot. Surprisingly, there are no tourists on it.

We overheard a rather ridiculous conversation among these American tourists, who felt people would be more likely to stare at them if they removed their masks.

We enjoyed our first afternoon and night in Venice, walking around and taking in the sights and tastes of the city. We enjoyed our second day exploring the historic Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Square and settling in to watch Italy get eliminated by Uruguay at an outdoor patio restaurant.

Then, on the third day, Venice made asses out of us.  

We made a series of bad decisions and assumptions that turned out to be wrong. For instance, we didn't find a place for breakfast – at least in the area we started out exploring. By the time we had something to eat and I had my necessary coffee, it began to pour down rain, dampening our enthusiasm for taking a ferry out to the island of Murano that is known for its glass. We felt equally drowned by the water and tourists in fluorescent ponchos.

Even the gondoliers had their umbrellas out.

Then we got lost.

Rick Steves, whose advice for traveling Europe has generally been invaluable to us, suggested we get lost in Venice to explore off the beaten track. Let’s just say, we can put a big ol’ check mark next to this one. We couldn’t not get lost. The Venetians apparently hated straight lines. What resulted is a hodgepodge of alleys and bridges and dead ends and no signs.

On  my way down one of the narrow alleys. 

Well, there were a few signs. Just not ones that helped us get back on track.

In fact, Venice can be cruel. It’s like a giant rat maze for humans where the gods like Zeus look down and laugh at the stupid humans who kept turning down alleys that terminated at canals (us)  or who made turn after turn only to end up at the same restaurant they left 25 minutes earlier (also us).

The lunch restaurant. I didn't believe Elizabeth when she told me that's where we had eaten.

Eventually, we found an interesting bookstore with steps and walls made of books stacked like bricks and an eccentric shopkeeper named Luigi.

Elizabeth found the staircase of books a good solution (but still a little horrifying to destroy those books).

Books filled both boats and bathtubs.

The proprietor.

Then we got lost again.

Consulting the map for the umpteenth time.

Finally, when we tried to leave the island after a nice dinner, it made it as difficult as possible. The regular trains back to Mestre, where our hotel was, stopped running at 10:30. It was 11:25. We got tickets for a bus ride. But we couldn't find the bus station (what did I tell you about no signs). So we bought tickets for a late train to Rome that went through Mestre.

Let's just say the 12:08 train from Venice to Rome was no midnight train to Georgia. It was one of those trains with compartments of six seats -- three facing three. Elizabeth and I had to settle for seats in different compartments. When she tried to go into hers, a woman who was sleeping in one of the seats glared at her and threw the curtain shut. Elizabeth took my seat, and I sat on one of the pull down seats in the hallway, where I could watch the drama as two families argued over the fact that they had the same seats. The train sat for what felt like an eternity but probably only took off 10 minutes late. It was not humanity at its best, let me tell you.

But it was a fitting ending to our day in Venice.

In anticipation for precipitation

Once again we have saved a nation from any remote threat of drought.

It has rained each of the first three days we have been here. Perhaps most amazingly, the skies over Rome will weep even when they are blue. (Is this Zeus at work?)

The view from the cafeteria of the Capitoline Museum, including a bonus rainbow.

While that's inconvenient for travelers and tourists, that's money for the scores of umbrella and poncho hawkers. At the first hint of a potential rain cloud, the entrepreneurial salesmen swarm the tourist locations. I don't know where they all come from. It's as if they just pop up like an, ahem, umbrella.

As tourists walk by, they their wares out. "Umbrella?" they ask almost as more of an instruction than an inquiry.

I didn't stop to take a shot of the salesman en masse because I was afraid one would mistake my lack of movement for an interest in purchasing. This one had a friend nearby though. 

So persistent are they that I plan to sell a T-shirt when it rains that reads "If I wanted an umbrella, I would have bought one from the last guy."

UPDATE: It did not rain on Thursday! Hence, sad umbrella salesmen on the Metro for the evening ride home.

When it rains, it pours (especially when you're hauling 80 pounds of luggage)

We had exceptionally good luck with our accommodations the last two years. We've found our hotels by consulting the Rick Steves' guidebooks and then scouring Trip Advisor reviews, and it has been a pretty successful method so far.

So our first four guest houses this year - Adelaide's Guest House in Glasgow, New Hall in St. Andrews, Ardenlee Guest House in Edinburgh, and Hedley House Hotel in York - were all excellent and merited four stars or higher in our Trip Advisor reviews.

And then there was our last hotel, the Ramada Inn at the Glasgow Airport.

Where did it all go wrong? Here's our tale:

• We decided to stay by the airport at a chain hotel the night before our flight, which had worked well for Ryan last year in London. We will not be doing this in the future.
• The hotel we chose said it was 500 meters from the airport. No other directions were given.
• It was pouring down rain
• Ryan was carrying 80 pounds of luggage.
• We get to airport and can't see the hotel. So we asked directions of an airport employee, but they made no sense.
• We came across three other hotels: two Holiday Inns and a Premier Inn. We asked directions at the Premier Inn, and they told us there weren't pavements (sidewalks) to get to the Ramada.
• So it was back to the airport where a helpful employee at the taxi stand told us not to waste our money on a cab because there's a courtesy shuttle.
• Except no one answered at the hotel when we called.
• So we set out to walk again with more specific directions from the taxi-stand worker. We crossed a busy roundabout, and went under the highway overpass.
• We crossed a second roundabout, sinking into the saturated grass with each step. We finally spotted the Ramada on the other side of the trees.
• We finally checked in -- 35 minutes after we arrived at the airport.
• The receptionist's handwriting sent us to wrong room, forcing me to go downstairs and clarify.
• We took showers to warm up from our soaked clothes (RIP to my faithful tennis shoes -- casualties of the trek).
• Then the 45-minute quest to use the Internet began. Two phone calls and one trip to the front desk still don't yield a working Ethernet connection. Seriously, what hotel doesn't have WiFi in the rooms at this point? We're a world of tablets and smart phones -- get with the program.

The upshot - a terrible review on Trip Advisor, a vow to never stay in another Ramada as long as we live, and this list of things for us to remember next year:

• Print off walking directions to hotels from each train station.
• Stick to guest houses or B&Bs instead of corporate hotels.
• Pack one pair of waterproof shoes.
• Always take out the maximum at the ATM.
• Print off all flight information and bring a full copy of the itinerary rather than counting on email access.

Despite the soggy ending, we had a great trip. Thanks for reading along with our adventures!

Close quarters and embarrassing bodies

Mary King's Close: This alley in Old Town was buried under the Royal Exchange and preserved for hundreds of years. It is now reopened as a "tourist attraction", with tours led by costumed figures from the close's history. Our best description: Very touristy, so go early in the day. But it is enlightening to understand just how crowded the city was in the 1600s and the differences in how the classes lived (12 people living in a small windowless room with a bucket for sanitation that they could only empty into the alley twice a day). Pity the extremely poor people who had to live next to the cow shed and scrape up the blood from the floor after a slaughtering to make black pudding (something we will definitely not be eating while we're here). No photos were allowed in the close.

No bland network PSAs here: We took an opportunity Saturday night to watch some local television programming, particularly a show called (no joke) Embarrassing Bodies. It seems to be an educational reality show, and this particular episode featured morbidly obese individuals who:

• desired surgery to remove excess skin after a dramatic weight loss
• required gastric bypass as a life saving procedure
• need to have a stomach removed because it hung down past a man's knees

The doctors who host the show also staged screenings in cities throughout the country and work with families to address the nation's obesity problem (apparently Britain is the "fat man of Europe" -- their words, not ours). It was shocking to see, especially because they show everything - topless women, surgical procedures, and even an anatomically correct animation about why obese men frequently have problems with intimacy.

There is also a companion website where you could look up your own health issues, or try to find out more about one's spotlighted on the show, or even apply to be on the show yourself.

The site contains this well-deserved warning: "The Embarrassing Bodies website contains images of an explicit medical nature and nudity in a medical context."

Educational but truly frightening, and it made me feel really guilty about our post-dinner chocolate run at Sainsbury's.

Rainy weather: Someone needs to patent a pair of waterproof dress pants. It has rained nearly every day since we arrived in Scotland, though Saturday was by far the worst. We were soaked by the time we made it up the hill to our first stop of the day. Then we walked all the way down and back up the Royal Mile to do some souvenir shopping and get lunch. By the time we made it to the Scottish Parliament and had to remove our belts to go through the metal detectors, I had to hold up my jeans to keep them from falling down due to the heaviness of the water.

You probably can't see the water lines around Ryan's knees, but we both had them.

We stopped at a Turkish coffee shop to warm up in the afternoon. I had Turkish apple tea, while Ryan had Turkish coffee (and we both tried Turkish Delight). 

Photo of the day:

This is the outside of the Scottish Parliament, which Ryan looks at in depth in his post.  

Sign of the day:

The signs outside the Deacon Brodie Tavern, named after a disreputable Edinburgh resident who was supposedly the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

First impressions from a tired brain

Exhausted is probably the best word to describe us after our first day in Glasgow. We arrived here at 7 a.m. local time (that's 2 a.m. EDT) and have been on the go pretty much ever since. At one point, Ryan fell asleep mid-sentence. Fortunately, we were in our hotel room to change clothes at the time.

Ryan taking a five-minute nap in the hotel room. 

Our trip has not been without a few surprises so far.

Severe climate adjustment: Louisville was a nearly unbearable 100 degrees Fahrenheit when we left on Sunday. The weather is Glasgow when we arrived Monday morning  - 52 degrees Fahrenheit and raining. I have already worn three pairs of shoes today: the flats I wore on the plane, tennis shoes and rain boots (at least this year I was a little more prepared for the cold).

Braving the rain outside the Tenement House, a two-room Victorian flat that contains more than 95 percent of its original furnishings and fittings -- including gas lighting and the original toilet! 

Language barrier: While they do speak English here, it's not always easy to understand (a combination of the Scots accent, unfamiliar words, and the speed at which the residents talk.) There have been a few times when I've just nodded and hoped that I supplied the right answer. But apparently we're not the only ones who feel this way:

Article from the 2 July 2012 morning edition of Metro (p. 9).

Hours until the first kilt sighting: Six.

Kilt!

The brow is universal: To our great surprise, the first question from our superb host at the guest house was about Anthony Davis. Ted is a huge NBA fan and brought up "the brow" as the only thing he knows about Kentucky. It seems that one-and-done players are just fine for building a worldwide brand. And clearly, no matter where I go, I will never completely escape UK basketball.

Anthony Davis (Photo by Dennis Adair/Flickr)

When it rains, it pours ... and then the Tube breaks down

Saturday was rainy here, and five of my classmates entrusted me with their free afternoon and bravely followed me to the Victoria & Albert Museum. It was quite an adventure for Angela Austin, Cassie Hartsfield, Jennifer Kinser, Joey Malefatto, Theresa Wondracek and myself.

The rain was steady but not terrible as we started our journey at Russell Square station.

I confidently led the way to Russell Square station to pick up the Tube, and the group managed to get through the gates and onto a train quite quickly. We made it a single stop before having to disembark. A "signal failure" across town had disrupted our line and we were advised to seek "alternative routes." So we went above ground to start making our way on foot.

The rain became more incessant, and a few members of our group barely missed a surprise shower courtesy of one of the local double-decker buses. Two wrong turns later -- one of them fortunately caught and corrected by Cassie -- we made our way to the Thames and took a few rainy shots of the river before hopping on a working train.

A rainy view of the London Eye, Parliament and the tower housing Big Ben from across the Thames (near the Temple station). 

A short ride later, we crossed the threshold of the Victoria & Albert a little (or a lot) water-logged but in high spirits at our accomplishment. (Or at least I was. I think everyone else was just relieved that we had arrived somewhere at that point.)

That dark shadow about halfway up my leg is the water line. My shoes, jeans, and shirt were soaked through.

The V&A, which touts itself as "the world's greatest museum of art and design," is huge, and we split up to explore on our own. I spent most of my time looking at the stained glass and jewelry displays. In particular, I really enjoyed looking at the micromosaics and boxes in the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection. Micromosaics are made from the smallest glass pieces, and some contain more than 5,000 pieces of glass per square inch. All of the micromosaics would fit in the palm of your hand with room to spare. Most impressive to me were the Plaque with Leopard (early 1800s) and Plaque with Basket of Flowers (1825). You really need to click the links above to appreciate how tiny the pieces are; none of my photos did them justice. 

The museum provides magnifying glasses to help visitors see the tiny details of the micromosaics.

We emerged almost two hours later to almost sunny skies, and most importantly, no rain!



Packing mishaps

Rick Steves said that no one regrets what they don't pack. I disagree.

After seven days in London, I admit -- I brought too much. But I also didn't bring the right stuff for London, which I guess is what happens when you go off a generic checklist that should work for any trip.

So for my Florida State Multimedia classmates who are arriving in London on Thursday, here's what I wish I knew beforehand:

• The weather here has been closer to a Midwestern September, in my opinion. Seventy-one degrees just isn't that warm when you're used to 95-degree days in July. I had to buy a fleece and a heavier jacket because it is too cold in just a cardigan and windbreaker. A sweatshirt might not be remiss either.
• Bring lots of things you can layer to adjust for changing temperatures during the day. It's cool in the morning and any time the clouds block the sun (and they often do).
• Women here seem to frequently wear blazers or medium-weight jackets at night. A denim jacket would be perfect, and I dreadfully miss the one hanging in my closet at home.
• Pants are definitely the way to go (shorts are for tourists, as Professor Everhart mentioned earlier). I haven't worn shorts at all, and have only worn capris once.
• Make sure your jackets are weatherproof. Windbreakers do OK in these English showers but it's better to have a heavier (even lined) raincoat.  

Perhaps it will warm up after you all arrive. But at the very least, make sure you have options to layer or be prepared to buy what you need when you arrive.



Me at the Roman Baths on Friday in Bath. It was rainy and cold most of the day. Clothing involved: T-shirt, long-sleeved T-shirt, fleece, scarf, lightweight raincoat. I wanted to buy gloves, but thought my husband might not agree to be seen with me.



Full disclosure: I am one of those people who wear jeans and sweaters to air-conditioned places in the summer because I think they're just too cold. So take my advice with that in mind.