The Highland Diary, Day 1.5

All right, apologies for the delay in the start of my Highland Diary, but I had to get an adaptor to charge my laptop. (Battery's shot, and for those who don't know, they have different plugsin the United Kingdom.)

So without further ado, time to catch y'all up.


As I type this, it is 10:30 a.m. local, and I've been in Scotland for roughly 24 hours. I'm here with my parents to help them celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary...

And yes, Marisa, I had to explain the "wedding date" meme answer to my mother.

So, I said goodbye to my love and got on a plane in Newark, getting out of town just ahead of the flood.

And let me tell you, that British Airways plane was a thing of beauty. I just read a bookabout the airplane wars, and let me tell you, munkees endorse the Boeing 777.

There was more room on that jet, my Lord. Stretch out city. The guy next to me and I never bumped into each other once in the night. And these jets have the funkiest first class/business class I've ever seen. They've got beds and fan-shaped dividers and stuff. I gotta get me some of that someday.

I still didn't sleep much, of course. Oddly enough, I fell asleep during takeoff. And that was it. At least I finished the book I've reading for like two months.

It's a short-story collection by Gary A. Braunbeck out of Earthling Publications, and of course, the first story I read is about...

...wait for it...

A plane crash.

Anyway, that aside, I get to London Heathrow, and I figure I have to flat-out haul ass, because my parents told me they missed their connector to Edinburgh.

So I do my usual O.J. Simpson routine - no, not killing my ex-wife, running through the airport - and get to the connector with...

An hour and a half to spare.

And then the flight got delayed an hour.

That jet, of course, was a puddle-jumper, but I cleverly picked a seat in the exit row that didn't have a seat in front of it, so I had plenty of legroom. I was jammed in on the side by a broad-shouldered woman, but hey.

So I made it, and got to have lunch with my man Mike, who's studying abroad in the U.K., before he went back to England.

Yup, Italian food in Scotland. But darn good.

And then, I pretty much slept.

Except for snagging a souvenir for my girl, a magazine with a cover article on one of her favorite bands, Travis, I haven't done anything but shower and eat.

(How jet-lagged I was, this lady was selling mags on the street, I walked by, looked at the mag, whatever, then 20 minutes later I'm in the shower and I'm like, yeah, must've been a music mag because that's Marisa's favorite Scottish band on the cover... Then it's out of the shower, get dressed and run back down the street while the lady's still there. D'oh! Coherence, find me now!)

Anyway, finally sleep-filled and with the third breakfast in two days in my tummy, I'm off for my first real day.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

On to the next part!