England to Scotland

As our cab driver was delivering us to the train station in Carlile, she pointed out a street that is closed to cars on the weekend so the people partying at the many bars can move about safely. She said they decided to do that after some drunk people got “knocked over” by cars. Love these English terms!

We are traveling on Virgin trains this morning which is very comfortable. Tammy used an app “Rome 2 Rio” which gives you all the options available to go from one destination in Europe to another. That led her to the app “train line” where you can find all the info necessary, train number, platform, name of the train, destination, and stops along the way making the travel as stress free as possible.

We have now arrived in Ballater, sitting in the Glen Lui Hotel lounge area sipping the local Caol Lia double malt scotch. It rained all day while we comfortably rode on the train and bus, we are grateful it is not a hiking day. We met many very friendly Scots including one lady who asked the bus driver to make a special stop to get us closer to our hotel. It is a 45 mile ride to Ballater so people are getting on and off the bus at different stops. At one point a guy gets on and announces “hello my fellow travelers, I have just come from the grocery and we are having shrimp scampi for dinner” When he exited he said “goodbye my fellow travelers, there it doesn’t cost anything to say goodbye” It was fun to listen to him because most people are so somber on public transportation systems. The lady who helped us said “he has a screw loose”

The dinner menu at our hotel has many delicious choices so we are looking forward to that.

Sue had chicken liver pate and guinea foul with haggis, haggis is a savory pudding containing sheeps pluck (heart, liver, and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock.

Jo had lamb.

Tammy and I went with beef filet.

Can’t believe those girls could eat those cute little animals we have been admiring all week.