Scotland Notes
Beinn: is the most common Gaelic word for “mountain”
Coffee americano: (black coffee with 2 shots of espresso)
Chips: French Fries
Dinnae: Don’t. My grandmother and people in the church where I grew up said this all the time. “A dinnae ken” which means “I don’t know”.
Haggis: Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour”.
We have my grandmother’s old cookbook with recipes for haggis, lights, sweetbreads (don’t ask), blood pudding… I never could have made it in the olden days!
We also saw haggis pizza, haggis flavored chips, frozen haggis… We tried none of that.
I was going to put a picture but I couldn’t stomach it (NO pun intended!)
Loch en Eilein: Simply – loch means lake. Eilein means island. So, there’s an island in the lake 🙂
Place suffixes:
-more:
-ness: a promontory or headland. Loch Ness is a lake with a promontory
-shire: Roughly “county of” Inverness-shire; Perthshire
-strath: a wide river valley, a stretch of relatively flat, fertile land bounded by hills. Strathspey is the River Spey and the valley around it.
Interesting place names:
- Crook of Devon: The name derives from the sudden angle (crook) which the River Devon makes near the village. A village within the parish of Fossoway in Perthshire. It is located about 6 miles southwest of Kinross on the A977 road. Until relatively recently the official name of the village was Fossoway (as evidenced on the war memorial etc.) but this has been usurped by the widely used nickname “crook of devon”.
- Drumnadrochit: It derives from the Scottish Gaelic ‘druim na drochaid’ meaning the ‘Ridge of the Bridge’.
- Firth of Forth: (Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is the estuary or firth of Scotland’s River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north and Lothian to the south. It was known as Bodotria in Roman times.
- Inverfarigaig: (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Farragaig) is a hamlet at the mouth of the River Farigaig, on the south-east shore of Loch Ness in Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland.
- Kingdom of Fife: (Scottish Gaelic: Fìobha) is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland.
- Killiecrankie. I have no idea how it got this name. It sounds sort of like you want to kill the crank but that can’t be right.
Killiecrankie (Gaelic: Coille Chreithnich) is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland on the River Garry. - Loch Faskally: (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Faschoille is a man-made reservoir in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) northwest of Pitlochry.
Playlist of all my Scotland videos plus others of interest:
Getting to Scotland
Thursday, August 6, 2015
As these things go, of course Tom’s computer stopped working. There was a deadline to be met before we left and the HP PC was finally dead.
Michael had given Tom his old Mac from 2010. There was nothing wrong with it, other than being several versions old. I wanted to be able to easily transfer files to the Mac, in case I ever got the PC working again. (Insert evil laugh here!)
I started upgrading the OS which seemingly took forever but work needed to be done so my 2015 Mac was commandeered.
Thankfully, all the important files are in the Dropbox so work could continue.
Most of this day was hectic, getting Tom set up on his “new” computer. He’d had it for a while but never really used it. Now, it was essential.
I knew we were flying through Amsterdam and this video started appearing on my Facebook feed. I’m never a good flyer and I don’t think I could have made it though this Amsterdam storm:
Friday, August 7, 2015
The new/old mac finally finished the OS upgraded. Because this computer hadn’t been used with Dropbox before, it was taking forever to index files. We packed it up anyway. Who knows what kind of internet we would have in Scotland anyway.
I got my Mac back. Hooray! There had been some discussion of Tom using my computer on the trip and I’d take my older Macbook Air but that changed just before we packed up. Hooray, again!
Earlier in the month, I’d had some biopsies done. The one in that post was the one I was “traveling with”. If anyone looked in my carryon bag, they’d see mostly bandages, Neosporin, other medical stuff.
Luckily, I’d checked out the temperature in Scotland and found that the high was usually about 60° so I’d packed actual long jeans and shoes instead of my regular sandals.
We left for the Dulles airport about 3.
There was some ticket confusion. Our ticket said it was Delta, so the taxi driver dropped us off at the Delta area. They sent us off to KLM instead. The kind ticket agent moved us around so we could sit together – and checked our bag all the way through to Edinburgh. Hooray!
I had been a bit worried about picking up our suitcase in Amsterdam and taking it to the next gate but that was no problem now. Major yay! A note for the future – our new dermatologist, the one who is doing the biopsies, travels often to Scotland and leaves from Philadelphia – direct to Glasgow. If/when we get to go back, I’ll look into that or going from New York.
I followed directions and got through security just fine with no one finding my secret medical stash. Tom, OTOH, had stuff in his pockets…
We still got to the gate with plenty of time to spare since our flight was at 5:30 Eastern Time. The times are going to get confused since Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead and Scotland is 5 hours ahead.
Our flight was fine – one of those planes with 8 rows of seats across. 2 by each of the windows, an aisle, then 4 in the middle. The seats were quite comfortable, near the restrooms, had USB jacks. We got dinner and breakfast as well as a snack.
We arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol at 6:42 am on Saturday (their time, 12:42 am our time). We wandered around the airport a bit and came across V!ZZ!T D-Pier (the D-Pier means D Concourse). This store is sort of an airport Walmart. They seemed to have a bit of everything, including a small grocery store. I could have gotten wooden shoes but decided against them.
From the T-shirt selection at V!ZZ!T, I learned that marijuana is legal in Amsterdam. The local maps also showed exactly where the red light districts were located. When I got home, I mentioned this to my mom who said that they’d been on a tour of Amsterdam which included the red light district.
Amsterdam is a brave new world but we weren’t there long enough to leave the airport!
Our “Delta” flight, AKA KLM left for Scotland at 9:55 am (3:55 my time). I wasn’t sitting with Tom this time. When filling out Customs paperwork, I noticed the passports of the 2 women I was sitting with. One was from China, the other from Brazil – all of us on our way to Scotland. What a small world we’ve become.
We arrived at Edinburgh Turnhouse Airport at 10:25 Scotland time – 5:25 am, my time. Customs and Immigration were a snap, as was getting our suitcase.
The rental car was an absolute fiasco. I had reserved one online through a company William Shatner advertises. I didn’t know the names of any rental car companies in Scotland and the price of this one looked good so…
We went outside the airport and walked what seemed forever to the Car Rental Centre. We got there and it was buzzing with people – probably all off our plane. The circular enclosure was filled with car companies like Avis, Alamo, National, Hertz, Budget, all names I knew. The name on my reservation wasn’t there anywhere. Tom went to one of the desks and they had no cars available. All the others had long lines.
The phone numbers on my reservation paper didn’t work, possibly because I was using my cellphone and calling from the states.
I left Tom with the bags and set off looking for a pay phone. Finally found one by the far exit. We had no coins so we tried using a credit card. There was no central information number that we could find. Basically, we got nowhere with the pay phone.
Tom went back in the building and was gone so long I was considering what my options were. He finally came back and said he’d rented a car from Europcar, as well as a GPS. The price was considerably more than our nonexistent other car.
It took quite a while to find where the car was located in the huge lot but we finally found “our” silver KIA. Being a newer car, the windshield was slanted so the GPS couldn’t be used. It didn’t talk anyway, so I’d have to be looking at it all the time.
We turned on the car and it had a built in GPS already – which did talk. I set it up for where we were going – Macdonald Craigellachie Chalets, Dalfaber Village, Aviemore, Inverness-Shire PH22 1ST Scotland. Naturally, It couldn’t find that so I settled for Aviemore PH22 1ST just to get into the vicinity.
It seemed we drove forever and there was lots of traffic, which the GPS called “Attention. Traffic situation ahead.” Ok, how do we get out of it? There’s no way out. 🙁
We stopped for lunch (or dinner, or breakfast?) at a Dobbie’s Garden Center we’d seen off one of the exits after we drove past the Kingdom of Fife and the Firth of Forth.
Dobbies Garden World Kinross had a nice little restaurant/tearoom and we got to sit by the window. I ordered coffee americano which is your basic coffee with a shot of espresso. I don’t really remember what I had to eat but I think it was a sandwich of some sort.
Continuing on the M90 we saw a guy in a roadster with no roof stopped by the side of the road with a huge golf umbrella covering him and the inside of car. We also saw a couple people camped just off the highway. Apparently, they were living there for a while because I got a picture of them and their tents when we were heading home a week later.
We got off the M90 towards Aviemore and started looking for the Macdonald Craigellachie Chalets. We went by the Macdonald Aviemore Hotel which wasn’t it. Our GPS took us through town. We missed the turn, crossed a railroad crossing and made a U-Turn near some sort of golf course. We went down the little road and ended up in an industrial complex. I guess that’s where the Aviemore PH22 1ST was.
When making the U-turn, I’d seen a dark brown sign similar to the one on the Macdonald Aviemore Hotel and thought they might be related so we went back there.
That place was Macdonald Spey Valley Golf & Country Club. We parked and went inside to see if they knew where the Macdonald Craigellachie Chalets were. The desk person didn’t know but asked someone else who said we were in the right place. Go figure.
Apparently, they call where we stayed Luxury Woodland Lodges at Macdonald Aviemore Resort.
You’ll find our 4-star Luxury Woodland Lodges nestled amongst Macdonald Aviemore Resort‘s ancient Caledonian pine forests. Our 18 deluxe Highland lodges combine luxury with outdoor living; after a day of adventuring in the surrounding mountains, store your bike or skis in the woodshed, order a pizza delivery from Giovanni’s – our onsite Italian restaurant, and settle into your woodland home-from-home in front of a cosy wood-burning stove.
Enjoy long summer evenings with a drink on your private deck, take a stroll to one of the resort restaurants nearby or for the more energetic take a walk to the Craigellachie Nature Reserve. Alternatively guests have use of Spey Valley Leisure’s 25m indoor pool, complete with wave machine and flume.
Each of our lodges sleeps up to 6 people in three en-suite bedrooms. Lodges include:
- Living Room with flat screen TV, DVD player
- Gallery Kitchen with a 4 ring hob, microwave, fridge, toaster, Nespresso coffee machine, tableware and cutlery
- Breakfast Table with 6 chairs
- “All-in-one” cupboard with iron & board, high chair/travel cot for the “wee ones” and vacuum cleaner
Ground Floor – 1 King with WC, Bath and separate shower & 1 Twin with WC & Shower
First Floor – 1 Double with WC & shower
- Beautiful pine forest setting
- Sleep up to 6 people
- Storage for bikes, skis etc
- Luxury bathrooms with separate showers
- Access to 25-metre swimming pool
- Free Wifi Powered by The Cloud
My description is somewhat different. Part of it will show up later in my Trip Advisor review.
First off, there were spiderwebs. Place could use some work. No phone, key didn’t work, Internet didn’t work.
We had trouble with the keys opening the door. There was no phone, so Tom went back to the main building to get a maintenance person to help us. The Maintenance Guy showed us how to work the keys. I figured out wifi. Still no phone. I took some pictures of the exterior and interior.
It was so cold out and in. I went in the various rooms and turned the little heaters on. Only in the bedroom could we control the temperature. The other rooms were on and off. The bathroom was heated only by a heated towel rack. I was picturing myself getting out of the shower, losing my balance and grabbing for something, that towel rack and being fried.
I was exhausted and took a little nap. Tom watched the tv and it blew a fuse. We didn’t realize that until next morning when fridge, microwave didn’t work.
We ventured into town to go to the Tesco grocery store. One of the first items I came across was haggis pizza which we didn’t get on general principle.
I was too tired for dinner so I just had Scottish breakfast bread, similar to Bajan salt bread. Tom had popcorn.
At bedtime, I was still cold so I took the comforter from “Michael’s room”. We called it that, even though we knew he wouldn’t be there. That room ended up being our walk-in closet since there wasn’t much space anywhere else.
All pictures from today