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Wednesday 08th of September 2010

Trip to Scotland (2006-08-07 -> 2006-08-10)

If you know my family ties you know I have alot of relatives over in Scotland. Unfortunately for me I've lost my scottish accent so don't even try it, but I've heard it works wonders with women. It worked on both my sisters anyway. One of them lives over there with her husband Paul and their 4 (!!!) kids. Unfortunately I don't get to see them that much. Last time was actually summer 2005 for the Silverstone F1 race, but before that it was 2003 for my other sisters 30th birthday party, and before that is was 2001 for her 30th birthday party (kinda). Anyway, you get the point, we don't see eachother as much as we'd like. But now me and AC decided to go over there and pay our big sister a visit.

The biggest problem we had was actually deciding how to get there. Aberdeen is really hard to fly to, but eventually we decided to go with regular SAS (Star Alliance) since that would mean it was all free for me thanks to frequent flier points. The route eventually ended up as Stockholm -> Oslo -> Stavanger -> Aberdeen, but for some reason going home it was from Aberdeen -> Stavanger -> Copenhagen -> Stockholm. When we were going there we also had 2 of Amy's daughters with us and you know what that can be like on airports and planes. I'm glad I was never like that when I was a kid. Or maybe I was? Unfortunately for AC I was travelling first class (there is no other way when using frequent flier points!) so she had to deal with them while I was sitting doing Soduku all the way.

Unfortunately for everyone, Paul was offshore working when we got there so we never met him but after a cabride over to little Torphins we finally met our sister and her other two kids. Fun was had by all. We didn't do much that day except sit around and talk. Sisters have alot to talk about!!
On the second day we started the day off going shopping. Being half british there are some things we just can't live without. Like brittish chocolate, salt & vinegar crisps and all that good stuff we don't get here in sweden. On the evening we went out and "did the town" of Banchory. One thing about scottish towns - always enough pubs to go around. It never got _that_ wild and I didn't get on the dancefloor (don't even think there was one?) but there was some pool. And ofc, alot of talking. And then standing around for halv an hour waiting for a taxi back, not exactly what I'm used to, but neither is being out with both my sisters. Have to take the good with the bad I guess :)

On the third day we did our best to get back to normal and went back to Banchory to meet some of AC's relatives that lives there. I only know a few of them from some of the few times I've met them but they are always so nice and talkative that it's no problem sitting chatting away. After that we went back to Amy's and spent the afternoon trying to entertain the kids (which reminds me I need to take "how to deal with kids"-class), then off to the local pub for some good old pub-food. And then the sisters got back into talking mode. But one of the few new things I was introduced to when I was there was "Little Britain" that I for some reason have totally missed here in sweden. Got the DVD now though so that's taken care of.

We woke up on the 10th to the news of some plot to blow up planes and stuff that had been foiled that day and as a result they had increased security on the airports. So we went to the airport earlier than we had planned and as it turned out we were not allowed any carry-on at all so we had to check everything in. Not really what I'm used to. And speaking of "not used to", I was flying first class but hadn't really noticed it until this flight to Stavanger where I was all alone in the first class section, which was physically seperated from the rest. It felt so lonely and rediculous I asked if my sister couldn't come up here with me. The very kind and serviceminded steward, that I usually never bother with anything, thought that was ok. So we flew back to Stavanger to wait for the next flight that was over an hour away so we took a beer at the bar while we were making fun of those people you see on "The Airline"-show that are late to their flights because they were in the bar. After the second beer we kinda wondered when we were gonna board and decided to check it out.... only to find that it was the last boarding call for our flight NOW! but in a different terminal than the one the bar was in. So all of a sudden we becamse those people :) Flight down to Copenhagen at which point I actually wanted to miss the next flight so I could once again eat at their magnificent steakhouse. But that was not to be as we caught our flight home to Stockholm.

Overall it was a very fun trip with some good memories. Probably some bad too but they are easily forgotten :)
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