Balmaha

October 10, 2012

We had a wonderful dinner last night.  We ate at the 4^th Wall and the food was great and of course so was the company!

We got up early in order to have plenty of time to get to the airport and return the tin can car and Annie Smythe.  I got in the ultra-modern shower and got all wet to find out there was no more body/hair soap left in the dispenser.  Oh well. 

We got all our stuff in the tin can car and off Annie Smythe took us to the Belfast City Airport.  Except she didn’t.  “You have arrived at your destination” is not what you want to hear when you are clearly not in front of the airport.  Because it was rush hour the roundabouts were crazy.  We were in the shipyards and I finally went in and asked a nice man how to get to the airport.  Bc did an amazing job maneuvering through the maze of the roundabout and we finally found the airport.  Then we just needed to drop off the tin can car and Annie Smythe.  You would think that would be easy.  Nope, we drove all over looking for the Hertz drop off, asking people, getting in the pay car park (and out).  All this time we saw where it said Hertz, but there was no kiosk or office.  Finally someone said “Just park it in a Hertz slot and go into the terminal.  OH!  That would have been helpful to know. 

We dumped the tin can car in the first slot we saw that had Hertz’s numbers and walked to the terminal.  We checked in for our flight.  The lady kept saying “I need to weigh all your bits.”  We did a quick switch of our toiletries to our one hand bag, locked the smaller carry ons and checked all the bits we could.  We then went to the Hertz place and gave some man the keys and Annie Smythe.  He refused to give us a receipt showing we turned in the car and the GPS.  In fact, he was offended that we would ask.  When I said “We have no proof we gave you the car or the GPS.”  He said “Well yes, we’ll take the car back to Dublin and they will sort it out.”  He didn’t even know where we parked the tin can car.  We hope this won’t come back to bite us, but we wrote down our mileage and date etc.  What a bizarre way to deal with a car rental!

Traveling through airports is such fun. NOT!  We decided to have a hot chocolate and a cappuccino before attempting security.  That tasted good and fortified us for the next adventure.

We could see that the system was quite the same at the other one million airports we have been through except no one was taking off their shoes.  Nice.  We got in line, loaded our jackets, toiletries, computer, carryon bags etc in the bins.  I get up to push my stuff through x-ray and the man says “take off your shoes!”  I looked around me and I was the only one that was required to remove my shoes.  I put them into the pile in a bin.  I went through and got my stuff and then couldn’t find bc!  I got my stuff off the belt and then his stuff too, but still couldn’t find him.  He was right behind me!  Did the Belfast airport police take him away?  Finally I see him and he comes through and says “Here are your toiletries.”  It seems that you are not allowed to put your toiletries through the x-ray in your own plastic bag.  You are required to use one of theirs!  And they don’t tell you that until you are ready to go through x-ray.  Then the guy wasn’t going to let bc through with 2 baggies!  Bc finally convinced him that one was mine.  Whew!  Dodged that bullet.  Oh!  Bc didn’t have to take his shoes off. 

Who thinks up these rules and procedures?  Good grief.

We got to the rental car pick up and this time we are renting from Arnold Clarke.  They are so much nicer and cheaper.  And hold onto your hats, the car we got is amazing!  Not a scratch, bump, nothing.  It’s a volkswagon Tiguan.  The difference between the tin can car and this car is night and day.  Bc can get into the driver’s seat without wrenching his legs around, there is padding on the seats, and there is a backup thingie that dings when we back up.  It’s luxurious!  It only has a few thousand miles on it where the tin can car had over 65,000 miles on it.  Anyway, off we went with Annie Macallan.  She didn’t get us lost, was very polite and quite civilized!

Because we packed to fly, my notebook was packed away so I couldn’t write down the towns we went through to get to Balmaha.   We did stop in Drymen for lunch at the Clachan Inn which has been there since 1734.  I had macaroni and cheese and bc had the lamb burger with, of course, chips.  We also had jaguar beer which has no carbonation.  It was all good.

Back on the road to Balmaha to our B&B The Oak Tree Inn.  It sits right on Loch Lomond as well as the Loch Lomond National Forest.  It’s so pretty here.  We walked up along the Loch.  It’s so peaceful. 

When we got into our room I lay down and instantly fell asleep.  I’ve had a bit of a sore throat and the nap made me feel so much better.

We are now downstairs in the bar where bc is enjoying his first scotch of Scotland.  Glengoyne Scotch.  We had Stcky Toffe Pudding for dessert.  Oh my!  That was good!  The internet is very bad here, so I have no idea when we may be able to post this. 

We’ve been a little more than 2 weeks on the road and we’re having a blast, despite silly things like the wrong plastic bag for our toiletries! 

Take care, bc and gc    

PS. By the way, we are in room 3 which is next door to room 8.  When we got to our room I noticed that they provide ear plugs for “our comfort.”  Huh?  Luckily the people in room 8 only moved furniture around until 9pm, so we didn’t need to use the ear plugs.  I had bc take a shower first so he could figure out the shower.  But it was nice to was to take wash my hair!  Say, we did taste the Haggis for breakfast this morning.  We rate it right up there with poi and vegamite.