Scotland

May 12-14, 2015

Here was our first clue we were in Scotland: seats on the bus which took us into the town of Edinburgh (pronounced Edinburo)!

Riding from the airport, I noticed a cafe named, "Rumblin Tum." As we got off the bus and walked down the street to find the hotel (in a residential area), we saw a sign, "Pop along to the Murrayfield Hotel, two doors down."

We stayed in the Murrayfield Hotel Bothy, Restaurant and Drinkery. I learned that a bothy was usually a ruined building which had been restored found in remote, mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and Wales. It was a basic shelter usually left unlocked and available for anyone (often workers on an estate) to use free of charge. Nowadays there are bothy organizations.

When a girl helped us take our things upstairs to our room, Ken tried to tip her with the largest British coin he had...she laughed and he was surprised to find out that he'd tried to give her a 2 pence! Another embarrassing tourist moment!

Since I was too warm last week, I packed lighter and then saw the wind blowing and everyone wearing coats! Oh no!

The waiter at breakfast told us a good Scottish proverb, "Ten compliments a day will keep the solicitor (lawyer) away."

A traditional breakfast: Full Scottish Breakfast including a fried egg, thick bacon, sausage, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, baked beans, a potato scone, toast and black pudding. This is the first time we've had black (blood) pudding on our plates, but we tasted it and it was pretty good, though gross to think about so we didn't eat much. It was strange to have baked beans and roasted tomato for breakfast; the potato scone was good.

We later found that this same breakfast is also traditional in England only it is called: the "Full English Breakfast" and included the same items except for the potato scone.

 

We didn't find out soon enough that we could have had breakfast in bed!

Here's Captain Moroni on duty while we ate dinner!

 The next day we took a train from Edinburg to Glasgow where we were picked up by Sheila, the LDS professional therapist we had come to meet. She drove us to the Watermill Hotel in a nearby city called Paisley where she lives. She chose the restaurant for our meeting and it was actually a great place because we had the room all to ourselves. As you see from the table cloth it is an Italian restaurant, but the cloths over the chairs are Scottish! It was Italian food with a Scottish flair. (This must be an oxymoron!) This is actually the 3rd Italian restaurant we've been taken to, one in France, one in Austria, and this one in Scotland!

We met Mick Stuart, a 90 year old Scottish gentleman, because he asked me to read the label on the marmalade jar (he has just one eye) at breakfast. He is an author who lives on an island in Northern Scotland. He looked at my name badge and said,"I know a bit about the Mormons," so I asked if he had any questions, he said, "I could keep you here all day." I asked him if he'd like to ask me just one question, since we were about to leave for our train. He thought for a minute, and asked if Mormons have more than one wife. I said no, and if they did they would be excommuncated from the Church. He said, "Does that matter to Mormons?" I said, it definitely does matter. I asked if he'd like me to send him some information. "Yes, but something brief. You'd send it all the way from Frankfurt?" Of course! He gave me his address. As we shook hands, he asked my first name so he'd remember when I sent something. "Oh, I won't forget," he said as we bid him goodbye. 

Hmmm, is a Book of Mormon considered to be brief information? 

(For the first installment, I wrote a letter when we got home from our trip and included a pass-along card so hopefully he will check out the lds.org website.)

This is the building where the manufacturing of textiles took place for about 80 years in the 1800s and employed 7000 people until its popularity began to decline in the 1870s. This town became famous for the design and is where the name "Paisley" comes from. The paisley design actually originated in Persia but was brought to Scotland by merchants. Now this building is has been made into apartments.