Scotland - We have landed

In Chicago, we met up with my brother and his wife-to-be as well as his soon to be in-laws. O'hare is a beautiful airport...just a long walk to the international terminal. We walked quite a distance before getting on a train which brought us to the terminal. We then had to walk a ways to the gate.
The flight was uncomfortable. It was a full flight, so no one was really able to stretch out.
The plane landed in Manchester, England at about 7:30am UK time. We got through immigration without much trouble. I did get chastised by the officials for taking a quick snapshot of the immigration gate. Apparently, that's a big no-no and he made me delete the picture off the camera. He warmed up when we told him we were coming to Scotland for a wedding.

We spent close to 3 hours at the airport. Getting our luggage and getting out of the airport was a breeze...getting the rental cars was a huge hassle. First we missed the rental desk and walked all the way up to where you pick up the cars. Luckily there was a employee of the rental company up there that directed us back to the desk, where we spent the next couple of hours going through the paperwork (do you want insurance? do you want tires?). After we got that sorted out we had an Easter egg hunt for the vehicles. They don't put numbers on the parking spots, they just tell you what the license plate number is and then what row it's in. Of course, there is no row numbers to be found. So you walk around up and down the rows looking for your car. We asked for some help from some of the employees...there solution was to keep punching the panic button on the key fob until your car blinked or the horn sounded.
Every car here is a clown car. Maybe smaller. We packed one car to the gills with luggage. The other with people.

We spent the next couple of hours driving to Eastriggs where the Graham Arms B&B is located. It's a nice cozy homely little place, though I can't say "warm" because the place is freezing.
A nice little family runs the place. We were shown to our rooms. I was given the single room, which was large being built for the disabled. The bed is about as wide as I am. And I'm a pretty skinny guy. The comforter was just as wide as the bed. This presents a problem since I can never get completely covered. I resorted to sleeping curled up in the fetal position so I reserve a little of my heat. There is no central air. The heat comes from radiators which they shut off at night.


We zipped off for dinner as soon as we got settled in to the B&B. We went to the nearby town of Annan. I was driving and was a bit cranky from lack of sleep and food. Drove through the town about 4 times trying to decide on what restaurant to go to. They had Italian, Indian, Chinese (the Lucky Date) and some pubs. We finally settled on a restaurant called "Caspians" which had a fare of Scottish type food with Lamb and Steak. Pretty good stuff. In the photo from left to right is my Joanne and Bob (my parents), Cindy and Mike (Jody's parents).
After a full belly, we drove back to the B&B trying to concentrate on staying on the wrong side of the road.