Aimee began her trip at the crack of dawn on Saturday, September 8th. She flew from Burbank to Denver to Minneapolis. We were crossing our fingers that she wouldn't have any delays in Denver. Her last couple trips through there haven't been the best. At Thanksgiving time she "only" had about a 4 hour delay. Fortunately this time everything worked out well and she landed in Minneapolis almost a full 30 minutes early. We picked her up at the Lindberg terminal and Chuck then dropped both of us off at the Humphrey terminal where we checked in for our flight on Iceland Air. We had about a 3 hour wait which would have been okay if there was something to do in the Humphrey terminal! It's a very, very small, quiet terminal with only 1 small shop and a coffee shop. So I got coffee (what is life without coffee!) and we bought a couple large bottles of water for the plane. 
Our flight to Iceland was nice and smooth. The flight was just under 5 hours. We got a hot meal on the plane (meatballs of some kind of mystery meat and rice plus a very bizarre salad of some sort that neither of us could eat). We landed at Gate 9 in Iceland and our connecting flight to Scotland was out of Gate 8. We thought that was convenient. Little did we know!! When we got off the plane we went down an escalator and around a corner where we waited in a long line to go up another escalator. At the top of the escalator they confiscated our water, which we thought was strange. Why are they confiscating unopened bottles of water when we're connecting to another flight? The next thing we know we're going through security....shoes off, bags x-rayed, etc., and then our passports are checked. Yes...we are ENTERING ICELAND! But wait...we don't want to enter Iceland! We just want to connect to our flight to Scotland. After we've cleared immigration we went through the door, around the corner and got in another line to (you guessed it) LEAVE ICELAND!! We had our passports stamped twice..once to enter and once to leave. We waited at Gate 8 (virtually where we started). Aimee noticed that the overhead screen said "Go to Gate" for our flight. All of a sudden people just started boarding. There were NO announcements of any sort....we just boarded as a herd.
Our flight to Iceland was nice and smooth. The flight was just under 5 hours. We got a hot meal on the plane (meatballs of some kind of mystery meat and rice plus a very bizarre salad of some sort that neither of us could eat). We landed at Gate 9 in Iceland and our connecting flight to Scotland was out of Gate 8. We thought that was convenient. Little did we know!! When we got off the plane we went down an escalator and around a corner where we waited in a long line to go up another escalator. At the top of the escalator they confiscated our water, which we thought was strange. Why are they confiscating unopened bottles of water when we're connecting to another flight? The next thing we know we're going through security....shoes off, bags x-rayed, etc., and then our passports are checked. Yes...we are ENTERING ICELAND! But wait...we don't want to enter Iceland! We just want to connect to our flight to Scotland. After we've cleared immigration we went through the door, around the corner and got in another line to (you guessed it) LEAVE ICELAND!! We had our passports stamped twice..once to enter and once to leave. We waited at Gate 8 (virtually where we started). Aimee noticed that the overhead screen said "Go to Gate" for our flight. All of a sudden people just started boarding. There were NO announcements of any sort....we just boarded as a herd. 
Here's Aimee with both stamps in her passport. The flight to Scotland was only about 90 minutes and we again jumped through the hoops at immigration. It was pretty painless, except for the HUGE group of people ahead of us in line who spoke no English. There were only 3 guys working in immigration and they were having quite the time with this non-English speaking group. Eventually it was our turn and we breezed through. We stopped to change some money and then went in search of Enterprise where we'd reserved a car.
We finally found the booth (after wandering around the airport, both inside and out) only to find a sign telling us that we had to go outside to their facility. We had no idea where it was so we started wandering in the area where we saw other car rental places. Finally we saw Enterprise in the furtherest corner from the airport terminal...but we were on the wrong side of a fence. So we climbed over the fence with our suitcases and FINALLY got there. They had a car ready and waiting for us.
Here's our little car (at Scone Palace) which we affectionately nicknamed The Bubble. We heart that little car!! I have to said that Aimee can drive with the best of Scottish drivers! She definitely impressed me. She is a PRO! She handled all those roundabouts like she did it every day. We hopped in The Bubble and headed out of Glasgow toward our first stop...Pitlochry.
To be continued..................
2 comments:
You climbed a fence--with your suitcases!! You are my new hero.
Great start to your adventure in Scotland. Had no idea that the trip to Iceland was so fast - just five hours.
Helene.
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