Rotary Trip to Scotland

Wednesday 20 September
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Today we were picked up by Robert and whisked off to Roger’s to be driven to the meeting point with the next Rotary Club. There was quite a diversion (detour in American-speak) that made what should have been the last quarter-mile into a 6 mile jaunt. But we got there in the pouring rain and were met by Mike Kelly, our GSE liason here in Scotland, and Henry and taken to an old mill for a tour.
Because of Adrienne, we got an in-depth talk and tour of the facility (Adrienne is a museum curator - it wasn’t because she’s cute, although she is). Thorns linked to it on his post if you are interested.
I have officially been the farthest out at every club we’ve been to: I was a good 20 minutes from everybody at club #1, a half-hour (with Bill) at #2, and now another 20 minutes (this time with Thorns). We are staying with Mike and Liz in a nice house out in the country.
We had a quiet dinner, and then I retired early. Unfortunately I ended up being up half the night in the bathroom with a stomach problem.

Thursday 21 September
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I begged out of the morning activity (a visit to some historic town on the coast) and slept until about 11. Liz stayed behind with me and made sure I was functional (I had fresh ginger in hot water for breakfast) and then we set out to meet the group at Culvearn Castle. While everyone else was getting the history of the place from the curator, I wandered around and looked at seabirds. Then we all took a tour of the castle. Pretty interesting stuff. You can actually rent rooms and have a vacation at the castle if you want. I have no idea how much that costs, though.

We had dinner at the Taj - a wonderful Indian restaurant owned by the brother of a Rotarian (formely co-owned by the Rotarian). We had a room to ourselves and even got to go back into the kitchen. Very good food, I highly recommend it if you are in the area.
NIFTY SURPRISE #1: Adrienne and Melissa showed up at dinner in full Indian garb, both looking extra beautiful. I didn’t bring my camera so pictures will have to wait until I get copies off the others’ cameras.

After dinner we walked down to a local pub to see if there was live music. They were setting up when I got there and
NIFTY SURPRISE #2: I got to play a couple songs for everyone! My international pub debut. It went over well, the team had never heard me sing before and seemed quite impressed. Here’s what I played:
“Amie” - Pure Prarie League
“Handle With Care” - Traveling Wilburys
“This & That” - Michael Penn

Again - pictures will follow. I just wanted to post this while it was fresh in my head.

Scottish word of the day: “brae” - hill

Scottish correction of the day: “Ceiledh” is the correct spelling of the party we went to on Saturday.

Tomorrow will be a full day and I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to post again. Be strong.

Jason

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Jason's trip updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.