Day 11: Kirkcaldy and London, 11 May 2013 (Saturday)

Another overcast and windy day in Scotland. I can see why my ancestors settled in the North Georgia mountains. The flora and fauna, landscape, and winter weather are all very similar. I woke up a bit early for me, so I took a shower. Amy opted to shower after breakfast.

The breakfast at the Dean Park Hotel was a traditional breakfast. I ordered eggs and "bacon" (we'd call it fried ham in the US), and Amy ordered haggis with hers. I have no desire to ever try the stuff.

We ventured back to the room for Amy to shower. We discovered that check-out was at 11:00 am (they neglected to tell us this when we checked in), so we had to rush a bit to throw everything back into our suitcases. This left us about two hours to wait for Amy's friend Dawn to arrive. We just sat in the bar and chatted. I don't recall a single person coming over to ask if we wanted to order anything. Just as well since we didn't. We just chatted about the weather, what time we needed to catch the train back to London, the fact that Amy didn't want to join me for the trip to Cardiff, etc.


Dawn arrived in a Land Rover (my first ever ride in one!) carrying two other passengers. Turned out to be someone else Amy knows, Anna, and Dawn's 15-year-old son, Kieran. We all went off to Marino's La Passione Italian restaurant. Wonderful food and fantastic prices! If you ever find yourself in the area, I can highly recommend going there.

After our lovely lunch we had some time to kill, so after dropping Anna off somewhere, Amy asked Dawn to take us to see the ruins of Ravenscraig Castle. I took some photos, and I'll have to come back and post them later.

Dawn got a call from a tenant of a property she manages, so we were off to that location. Amy, Keiran, and I stayed in the car to chat while Dawn went inside. Keiran is a really cool kid. He sounds more American than Scottish, thanks to the school he attends. He would fit in with our crowd easily - likes Anime, drawing (he is really good), has cats and a dog. Very typical teenager. We even got the chance to explain to him that, no, human albinos don't have pink eyes (he had drawn an Anime version of one).

Then it was time to head for the train station to catch another East Coast train back to London. This would be 6 hours on the same train, with several stops along the way. But at least we didn't have to change trains, and spend time standing on cold, windy platforms waiting on the next train to arrive.

By the time we reached the Edinburgh station I was starting to feel ill. My ears were aching, and I started feeling sore all over. Great. Fantastic. Just what I need, to be sick on my vacation. Argh. I gave up on the idea of writing this on the train back, and decided to try and sleep instead. This isn't easy to do on a train with unforgiving seats, but I did manage to nod off for a bit. I do recall a VERY loud group getting on the train in Doncaster, who thankfully got off at the next stop (York, I think). They didn't seem to be capable of speaking to one another in a volume other than full-on yelling. Part of their discussion centered around one of the young women (early 20s) having legally changed her last name to Beiber because she was such a huge Justin Beiber fan. That's a bit too... creepy to me.

Finally, we arrived in London at Kings Cross, and we made our way back to our hotel. It was all a bit of a blur to me since I was feeling worse by then. I took some NyQuil (I travel with a small medicine chest's worth of items, just in case they are needed) and crawled into bed.

I set the alarm for 6:00am so I could make the 8:00am train to Cardiff to see The Doctor Who Experience, and do some other Doctor Who-related stuff. I just prayed I would feel better in the morning.