One a Day: day 357

i made a new friend. his name is paul. he has long hair, works at crossraguel abbey in maybole, and his good friend was the best man for kurt cobain's (nirvana) wedding. he even showed us a picture of him and this guy on his cell phone.

i've decided that i love scottish people. not just because of paul, but because of the wonderfully friendly people we've met since being here. today we left glasgow to go find some info about our ancestors, so we traveled to the county of ayrshire. it is GORGEOUS here! i could just drive through this country and be happy.

on our way to the city of kirkoswald, we found these cool abbey ruins from back in the 13th century. one thing i've noticed all throughout the UK and old buildings is the small doors. were people all like under 5 feet back then? just wondering. we got to climb to the top of the tower and see the whole countryside- so beautiful!!!

after the abbey we had lunch and actually found GOOD food! who knew!? lora and my mum went and found a graveyard nearby with some really old headstones and i think they even found one of our ancestors (this is where they are from)! this is the kind of genealogy i like.

sadly, we had to leave ayrshire and head back to our hotel cos we had to take an evening train to edinburgh. let me just say- that was a long train ride. it's especially hard when you're dead tired and you CANNOT fall asleep, just bob your head up and down.

luckily we arrived in one piece, but... the person who was supposed to give us the keys to the apartment lora rented wasn't answering their phone. the office was closed. so, we had to hurry and formulate a plan B and look for a place to stay. you would think being last minute we would have to stay at some shady motel in the scary part of the city, but we got hooked up with the sweetest hotel room near the city center. 18 foot ceilings, gorgeous garden view, HUGE space, BATH TUB (first time!), etc. so nice.

so, tomorrow starts our 3 day tour of edinburgh. looking forward to it!