I'm not bitter... I'll tell you why I'm bitter!!!

I'm not sure if it was the 24 hours of being in transit with little or no sleep or being broken down on the A1, 50 miles from our destination and 50 miles from home, on a typical cold British Christmas Day, or (for the SECOND time this month) awaiting the arrival of 3 friends who never got off the plane this morning) that I enjoyed the most over the past 3 days.

After 10 wondeful days in the US, Tim and I made our way to the Minneapolis Airport and started our 4,300 mile trek home. We arrived at O'Hare and discovered that our flight had been cancelled, due to mechanical errors. Another BMI flight would have put us into Edinburgh about 8 hours later than we would've like, so they set us up on BA airlines. This, of course, meant changing our ticket over, at the BMI desk, and then going to the BA desk for boardinng passes, and passing through the O'Hare Airport security again. (Don't worry, it's gotta be like the largest airport in the world, so, as you can imagine, there were hardly any people there on the penultimate day for Christmas travel. ;)

We had an additional wait, but the BA flight took us into London Heathrow, which went pretty good. There was of course, a layover here for several hours. We were greeted, about 10 minutes before our flight's departure, with an intercom annoucement that Flight # 1*H£ , heading for KASLDFESD, will SELKOODAFD LASDK SEDLKIFDJ WOIER. Yeah, if you can make that out, please let me know, because the woman speaking must have had a towel in her mouth when she delivered the message. Even the local Brits hadn't a clue. After clumsily asking around, we found our bus which would eventually taxi us out to the plane. We arrived in Edinburgh 24 hours after our ordeal began.

We cancelled our xmas eve plans due to our exhaustion and called it a night by renting Shrek II and promptly falling asleep 15 minutes into it. (watched it the next day, good movie! Jennifer Saunders stole the show.)

Happy Christmas as the Brits say. The day for our car trip south 90 miles to the beautiful city of Alnwick (pronounced Annick--Aln is celtic for "bright river" and wick translates to village.) We leave with enough time to catch up and visit before our hosts served dinner, but, just north of Berwick, our little Fiesta decides she's TOO hot to drive any further. We pull over in a lay by and open up the bonnet to see steam and hoses with steam coming out of them. Good fun! There was an exchange with some four letter words which I'll spare you, but you can imagine. We call our hosts and they graciously offer their assistance in picking us up. We left the little green Fiesta to the safety of strangers and passers by on the A1 until further notice.

We arrived a bit late to dinner, but the food was amazing of course. Roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, turkey, roasted potatoes, cranberries, wild rice stuffing (to make the Minnesotan's feel at home) brussel sprouts, apple sauce and Christmas bread pudding for dessert! Oh, of course, lots of great red wine. Thank you Archibalds for an absolutely brilliant time!

Boxing Day brought us to visiting a few people and sending our holiday greetings. We ended up in Preston Main with good friends and more drink to watch the days horse races. Of course we were betting--but dont' worry, mine didn't win. I'm not bitter, yet.

So, I am aware that Ann, Lisa and Karey are flying into Edinburgh at 8:30am, and with a stranded car, I needed to make some alternative travel plans. We call the TravelLine, and one operator says National Express doesn't serve the Alnwick area, and another quoted a 5:05am departure from the bus station. Now, I should've taken this as a BIG clue of, "Hello Idiot, do you really think this is for real?" But no, being the optimist that I am, I went to bed earlier than my counterparts and got up good and early, at 4:00am on Monday. Well, I had a cup of coffee, sufferred through the devasting news of the earthquake off the island of Sumatra, counted my blessings, and head out the Castle doors to the station. I waited from 4:45 to 5:30am, nothing. No busses. I saw exactly 7 cars and one girl doing the walk of shame, but no bus. Cold, headache sitting in, I headed back to the barbican where the castle guard was nice enough to let me back in (with out the our friend, Wade, the director, to sign me in) This would be THEE Harry Potter Castle. Again, I need to count my blessings that I have these experiences at least.
After waking Tim and exploring useless bus and rail web sites for busses and cotemplating £120 cab fares to Edinburgh, we woke Wade and he brought us to Dalkeith.
I have since called the airport to page the girls and have them call our mobile phone since we can't meet them at exactly 8:30am. Turns out, there flight was a half an hour early, and so I thought, okay, they should call any minute. Well, that was one trip to the airport, 4 cigarettes and 8 hours ago, and still no word. I think they missed a connecting flight through Newark, but, of course neither the airports nor airlines can say. Can't say, Can't say... (Little Britain reference)

So, as of 4:30pm, they are still not here. Liz at the airport has been great to help me and page them ever so often. So, for the time being, its a pot of coffee and another cigarette.

It's going to be a good week, but beware travellers, I think the haunted palace we live in has cursed our travelling ways.