Scotland: Glasgow, Edinburgh, St. Andrews

Hey guys! I'm so excited to share our vacation abroad to Scotland, England, and Ireland! Prior to this trip, Trevor and I really had never been out of the States. We went to the Bahamas on a cruise, but we didn't need our passports so we didn't count it. We were excited to explore countries outside of our own.

This entire trip was planned around us going to the Open golf tournament. Trevor's personal bucket list is to go to all of the golf majors. We've already been to the US Open, so the (British) Open was next on the list! I got Trevor the Open tickets for his birthday last year and then we planned our trip completely around that.

We left Washington D.C. on a Thursday red eye flight. We had a layover in Iceland (which included us having to be shuttled from the airport to the plane on a bus in 40 degree weather), and then we landed in Glasgow, Scotland around 10:30am local time. Our time in Glasgow was short as we then caught a bus from the airport to the train station, and then caught a train to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, Scotland

It was rainy and chilly when we arrived in Edinburgh. We got off the train and walked around a bit, although it really was a pain because we had our luggage with us. We found a little restaurant to eat lunch in to pass some time and we both got burgers and "chips" (aka, french fries). A lady that sat next to us on the plane that was from Scotland told us that we didn't need to tip at restaurants, but it felt so wrong to just not leave anything. We ended up leaving a couple pounds at the tables wherever we went.

A picture of us on the train looking pretty rough after being awake for almost 24 hours!

After we ate lunch, we decided to just leave Edinburgh for St. Andrews. We originally planned to spend the day exploring in Edinburgh, but it was just too difficult to explore with our luggage. I'm glad we made the decision to catch another train up to St. Andrews.

After about a 40 minute train ride we made it to St. Andrews. We were able to catch a bus from the train station to our AirBnb. In St. Andrews, we were staying with a couple named Stephen and Kat. As we walked up to their house with our luggage, we saw Kat and Casper (her little white fluffy dog) greeting us from the front door. Kat showed us to our room and we immediately felt at home.

Kat's house was so nice, modern, and clean. We had our own room and bathroom that was separate from the rest of the house which made it feel a little more private.

That evening, Trevor and I decided to explore St. Andrews a little more. We walked into town to eat dinner.

We ended up stopping at this cute little restaurant for dinner. Trevor ordered a lamb roast and I ordered duck shepherd's pie. Both were good!

 We drank some local brews and enjoyed dining with the locals for the evening. Everyone in St. Andrews was so friendly. We immediately felt at home there and both Trevor and I said that we would love to spend more time there. St. Andrews is a small college town but we really liked it. You could walk anywhere and felt safe, and they had cute shops and restaurants. The landscaping was beautiful and everyone takes pride in their gardens. We are hoping to go back in the future!