Travel Day (continued)

We laded a tad early in London, Heathrow. Just prior to landing, we were told that if we were going on an international flight and your bags were checked through, you didn't have to fill out the form. Since Scotland is another country, we assumed that we didn't need the form.

The signage was odd in several places. For example, we were routed quite a long way around the jet way to a couple of hallways and finally to a courtyard sort of area. Below us were shops, restaurants, etc. and that sounded good since we had time to kill. However getting there was no easy task and there were no signs. We went down an escalator two levels to the wrong area. We had to take stairs back up. I didn't mind too much because we'd been so inactive for 10 hours, but this was kind of silly. Ultimately we found our way to a security check…even though we just came from a plane and weren't leaving the terminal or the secure area. The line was very long, but luckily we weren't in a rush. After security, guess what? We had to go through customs and had to fill out that little form. (Not even as a family—but individually!) Ah the joys of travel. Finally we found our way to the gate and waited. Turns out that just before our scheduled departure, they posted a delay so we grabbed some panini sandwiches in the little restaurant near by. They had mayonnaise, but were amazingly good actually!

Anyway, our flight to Glasgow was about an hour late, but otherwise no problems. When we arrived our bags weren't on the beltway—no worries there was another area for bags that came internationally. Mind you, they hadn't been through customs with us yet. So we found them on the belt and piled them on one of the complimentary carts. (Europe is very civilized about travel carts.) We walked right by three or four people that looked like customs folks but no one wanted to ask us anything or check the bags or match the tags on the bags!

We stopped at the travel desk and got directions from the nice woman there. We bought tickets to the Central Station in Glasgow and took a short cab ride to the house we're staying in near Queens Park just south of downtown on the opposite side of the River Clyde. We were very tied and after we got a tour from our host family's oldest daughter, Marie-Claire. She's delightful and the house is very big and well, quirky in a pleasant way. More on that tomorrow.

Before we settled in, we walked down the road to the Safeway. Yes, Safeway with a twist. It is in a BP gas station. A small market to get some essentials. We wouldn't have known about it, but the cab driver took pitty on us and probably figured we needed some guidance for "emergency" rations. The choices in the market were limited—we got some eggs, juice, milk, fruit, and stuff. Then, back home and got some sleep.