Beautiful Scotland – Aberdeen, Stonehaven and a bit of Glasgow

Hello guys! In this blog post I’m going to tell you about my 1st experience with Scotland and show you many many spectacular landscapes along the North Sea. Was lucky enough to even have a sunny weather during this trip! Say whaaaat??? Sunny in Scotland? Yes, it is possible. Had loads of fun, slept not too much and met a lot of old friends of mine. Sounds perfect, right? Let me tell you more!

Why Aberdeen? Because husband and I have a very good friend living there and it was actually his birthday back in March, so we wanted to surprise him. Now getting to Aberdeen… was not that easy to be honest. We had to fly to Glasgow and then take another bus for another 3 hours. So yeah… it was quite time consuming. But we made it, of course!

Flight tickets: Blue Air – 265 pounds for both, husband and I. A bit expensive, I know. But sometimes, meeting your friends deserves any sacrifice, and in this case, the sacrifice was about 265 pounds :)))

DAY 1. Me, husband and another friend of ours flew from Bucharest to Glasgow. Our flight was super early and we had to be in the airport at 5 AM. I literally didn’t sleep at all that night. Not a good start, for sure and pleaseee don’t do like I did. I am a bad example!

Once we arrived in Glasgow, we’ve met another friend of ours who came from London and at 10 AM we were already 4 of us heading to Aberdeen, where other 4 friends were expecting for us. So yeah, 8 mates in Scotland… what a big reunion, right? Yaaaay!

From the airport we took the Express Service 500 bus until the city center of Glasgow (Buchanan Station) – 8 pounds per person. Here’s the link in case you need it: https://www.firstgroup.com/greater-glasgow/routes-and-maps/glasgow-airport-express.

Near the Buchanan Station, there was a fire at the time of our arrival, a little bit of action first thing early in the morning. Ooops! Anyway, I truly hope nobody got hurt.

From Buchanan Station, we took the MegaBus until Aberdeen – 20 pounds per person and the journey lasted 3 hours. So after almost 8 hours since we left from Romania, we finally arrived in Aberdeen! You can imagine how tired we already were at that point… Uffff

Aberdeen is a grey city… like, literally… being also named as the Granite city! During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeen’s buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, which can sparkle like silver because of its high mica content. Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, Aberdeen has been known as the off-shore oil capital of Europe. The area around Aberdeen has been settled since at least 8,000 years ago, when prehistoric villages lay around the mouths of the rivers Dee and Don. The city has a long, sandy coastline and a marine climate, the latter resulting in chilly summers and mild winters.

That night, we all went to the Brewdog which is a super cool pub aaaand there I ate the most spicy pizza ever! We also had some good craft beers. Ok, to be honest, we actually drank some beers which tasted like pine… pine, really? I personally didn’t like it at all but I guess other people do like it a lot, so thank god we’re all different :))

DAY 2. Woke up in the morning and went outside for a stroll to see how Aberdeen indeed looks like. Also, our friend who actually lives there, took us to a park where he wanted to show us how the park looks when is full of: DAFFODILS! Everything went accordingly, except for the fact that not a single daffodil was seen at that time hahaha. They hadn’t blossomed yet. So we just imagined the flowers!

After that, we continued our walk through Old Aberdeen. This amazing part of Aberdeen takes you back to the old days. Today is a place for Aberdeen university and its colleges. It’s a very nice area to wander around!

Next: let’s see the beach! The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. It connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than 970 km long and 580 km wide, with an area of around 570,000 square km. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery.

Have to say that I never saw such a wild sea as the North Sea ever! The beach was actually gone. Why? Because it had been swallowed by the crazy waves formed by the sea. Dope!

After that, we stopped at a restaurant nearby the sea and ate some… TRADITIONAL AMERICAN RIBS… in Scotland. Not quite a smart move, right? Haha

We then visited the Fisherman’s Village. Footdee is an area known locally as “Fittie” which is an old fishing village at the east end of the harbor. The area has had a settlement as far back as the Medieval times and the first recorded reference to the area of Fittie was in the year 1398. This village was slightly further North than where Footdee is now located.

Also, at the end of the village, found this beautiful lighthouse. Loved the pink light at that hour! It transformed the whole scene!

After that, we all went to our friend’s house and just had a good time together. That night was actually his birthday, so we stayed up until the morning and had a lot of fun. Yuhuuu

DAY 3. Oh well, I have to warn you… day 3 was the most interesting one and we had some little adventures included as well. Our former plan was to rent a van for all of us and then go back to Glasgow: visit the city whole day, sleep there and then go to the airport early in the next morning for our returning flight to Romania.

Of course, the plan didn’t work out as it should. Why? Because it’s very hard to handle a total of 8 people :)) 8 people after drinking all night. Nobody wanted to get up in the morning, so I just realized that we weren’t going to see Glasgow at all, but then at least, was hoping to see something else that day. Like, Dunnottar Castle in Stonehaven, which is quite close to Aberdeen and I knew it looks quite amazing from the pictures I had already seen on the internet. Also, the renting thing didn’t happen, there was no van available to rent that day. So our last option to reach Glasgow, was the MegaBus again.

In the end, 5 of us finally decided to go and visit the castle. Hallelujah! However, to be honest, a friend of ours aborted the mission pretty soon (hangover alert) so we remained only 4 who were actually heading to Stonehaven. Anyway, I was happy because after 4 hours of indecisions, we were finally going somewhere. Phewww

We went there by car and drove like 45 minutes, I guess. Stonehaven turned out to be pretty amazing and the weather was absolutely perfect. I saw kids playing in the water (don’t know what to say about that… it was March and we are talking about the North Sea, but meh) and people drinking beers in the sun. Such a relaxed atmosphere!

Also, when it’s sunny in Scotland, all the people have that good mood! I mean, they even stopped us in the street to say “Hey, it’s such a nice weather outside, right?”. I guess they were actually mesmerized by such a rare phenomenon: sunlight! :))) No… I am kidding, they were just nice and friendly, really.

From Stonehaven to the castle, you have to hike a hilly area for, I guess… 25 minutes, but the views are breathtaking and the hike itself isn’t bad at all, it’s more like a walk.

The castle itself is a ruin, but you can visit it if you want to… Anyway, because we didn’t stick with the plan of going to Glasgow in the morning, I didn’t know at what hour was the last MegaBus that evening, so we thought it was a good time to check it out. Surprise, surpriiiiiise! The last bus was in about 2 hours! HURRRYYYYYY!!!!

Husband had to drive the car, on the left, which by the way, is super awkward. Can’t you just drive on the right, like the rest of the world? Hahhaha

We weren’t paying attention at the road, but after 30 minutes, husband says: “Is this the good direction? Because I haven’t seen a single sign that shows Aberdeen”. Our friend that was with us and who actually lives there, had the GPS -> ON and was stating very clearly that it was the correct way back. However, when I turned mine on, it was showing… guess what? Backwards :))))) So this whole time we were driving in the opposite direction. Bye bye MegaBus.

Our last chance, was to take the train. But the tickets were so expensive… 42 pounds each! And we were a total of 6 persons going to Glasgow. This meant 252 pounds for that journey. We thought it was too much, because… to be honest, on the last day of any trip in this world, everyone is on a budget. Soooo, we decided to hop in and see how it goes with the train conductor. It was more convenient to take that risk!

How we would expected things to work out in this situation? Hmmm… being asked to leave the train because we didn’t have tickets. Then take the next train and then the next one etc. and maybe… we would have managed somehow to get to the airport the following morning :))

How things actually worked out? The train conductor was super nice and kind, so he asked how much money do we have left. Then, he just cut off tickets for only 1 station for each of us. Wow! It was actually more than great! Thank youuuu thank you!

So we finally arrived in Glasgow and went to our accommodation which was at the Croshill House (rated as “Very good 8.5” on Booking). We paid 65 pounds for that night – triple room.

After that, we went down in the city center to at least have a glimpse of what Glasgow looks like and feels like. I know there are a lot of graffiti in the city and wanted to see them all, but because it was super late… I had seen only one. Better than nothing, though!

Ok now, let me tell you something… I already knew that English people like to drink a lot of alcohol but I was like “Hey… we also like to drink a lot of alcohol!”. Nope, we don’t! Not as much as they do I guess haha

Saw a lot of girls walking shoe-less in the street and it was almost freezing during the night, trust me. Boys were throwing up at every corner… what can I say more? Every single person over there was 100% drunk, like literally! But it was a good vibe though. I didn’t mind anything at all. As a matter of fact, we also went into a pub and had some drinks :))

Unfortunately, at 4 AM all pubs were closing (you should come to Romania to see how it is to party from Friday to Sunday non stop), so we finally had to go to the accommodation. But not before recording some videos fooling around with some Scottish guys over there hahaha. We were actually screaming HAPPPPPYYYY BIRTHDAY for someone. Don’t know exactly for whom, but it was clearly someone’s birthday.

Went to our hotel, sat in bed for like 40 minutes, then went to the airport. I can’t remember how many hours did I sleep during those days, but I can remember that husband asked me in the airport “What time is it?” and I said “8:75”. Yup!!! SEVENTY FIVE :))))) So you can all imagine how tired I was. Slept the whole journey until Bucharest and reached home safely.

I didn’t get to visit as much as I wanted to, but at least we all had fun! That’s what matters in the end… to have beautiful memories!

Until next time,

Andreea.

• Our stay in Aberdeen and Glasgow: 22.03.2018 – 25.03.2018
• Bucharest – Glasgow and return flight: Blue Air 265 pounds
• Accommodation: Croshill House 65 pounds
• Transportation: 115 pounds for both of us
• Total: 445 pounds as a couple

PS: If you are using booking.com to find the best accommodations like I do, then you should use the following link to receive 10% of your money back on your next travel! It’s a win-win situation… so why not?

https://www.booking.com/s/34_6/e222dd81

Thank you!

 

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