Good afternoon everybody!
So this is my first post for my Scotland trip, and it has literally been a little crazy getting here. So here is my story from the past few days:
So Sunday the 22nd was the bittersweet day of leaving Norman. Nikki and my sister Mary saw me off at the airport (so grateful for them!), and everything was going great. My first two flights went off without a hitch, from OKC to Detroit, then 50 minutes later took off from Detroit to Amsterdam. That flight was overnight, so I will continue that on the next day. Had a small breakfast and dinner this day, no lunch. Fun stuff!
Monday was certainly a heck of a day. After arriving in Amsterdam I had a 4 hour layover in the terminal, which I spent mostly napping and updating a few people to where I was. Yes, it was around a 6 hour time difference, but I thought it would be good to let people know about my progress. So then I got on the plane to Aberdeen, which was only supposed to take around an hour and 45 mins, but actually turned into a 3 hour flight that was diverted to Newcastle, Scotland. Aberdeen had some heavy winds, around 50-70 mile an hours, and Newcastle was decided to be the safest place to land. We also circled Aberdeen to see if the winds would die down, but that was an hour wasted in the sky. Anyways, we arrived in Newcastle, and KLM airlines set up a coach (tour bus) to take us to Aberdeen, a 6 hour drive. My worst fear is that without any internet, I couldn't use my phone to get ahold of Joe or anyone in Scotland. Thankfully, the man next to me on the coach let me use his phone and send an email to Joe to let him know about the delay.
As worried as I was getting, I knew that God had a bigger plan in the works, and right away on the bus I saw a full rainbow, and it was probably the most beautiful one I'd ever seen. As the rainbow was a symbol to Noah of God's promise to never flood the entire earth again, so it was a reminder for me of God's promise to take care of me. So filled with peace, I was able to catch the beautiful view of the Scotland countryside and ocean without any distractions from electronics, although the drunken guy on the bus continuously shouting obscenities about how unfair it was that all this was happening was quite frustrating. Anyways, we got to Aberdeen at 1:30 in the morning, and with great surprise and thankfulness, Joe came out of nowhere in the closed Airport with a hug. I was so relieved and glad that God had this all taken care of. And since it was so late, I crashed on Joe's couch after updating Nikki on the progress just before she got on her plane to Nepal. What an adventure, finally in Banff.
So today the 24th, I got cleaned up and shaved as Andy, one of the worship leaders from the Riverside Christian Church that Joe oversees in Banff, came to pick me up and take me to his house, where I'll be staying for the first week at least. This is due to several out of town visitors to Joe's house, such as his daughter and Jimmy Seibert and his boys this coming weekend. We had a half hour chat with coffee, then went and talked photography and worked with him doing some photo editing from the wedding he recently shot over the past weekend. He owns his own photo company, started it within the last year, so getting to teach him a few tricks with photoshop helped him to speed up his work. We then went out and met his wife at the church at a small diner for sandwiches. I got a spiced chicken sandwich with pea and ham soup, which, although sounds disgusting, was actually really good! We then took a walk near the oceanfront and I shot some photos, told some stories, headed back to the house for coffee and then we just chilled out. I worked on photos and this blog, and Andy went on to work more on his wedding photos and his wife started dinner and read some. They also have a fascination here in Scotland with Meerkats, which is due to a commercial and website, similar to our Geico gekko commercials and the old Taco Bell dog. Interesting. Reminded me of Lion King 1 and a half. Tonight is a worship meeting at one of the churches for the weekend (they are having all 5 churches in the region together for a celebration in which Jimmy Seibert will speak at). So I'm excited for that.
Well, fun stuff. There's an update. And here are a couple more photos...
The Coast
Me (notice where the glare is, Bringin "The US" in the house! Ha!)
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