I am in the United Kingdom on a golf holiday and, with apologies, will continue to file reports here. I am hopeful that some of my "stories" will provide a bit of guidance to those planning a golf venture to Scotland. Although I have made the trip before, it has seemed much easier in the past.

        I spent the better part of Wednesday through Friday visiting with my sister and her family in London and meeting, in person for the first time, my grand niece. The playground in West Hampstead where we took her and her sister was like nothing I've seen in the States in that it is maintained by the organizers of a group home next door who planted and tend to vegetable patches. My nieces picked a couple of tomatoes (to-mahhh-toes) but no one, according to my brother in law, abuses the privilege. Take a corn, cucumber, zucchini or whatever and leave plenty for others. Very civilized.

Where is Everyone Going?
        Getting out of London to return to Edinburgh, Scotland, was almost frightening. I chose Luton airport for the flight on Easyjet, one of Europe's discount airlines. The flight wasn't the problem; the airport was. Lesson learned: On a summer Friday in early evening, with people intent on heading for holiday for a weekend or week, most British airports are madhouses, this one more so than others. It is an old airport, poorly organized in terms of layout and flight announcements. The board announced that the gate for my flight would not be called until 1/2 hour before departure time. (Many other flights indicated the same thing.). Yet my ticket indicated that the gate for the Easyjet flight would be closed 1/2 hour before its scheduled departure. Making matters a bit more intimidating, the gate areas were split, one off the left from the main terminal and the other to the right. Signs posted indicated the walk to some gates were as long as 15 minutes. People were jammed into all nooks and crannies of the terminal, and some of the workers trying to replenish shelves with sandwiches in the shops had to excuse themselves repeatedly to get their carts through. And, yet, not a single-person raised his or her voice or seemed at all angry about the delays and the steerage-like conditions.
        They did not close the gate 1/2 hour before the flight, and the flight itself to Edinburgh was comfortable and routine. I didn't have to wait too long for my checked bag and after a long walk from the arrival lobby to the shuttle bus, I was pleased to see a bus waiting. It left immediately and deposited me at the Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh Airport. I chose the hotel because I tend to stay with the chain when I travel in the States. I like the predictability from one to the next -- the same shower heads, the same breakfast rooms, the reliable wi-fi connections, the same soaps and shampoo. Holiday Inn's standards don't necessarily translate everywhere. In the bathroom were two bottles of soap, one beside the sink and one in the shower. No shampoo or any of the other amenities one is used to in the chain's U.S. hotels. I thought that I'd use the soap as a body wash and shampoo but when I looked around for a washcloth, there were none. At the front desk, the attendant indicated they were "out" of washcloths. Hard to bellieve, especially in a hotel I was paying over $250 for the night. (The famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival is on now, and that drives up prices for virtually everything in and around the area.)

Rent-A-Headache
        The next morning, in a trailer in a parking lot near the hotel, I rented a car from Fox Rent-A-Car. At least I tried to rent a car. The line at the desk was about 10 customers long and there was just one frazzled attendant. His profuse apologies did not seem to mollify some of the customers, and after 15 minutes, I was only two customers closer. A reinforcement arrived and helped shorten the queue (important British term there) and my paperwork was done after 45 minutes. In the drizzle I waited, along with six others, for my car to be delivered. And waited. And waited. More than a half hour later, my name was finally called, the only compensating factor being the brand new Volvo now in my possession for the week.  The drive north to Crail "on the wrong side of the road" was surprisingly easy, although I could not quite figure out the distance from the left side of the car to the edge of the roadway.  Fortunately, no tire-damaging curbs were in play.
        In summary, my advice is don't fly from Luton Airport outside of London on a Friday night in summer; choose the better organized Heathrow or even London City Airport. Take nothing for granted when booking a hotel or renting a car in Edinburgh; ask a lot of questions beforehand (and consider renting the car from one the big three, like Hertz or National.). Bring proper rain gear if you intend to play golf every day while in Scotland; the weather can change dramatically day to day, even minute to minute. (I experienced four seasons in 15 minutes at St. Andrews in 2009.). I may have more to say about this after my round tomorrow (see below).
I am now with my dear friends in Crail, 1 1/2 hours north of Edinburgh, anticipating my first round of golf in a couple of hours at Crail Balcomie links, the 7th oldest golf course in the world. It is a brilliant sunny day -- for now -- and I can't wait to renew my acquaintance with this terrific links course beside the North Sea.       

        Tomorrow will be a different experience at a parkland course called Ladybank, a half hour away, with the weather expected to be dark, dreary and very wet. I am fairly well prepared with water rejecting pants -- not quite Goretex -- and a repellant overshirt. I'm fine with drizzle but if it comes down hard, I may consider what any serious tourist might under similar conditions -- head for a whiskey distillery for a tour and a wee dram. Stay tuned.

        I don't sleep well on airplanes -- or at all. And when the plane is as crowded as Norwegian Flight 1609 from Hartford Bradley International to Edinburgh was yesterday, in both numbers of passengers and configuration of the seats, no sleep is guaranteed.
        When the price is more than right for an international flight like the Bradley to Edinburgh non-stop flight, you know you are going to pay the piper in one way or another. I scooped up a fare of just $99 for the U.S. to Scotland leg and paid an extra $75 for one checked piece of luggage and a meal in flight. My bag arrived shortly after I did but the meal of undercooked green beans and overcooked chicken certainly was no bargain. Neither is the return flight from Edinburgh which, pre-paid at $300, includes the bag and meal. That's about half of what a roundtrip flight on one of the other trans-Atlantic carriers costs, but none of them fly non-stop from Bradley, just a half hour from my home in Connecticut, to Edinburgh. The cost and headache to get to Boston or New York convinced me to try Norwegian.
        There is always a balance between price and service. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft with three seats across on both sides of the plane made it impossible to even attempt to sleep. The seats reclined about three inches, meaning the seatbacks at full recline were virtually upright. And the narrowness of the seats themselves meant the guy in the seat to my right and I were vying for elbow space on the handrest most of the trip. He was a bit more aggressive than I was. He also snored and could not make up his mind whether to lean his head on the drop down table in front of him or try to lean back on the barely reclined seat back. His efforts were distracting.
        I have one other gripe with Norwegian. When I booked my flight, I thought I would bring my golf clubs with me. But 10 days before the flight, I decided to ship them straight to my golf club destination at the Crail Golfing Society, where I have become an overseas member. I called Norwegian a week before my flight and alerted them that my pre-paid clubs would not be flying over with me and asked for a refund or credit. Not permitted, they said. That $99 fare includes zero flexibility.
        On the plus side, the plane arrived in Edinburgh 50 minutes early and customs was farily easy to get through, maybe a total of 30 minutes. I was surprised that after I collected my bags I did not see a single customs agent. Perhaps they trust the X-ray machines in the U.S. to do the job of spotting bad stuff in luggage, but this was a first time for me that there was no cutoms presence.
        There is a convenient shuttle at the airport into the center of Edinburgh and stops along the way. I was going to take a train to London to see my sister and her family there for a few days before proceeding to Crail for a week of golf. The shuttle service is called Airlink and it is just about $6.00 for the one-way trip, and comparatively cheaper for a round trip. Again, cheap is relative; on the way into the city, a female pedestrian tried to beat the bus at a traffic signal. She didn't quite make it. The driver slammed on the brakes in time but the woman went arse over tea kettle in the road. She picked herself up, grabbed both sides of her head more in frustration, it seemed, than in injury, and ambled off. The young bus driver was shaken. He called his supervisor who advised him to move the bus to a side road, park it there and dismiss his passengers from the bus. The driver advised that I was only "two stops" from Waverley Train station and that I could walk it in 10 to 15 minutes. It might have been a pleasant walk without the three pieces of luggage, but the big one has four wheels which at least made it doable. But by the time I made it to Waverley Station, I almost felt as if I had been hit by a bus.
        Once at the train station, the odyssey continued. I tried to secure an earlier train but it turned out that the firm I pre-bought the ticket from, Rail Europe, a North American based company, does not have agents in Edinburgh station. I decided to wait for my original train, scheduled at 1:30 which, around 1:00, was cancelled.  I was able to snag a reservation for the 2:00 train. When two British citizens, one from Scotland and one from England, sat down with me at my table, we started talking as the train left the station. When I realized they could take a joke, I warned them that they might want to change their seats because my luck was running ice cold over recent hours. Not one minute after I warned them, the train came to a halt and the conductor came on the PA system to say there was an obstruction on the rail line ahead -- "probably a cow," my new Scots friend said. I wound up arriving 35 minutes late in London, where it was pouring rain.

Hartsbourne Country Club is home to a classic golf course with some modern flourishes.
        On a more positive note, I was invited to play at Hartsbourne Country Club just outside London today, and it was an uncharacteristally glorious sunny and cool day in the often wet London summer. The course was in excellent condition, it was a convivial round with two friends and my brother in law (he's my friend too), we stopped for a genteel lunch in the centuries old clubhouse (hideaway place, I am told, for one of the former Edwardian kings and his mistresses), and had a relaxing post-game beer in the same dining room. It made me almost forget the disaster of the previous day's travels and caused me to look forward even more to my week in Crail, which begins on Saturday. I can only hope that the weather forecast in Scotland, which calls for rain half the time I will be there, is wrong. More to come.