Yesterday was incredible. Gary (Irish), Greg (German), Andrés, and I rented a car and took a roadtrip up to the highlands. It couldn't have gone better, especially considering it was relatively unplanned. The weather even cooperated — yesterday was the only clear, blue, sunny day I've seen since I arrived.

We had planned to spend Saturday, the day before our excursion, making the preparations for the trip; determining a route, making the reservation for the car, etc. We did decide on a basic, flexible game plan, but the car reservation part kind of evolved into "making one phone call that didn't accomplish much."

We did determine that the only rental company branches open on Sunday were the ones at the airport, so on Sunday morning we awoke at 8am, set out at 9:30am, and took a bus to the airport. Once there, we walked along the line of rental company kiosks, getting a quote from each for one of their smallest 4-seater cars. I had assumed that odds were high that they'd have none available, or require a reservation, but fortunately, most companies did have cars available and we were able to get a pretty good rate from National — £43.96 for 24 hours in a bright teal Vauxhall Corsa 5-door with 1.2L engine and manual transmission. Since the only person used to driving on the left (Gary) couldn't find his driver's license, we registered Greg and me as the drivers, though I ended up being the only one who drove. It wasn't a great loss; the charge for an additional driver was only £2.50.

Starting from the airport was convenient because it was already on the edge of the city, so I didn't have to do much city driving. That helped to greatly reduce the number of shrieking, fear-gripped swervings to the correct side of the road performed.

Actually, I did surprisingly well. Getting used to shifting with my left hand wasn't too hard at all, and I could usually remember which side of the road to drive on too. There were a few times when habit took over, but none were catastrophic.

Let me amend that — I did surprisingly well, except for one five-minute span where I suddenly did everything wrong all at once. As we were leaving a parking lot, out of habit I pulled up to the exit on the right side. When I realized my mistake and tried to move left into the correct half of the exit, I saw there was already a red car beside me. I stopped to let him pass but he stopped and annoyedly waved me on (we were turning left, so I had to get around him). In my haste to get out of everyone's way, I misjudged the clutch engagement and did a high-revving, one-wheel burnout all the way out of the parking lot. As I concentrated on getting that under control, habit took me to the right side of the road (as the red car pulled onto the road behind me and doubtless cursed all tourists). When I realized where I was, I swerved back into the left lane. Seconds later, as the road curved left, I cut the corner too close and the car jolted as the front left tire bounced off the curb. All in view of that red car behind me. Shortly thereafter, I slowed to let him pass me so I would no longer be under his judging glare :) Aside from that five-minute burst of terribleness though, things went surprisingly well.

So, car in hand, we drove west from Edinburgh on small country roads, stopping as desired to take pictures or explore towns. The plan was to make our way to place called Muirmill, which is adjascent to a reservoir, and we would stop there to have second breakfast. However, as we discovered, the road was closed, and the suggested detour was not very ideal for a small car such as ours. We spoke with a woman who runs a nearby motel, and she assured us that we could reach the reservoir before the road was blocked off. To continue on past that, though, we'd have to come back and take a different route, which she described for us. So we drove down to the reservoir and enjoyed sandwiches by the water.

Next we got back in the car and continued west, by way of the long detour on tiny roads the woman had described for us, to a national park surrounding a lake called Loch Lomond. We walked around that area for a while and took many pictures.

At this point we had planned to head back to the east coast and catch a ferry to a nearby island, but our long detour had put us behind schedule. Since the sun starts getting low in the sky around 3pm here, it was already starting to get dark as we walked around Loch Lomond, so we decided to pass on the ferry.

We drove back to the nearest town, Drymen, and stopped at a cafe to have coffee and watch the sunset (it was a sort of greenhouse-looking building made of glass). From there we got back in the car and headed back east (on motorways this time) and returned to Edinburgh. We dropped off the car around 8pm (there was no reason to deal with finding somewhere to park it overnight only to get up early the next morning to go return it).

When we got home, Gary retired to work on an essay he had due today, and Greg, Andrés, and I walked down to a nearby pub, The Pear Tree, for a relaxed pint (which turned into three relaxed pints, a less relaxed glass of whiskey, and a surprisingly delicious shot of spiced rum). An excellent end to the evening.

Update: Greg prepared a map indicating the route we took, and marked all of our stops sequentially with numbers. Very cool of him. Here's the map.