It was a relief to step off of the plane in Glasgow knowing that we would not have to fly again for a very long time. It was so nice to have that part of the journey over with, and now concern ourselves with getting on the road. We settled in "Baggage Reclaim Area 3" and it was a perfect place to be.

Except for the occasional flight, bringing with it its passengers, Tyler and I had the place to ourselves and could spread all of our stuff out to organize. Since we arrived in Glasgow before our bikes did (this was sort of on purpose) we had two hours to leisurely organize our panniers. When our bikes came, we assembled everything, put our panniers back on, and were ready to take off! This whole process took about three hours.

As we left the secluded safety of "Baggage Reclaim 3" I started to get really nervous. Outside, buses came and went (on the other side of the street) and people stared at us and all of our stuff. I was nervous about hopping on my bike again after not having ridden all winter, especially with the added weight of my new front panniers, and all of the Glaswegian traffic whizzing by around roundabouts.

Off we went though, and after a couple of miles I felt much more comfortable. Riding with all the extra weight was really not a problem (thanks to all of Maestro Kurt's lunges, perhaps!) and it actually made the bike feel more stable. Getting the hang of the GPS took a little while, and we definitely got lost and had to turn around several times. Pretty soon though, we were on our way.

Focusing so hard hard on my biking at first made it a little difficult to appreciate the fact that we were in SCOTLAND and our trip had really begun. Once we got the hang of things, though, I noticed that it was a good 30 degrees warmer here than it was when we left Minnesota. We biked past parks filled with daffodils; the air was earthy and it smelled like spring. I even saw a fox!

When we got to David's apartment building he ran outside to meet us, and happily helped us lug our gear up the 4 flights of stairs to his flat. He has ugly dolls everywhere and a penchant for puppetry and making weird drone amplifier things out of metal boxes and lots of knobs.

After we took showers, we all went out for "the best Chinese food in Britain" at Asia Style (quite possibly the best Chinese food I've ever had) and then took a nice long walk around the neighborhood. David helped us plan our route for the day and is currently with Tyler giving us a "dongle"—a little USB modem that will enable us to get online from pretty much anywhere in Britain(!). David, thank you so much for everything! I cannot think of a better way to start our journey, or a nicer host.