The day of the Wedding!

Good morning!

Its the day of the wedding and we've all just surfaced! Having a coffee and some breakfast then its time to see Lauren and Kyle getting hitched! Yeeehaw!

We had the rehearsal dinner last night which was great fun, everyone now knows their place and the general plan for how things are going down! After the official business was taken care of we retired to a room just between the chapel and the reception area for some more BBQ and beer! We'd already had some BBQ and beer for lunch that day while all the girls were out getting their nails done but we managed to keep some space for the evening of meat!

Rumours were flying with regards to our undergarment situation and I was even physically acosted by "Aunt Bobby"(70+)! Needless to say I'll definitely be on my guard this afternoon!

Well its about time to start getting showered and into our Kilts as we're leaving for the church in about an hour! I'll update the blog later on to let you know how it goes. I'm pretty sure its going to go smoothly though and be a very succesful start to what will undoubtedly be a long and happy life for Mr and Mrs Carlyle...

The Wedding

Well a long story short, we're back for Lauren and Kyles wedding!

After setting off around 7:30am on Wednesday from Glasgow and after numerous canceled flights we finally made it to Wichita at 10pm central standard time (4am GMT!).

A warm welcome from Lauren and Krista awaited us at the airport and then another from Rich and Elaine when we got back to the house. Felt like we'd never left :)

Not long up from a good sleep after a nice evening with both Lauren and Kyle's (The groom) family. Stayed up till the wee small hours (11pm... hey, I was travelling for a full day :P) eating chilli and drinking beer! Good times all round.

Today we're having leftover chili for breakfast, a BBQ for lunch then a nice sit down meal with family and friends after the wedding dress rehearsal! We also need to contact America Airlines about our return flights, looks like they may be cancelled like our London to Chicago flight was on the way over!

Anyway, have to get a shave and get ready for all the guys coming over for this BBQ!

Adios for now.

Reality

Its all going so quickly...

Its now almost August of 2009 and a year on from our trip. In the months after coming home we all settled back into life as we'd known it. Iain started working with Buro Happold, Stu got a job with Comet and I was destined to be job hunting for a good few months :)

Fast forward to the present day and Iains unforuntely been made unemployed, Stu's still working away and I've been in an IT job with the NHS in clydebank for a little over 3 months. Alot of the people we met in the states have graduated and moved on in their own ways which in itself is quite sad. I liked to imagine that they were all still in the same places doing there thing and that if we wanted we could go visit them at any time! But thats life.

Hopefully in the near future we'll all get the oppertunity to go back or do something like it again, guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Close

And so after 10,000 miles by car, 8 Flights, 5 Trains, 3 buses, countless subway systems, seemingly endless Econo Lodges, couches, spare beds, pullouts and the occasional hard wood floor for good measure the journey is over.

From East to West back again and all in between we’ve seen pretty much as much as physically possible with the time afforded to us by the good ole US government. As I write this we’re actually over the Atlantic maybe an hour or so from Dublin however by the time you read it I’ll likely be in the airport or back home in Alba in the clutches of jet lag.

As much as I hate to follow the clichéd path of describing this trip as the “incredible adventure that we’ll never forget” I’m helpless to resist! This really was one of those trips and we really won’t forget it! Haha! And while I’ve read travel blog’s and stories with similar cringe worthy summarisations like that of a bad movie I cant help but smile to myself as I follow suit.

I guess I view those endings with a different mind now though, a mind that forgives the childlike eagerness of the writer as they try to convey their euphoria of their experiences.

“All that noise all that sound, all these places I have found”

Mustang Mayhem

Ok first things first, after that 24 hour of travel, which was actually quite good fun, we arrived at Penn Station in NYC. We had maybe an hour to kill then caught a train up to Schenectady to meet Iains friend Lukas who is on an exchange from Prague. We hung with him for the afternoon and then found out that the Niagra Falls were only a 3 hour drive away and then idea's started to form.... After some discussion we decided to book a motel in the town and then see about hiring a car for a few days... how expensive could it really be?..

Lukas's friend gave us a lift to the local Hertz dealer where we ended up picking up a blue 07 mustang :) Its beautiful and thats about it unfortunately. Its 2 back seats are less than comfy which me and Iain can vouch for having spent 8 hours in it yesterday, it was worth it to see the falls though.

I did the clever thing and forgot my camera but thankfully Iain and Stu both had theres so we've got plenty of pictures. I've yet to steal them but I'll get around to it sometime :)

We also discovered something else spectacular on our jaunt to the falls, our Mustang gets great mileage going backwards through fields at around 40mph :)

So after one last fling with Manhattan we find ourselves on the home stretch.

We're currently in Baltimore airport reminising about the rediculous antics we've been a part of over the last 3 months. Its seems like eon's ago when we arrived up in Poughkeepsie and hung out with Erin, Robin & Brianna and yet we'll be ending the trip meetin them in NYC (well Schenectady, NY to be precise).

Yesterday afternoon we got a flight from Wichita to here with a quick layover in Atlanta and from here we have a train to shluminy shluminy (Schenectady's new name) via NYC. Leaving at 5pm on the 6th to getting to scluminy shluminy at 1:38pm on the 7th its pretty much a day of constant travelling. Yeehaw.

So far we're holding up alright, with internet in the airport to keep us occupied we're coping fairly well. The insanity of travelling is never far away however!

Anway, i'll try and stick up some pics when we get to NYC.

Aggieville

Just one more for the road...