Days 174, 175, 176, 177, and 178. Crazy.

Days 174, 175, 176, 177, and 178. Day 174. Wednesday. Did a bit more tidying up. Headed to lunch with Kami, from church (the girl that jumped on me at the corner of Borough Market in October) at Barossa, australian food. I got the veggie brekkie like last time. Great chat, and that was that. Promised to keep in touch. After that I headed to school for Career Class. The class was about how to write a cover letter/resume for potential employers, the chefs talked about their backgrounds/how they started in the business, and then there was a career fair afterwards. 7/9 booths at the fair were England only businesses with no international sponsorships. Great help for an audience of 6/42 being British/EU citizens. Not. I left early and I had dinner with my landlady. She wanted in on the goodbye meals too. After that I headed to institute for the second time to say goodbye to my peeps there. I brought chocolate chip cookies and they were a hit. Stayed up way too late packing up my things as I realized this was my only time to do it before.....the dad comes. Day 175. Thursday. It was results day at school. I walked into the room, and told the chef "I don't want to know my score, I just want to know if I passed or failed." "You don't want to know your score?" "No. I don't want to judge myself by the number. I am not a number. I'm still the same person with or without the score." "Alright then, you passed." Yay. And on he went in the feedback cough critique of every layer of my entremets. I knew what was wrong with it, so I knew some of what they were going to say, but those can be rough if taken seriously. "You sure about not knowing the score?" "Yep." and with that out the door and on my way....to pick up the dad. A couple of weeks ago, he called, I was in class and did not hear it ring, then he texted me and said call me when you get this. I thought something bad had happened. When I called him he said, "Would it be alright if I come for your graduation? I want to come." Say what?!? I was floored then as I am now. He came. Seven days of me and my pops. I waited at the airport for 1 1/2 hours after his plane had landed at the international arrivals. His plane was no longer on the arrivals board, and I was getting worried. I forgot to tell him Heathrow has free wifi, so I had no way of texting him to tell him where i was. Luckily, he showed up smiling and ready to go. We dropped his things off at my house, then headed out. We walked through Hyde Park past Kennsington Palace, to a bus to take us to dinner at Granger & Co where Tamara met up with us. Dad had fish, and when it came, it was the whole fish on a plate (head and all). Veggie options were not generous here, I had lentils with spinach and butternut squash. After dinner we headed for a tube stop, took a wrong turn somewhere, and walked a bit more than anticipated, but eventually we made it to a tube near where we needed to be. Then we walked some more before we got to..... the musical Matilda. Seriously amazing. Based off the Ronald Dahl book. So good. Took the bus home, to do little walking as possible. Day 176. Friday. Graduation Day. Got up and took Dad for a walk along my dearly loved walking path. We did not go the whole distance, but it was good to show him a bit of the beauty. Came home, got fancied up, and headed for graduation at the Intercontinental Hotel at Hyde Park Corner. The go to color to wear was black. I did not get that memo. I wore my most colorful dress. Someone asked me if it was cultural. Um no. Unless internet shopping is cultural, than yes. It was great to see everyone so happy, all dressed up, and taking selfies. The principal gave a dry speech, and then it was on to the chefs reading off our names, us each walking across the stage, and receiving the largest certificate I have ever seen. Really big. Vermont, California, Maine, Poland, HongKong1, and me were the last to leave the party....the hotel kicked us out.... we did not want the party to end. There on the street outside the hotel, I said 'see you soons' to my favorite people of my culinary adventure. They were all smiles and waving to be like the end of 'Edelweiss' on the Sound of Music....it was a moment captured by my heart. I dragged dad to one more place on my must see before I leave London list.... Abbey Road. I had been there 10 years ago, and decided it was time again. This time, we came from a different direction via tube (this time bus) and there were so many cars driving the street. Last time, it was desolate. I wondered why these cars would even drive on this road based off of tourists taking pics amougst the cars. Took our pics, and we were on our way.....for a quick change of clothes before our evening out. Tamara had arranged a group as a going away party. There were six of us in all. We ate at a bowling alley, and moved to another bowling alley 20 minutes away to play, as the one we ate at did not have lanes available tell 1130. We ate we bowled we chatted. Tamara surprised me with a cheesecake (she devops flavors for a cheesecake company) that had "Bon Voyage Michelle" on the top of it. So sweet. She also gave me a parting gift. So so so nice. After that, we called it a night and headed home. I was exhausted but needed to pack for..... Day 177. Saturday. Scotland. Got up early to catch our flight. Took the tube to a train (the wrong train whoops) to a taxi to an airport (stansted) to a plane to Glasgow. We had not booked any hotel/place to say as we did not know exactly where we would end up. The rental car line took 1 1/2 hours. They gave us a Mercedes A180.....not exactly my good ol 1979 mercedes of hawaii, but a nice ride. We drove to Carbeth, Scotland, a place where a lot of Buchanans are from (family history we are walking it). It was the smallest village I'd ever seen....more of a cluster of homes with one pub. Then we drove to Sterling. There is a castle there, 'the most famous in Scotland' said the parking lot money collector. We did not go in the castle, but we got some pictures around the outside. There was a statue of Robert I the Bruce out front. Apparently he is my ggggggggggggggggggggggggggrandpa. We took a pic with the statue. After the statue, we bought water and spent way too long trying to fix the 3G on my phone so that we could find a place to sleep. Found & Booked a Best Western on the Eastern part of Loch Lomand where the Buchanan clan used to live. When we got there, it was discovered that I booked the room for in two weeks. Not that night. As they were not charging the same rate as online, we pressed on. I called a few more, one leading me to the next B&B. Finally, we got a place with a happy gent on the other end of the line, saying come on over. He was as happy and jolly in real life as well. Nice room. Nice people. He recommended a pub for dinner, we went, I got the eccles cake and dad got bangers & mash. Classic British. When we got back home, I started looking for a hotel/place to stay tomorrow night, only I was so tired, I fell asleep, with all of my clothes on. Exhausted. Day 178. Sunday. Had a lovely English Breakfast at the B&B. Filled me up for the day. Scrambled eggs, tomato, mushrooms, potato cake, beans. We headed off to church. I tried google mapping the address given on the churches website, but it kept telling me it could not find it. I put in the post code (zip) as I figured it was like London and would lead us to the church. It lead us to a cemetery. Literally a dead end. After comparing websites, I dropped a pin where the closest to where I thought the church could be, and miraculously. It was found. After church, we took a drive up Loch Lomand, stopping along the way for picture taking. We stopped in a cute village called Luss as well. At breakfast at the B&B another guest told us that if we wanted great kilts at a bargain price (compared to Edinburgh/Glasgow) that we needed to go to the town of Strone. It was a bit of a drive, but it was a part of Scotland I had not been, so we went. We followed google maps directions, and ended up on a dirt road with an overlook of the lach and town. Once we got back on solid ground, I had dad go into an Inn to ask for directions, as this place did not seem to exist. Dad came back to the car smiling.....it closed sixteen years ago. Haha! The man at breakfast said that it was still open. Um sir, you need to get back to Scotland more often. From there we headed towards the hotel, a two hour drive from where we were, via ferry (fun/cold/windy) and driving. On the drive we saw a sign for Dundonald Castle. Why not drive and see it. We got there at 5pm, there was a sign on the visitor center wall that said open april - october tell 5pm. Well it was after five and not yet April, but we headed up the hill to see it up close. Dad was breathing heavy about 1/4 of the way up. I slowed down my pace. We got to the top, I walked around the castle, and met dad as he started the descent on his own. We drove on to Girvan, Scotland. Birthplace of Ellen Chestnut, my great great grandma, and her grandma, Betty McDonald. I booked a farmhouse hotel on the ocean. It is too dark to see/enjoy the ocean, so hopefully tomorrow we'll see it. Dad checked in and discovered that the hotel is a converted dairy farm. Say what? True. Our room once was the grainery. It is totally redone, no sign of wheat tares anywhere. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. As i write this, dad has been reading up and family history and discovered we have ancestors from the place where we went to church, and the castle we randomly stopped at. Crazy. Well, I have fallen asleep multiple times writing this, and I am sure you have too in reading it. TTFN.