Travel entry June 6, 2012 Or The beauty in the starkness of the Orkneys

St Margaret’s Hope is a church built in the Orkneys. It was built for the Italian prisoners of war. They were asked to assist with building the bridges between the islands and some roads during the road. They said that would go against the Geneva Convention; however, the Scots argued that this was just assisting with infrastructure. So the Italians agreed to help as long as they could have a church. So the army gave them two structures and they joined them to make a church. Inside, they have painted the inside with such detail that the tiles look real.

We got to visit the Highland Park distillery and learn how whisky is made (that would be scotch to the rest of us). Fascinating process – love the smell of peat, but not the smell of yeast. We got to see a bottle of whisky worth $6200 Canadian. Whoot!

We saw the Stenness Stones – the Scottish Stonehenge. We drove by the Ring of Brodgar and then visited Skara Brae and Skaill House – which were fascinating. Skara Brae is a settlement from 5000 BC; the skill of the people from then was stunning – the building of tunnels underground to join the buildings so you wouldn’t have to go outside, the shelves built into the walls, completely awe-inspiring.
In the middle of the loch by Skara Brae and Skaill house is Ubby Island. A servant at Skaill house, Ubby, wanted his own island, so every night he loaded up his little boat with rocks and dropped them at the same place in the loch until there was enough to make an island. He covered it with turd and called it his. When he knew it was his time, he gathered some friends who went out and sat with him. He died on his island and rumor has it his ghost haunts Skaill house.

Lunch as at a hotel restaurant, where I had the haddock and chips and D had the scampi and chips as well as a Tennent beer. We had a great conversation with Michael – he was a props master on True Blood. Cool! He retired recently.

Just a note – the ferry is not fun! Thank goodness for Gravol ginger, an empty stomach, and willpower. (Editor’s note: I am really not sure if it was the ginger Gravol actually working or the fact that it tasted so utterly terrible to me that my body promised not to react to the rocking as long as I stopped feeding it this stuff! If you like ginger, you might like this. If you only kinda like ginger, prepare to think this is hideous… but it works. And the rocking of the boat - well let's just say the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea along the route - you can imagine the roughness.)

We got back to Thurso around 8ish – it was a hurry up to change and get down to eat. Supper was good – I had the potato and leek soup, veggie cheese pasta, and caramel honeycomb with whip cream. Num! D had herring, haddock and the same dessert and Tennent beer again.

Travel Entry June 5, 2012 Or Environmentalism in Scotland

Robbie doesn’t identify as Scottish or Irish – it’s all the same. He identifies with Gael. To him, Gael = us and Gaol = everyone else.

It’s fascinating to hear about the view of environmentalist here. How ‘they’ reuse to change their ways of preserving because they don’t want to acknowledge they are wrong. How because of them, people are getting paid not to have sheep. How because of the decrease in sheep , heather is taking over the ground. How shepards are out of work; they have gone from 20 to 2. The views are interesting.

It was a long day of driving. We stopped in the morning at the Culloden battlefield. Then we hit loch ness, the Emigrant’s statue at Helmsdale and the Castle of Mey. We stopped at the Woolen Mill for lunch.

Robbie bught us loch ness statues from the Monster hunter. He moved to Scotland and set up a trailer by the loch. The locals thought he would be a drain on society, but he makes money to support himself by making little statues and he helps out around the area, getting seniors their groceries and doing odds and ends as needed. His guarantee is that if Nessie doesn’t look like his statues, then he will return your money. Teehee.

The Castle of Mey was interesting, probably because the guide worked for the Queen mom or 20 years before she passed and so has a total of 30 years of working in the house (when the Queen mum died, she stayed on to work as a guide.)

We had supper at the hotel in Thurso. I had mushroom risotto with potatoes, carrots and cabbage. The starter was tomato soup and the dessert was lemon mousse, topped with raspberry mousse. Yum! D had the soup as well, the slaithe (fish) with Ember beer for the entrée, and chocolate fudge pie for dessert

Travel Entry June 4, 2012 Or Let’s shear us some sheep!

It is the first day of driving. I’m not comfortable with leaving our baggage in front of our hotel room door. That is an odd request. D was weird this morning. Snappish… I kept my mouth shut for the most part. Except when D was obviously wrong about stuff.

D didn’t sit with me on the bus – sat behind me. It’s both good and bad. Good because we are getting lots of pictures and I get the seat to myself. Bad because there is no one to talk to. We went to St. Andrews, which is not the oldest golf course, but I got dad a present and took some pictures. Then we walked up to the ruined castle at the end of the town (end is literal as just past is the cliffs into the North Sea.) Back on the bus for a ride into Pithlochy (spelling) for lunch, yes, D was still being a pooh pooh head, then to Blair Castle, which was interesting. I guess they do student exchanges and our castle guides were two of them. The gentleman we had was from Poland and he would be in Scotland for 7 years – wow!

The grounds were amazing with the tall firs – one was ~63.8M tall. Wow! There was a tree over a century old grown from a seed from what is now a 2000 year old tree from the Redwood Forest in California.

Then it was back to the bus to a highland sheepdog presentation. It was funny! The sheep decided not to cooperate and the ‘lazy’ dog let them go… teehee. So Niall had to go get the sheep with the rest of the dogs. Then I helped hand shear a sheep – he said I was the best he had all day. Whee. Then we played with 10 week old puppies. I reached in first to grab one. Teehee. Some people fed lambs, but I was too busy with the puppies. Even, while the demonstration was on, ‘Rob’, one of the dogs (he was named after our guide) sidled up to me for petting.

Then to the hotel for supper – delish! The haggis this time was not as yummy or gamey. Interesting. I had a great conversation with Bronwyn and John. What a lovely couple and story.

Travel journal entry June 3, 2012 or A nice slow start to the tour

No hot breakfast for me. I still ate too much.

Then it was off for our city tour, which ended the morning at the castle. The castle is cool. We saw most of it. The views are amazing! We took pictures from the top of most of the canons.

In the afternoon, we did Britannia, which was interesting but less so than the castle. We walked a bit through the mall and grabbed a couple of Paninis for lunch. Afterwards, we walked Princes street – got D some fancy gloves and me some cashmere gloves. It was actually cold enough that I regretted forgetting to bring my teeny dollar store gloves. And we were a bit worried it would colder in the Orkneys. We also visited the Art gallery, where we met some interesting young men from Germany. Finally, I broken down and had some ice cream. It was as good as I thought (and it certainly was not ice milk.) Now we are off to the Scottish dinner and cabaret.

The dinner show was interesting (yes, my favorite word). The food was delish/fantastic. D had the seafood and I had the beef. Haggis tasted really good, just like a peppery, gamier meat loaf. Neep and Tatties are just turnips and mashed potatoes. The things we learn.

It was a late night though. Afterwards, D and I walked towards the castle to get some shots in the dark as there was a full moon.

Travel journal entry June 2, 2012 or The Royal Mile before a reception

The hotel is quiet and the drapes are better for darkness. So we got to sleep a bit more, though it was a later night, so it still wasn’t enough sleep. Still dozed for a bit. Then up for breakfast, which was a huge selection. I didn’t like the eggs (too watery/too undercooked), so tomorrow no hot food. (Editor’s note: this was a common complaint of mine in Scotland. I like my eggs well-cooked, which we got in London, but Scotland tended to do theirs so it was wetter. Blech!)

Then it was off for walking and touring. We went to North Bridge and across to High Street. We visited the People’s Museum (cool!), the Edinburgh Museum (interesting!), then the Museum of Childhood (also very interesting!). We also checked out some shops – found some interesting gifts for Christmas and for ndie. We learned some new things. We stopped for lunch at a little café Pasta Fresca. D had a Parma ham and mozzarella cheese baguette and salad. I had chicken soup with part of a baguette.

Then we did the other side of the royal mile and saw the Tartan center. It was rather disappointing, but they had some great items at decent prices. Then it was down an extremely steep hill, over to New Town, where we walked and took more pictures, before heading back to the hotel. Next up – relaxing for a few minutes before our welcome reception with the Tour group.

The reception was interesting with an interesting selection of food. I had doubles on the lamb kebabs, warm pita with hummus, and the dessert. We met several people from our group – lots of Aussies! A few Americans and some Canadians, mostly from western Canada, but a couple from Toronto as well!

We ended up sitting and talking for a while in the courtyard. Then off to bed.

Travel Journal Entry June 1, 2012 or Welcome to Scotland!

Taking the train was adventure #1 – after watching two undergounds go by, we finally fit into 1. Squishy! Then King’s cross was interesting. We got to go to the First Class lounge and then determined our train went beyond Edinburgh and was waiting for passengers. We caught it on time. Whoot!

Lots of food options in first class – pretty tasty! 4 and a half hours later through beautiful varying landscapes, we arrived in Edinburgh.

We walked to our hotel – Wow! What a bathroom! Heated towel warmer, huge, soft towels. (Editor’s note: Oh yeah, we got totally spoiled at the Roxburghe. Thankfully, we started in London and so every room and bathroom afterwards was luxurious, but this was probably the best hotel we stayed at.)

We walked down George Street for a bit and then to Queen Street. We went to the national Portrait Gallery and then walked to Princes Street. We went into a kilt shop and spent several well… moments – about an hour and a half – talking about the kilts and getting a quote from Stuart. Not too bad. (Editor’s note: Stuart at Romanes and Paterson is a wonderful person – very personable, not pushy, very knowledgeable, and quite willing to take the time if you are interested to go through it all. We really enjoyed his company and often used his knowledge to help us later on.)

Then it was back to the hotel briefly and off for supper down Rose Street. Wow! Delish food! Element is a pub/cocktail bar kind of atmosphere. We share the chicken and roasted salad. A meal in itself and so yummy! Then D had haddock and chips – it was huge! I had the macaroni and Mull of Kintaire cheese. Oh my, was it divine! D tried the Douchester beer.

Then back to the hotel room to wash clothes and get some sleep.

Travel Journal Entry May 31, 2012 or 400+ pictures of Stonehenge

On our tour to Stonehenge, we met George and Michael from San Francisco (very nice people though I worried that Michael was sick), several Canadians (8), some Americans (15), and one Aussie who was formerly Irish.

First stop was Stonehenge. Amazing, beautiful, and thought-provoking. (Editor’s note: yep, that was all I wrote, despite the fact over 400+ photos were taken. We had special access to the stones, which meant we could walk amongst them and come within millimeters of touching them – but no touchy! Part of me was disappointed because I wanted that wave of magic to wash over me; you know, like what happens in the romance books right before she gets thrown back in time. No time travel for me. But it was amazing and the sheer size of the stones and the fact that you got the impression this was built by very advanced people. The fact that some of the stones are from over 400 km away – how did they get them here? How did they get these massive stones to stand? And the tall stones that make up the first and third circles have bumps on them to fit into holes in the lintel. Fascinating! What was the purpose? Why are there 4 circles? Why is there a ditch always around stone circles? Supposedly from the sky you can still see the avenue people walked to get to Stonehenge. The first and third circle stones are different from the second and fourth circles. And they feel different – despite being in the same environment, you can feel a temperature difference between the stones. Was this significant? In case you are wondering, they have stones by the front gates that you can touch. I appreciated being able to get that close to the stones. It was definitely worth the 4ish am wake up call.)

Next we visited to Lacock (pronounced Lay-cock) where we had breakfast. It was okay - the smoked salmon is not cooked, the waffle was delish but riddled with sugar, and the eggs were a bit moist. Next time I’d do the English breakfast. Visited the house Dumbledore lived in and the graveyard from the Harry Potter movies. Whoot! (Editor’s note: this town does not allow cables and such to be run above ground so to maintain its authentic look. Thus it is used in many movies.)

Then to Bath to see the roman baths – interesting, but tired by then. As well, the audio reading was lengthy. Then we walked around the square – had London sorbet (yum!) from Thayler’s. (Editor’s note: wow – can you tell it was a long day and I was too tired for details? The baths are very interesting and again such an advanced society - the way they used the steam from the water to heat the floors in other rooms. Over 1 million litres of water comes into the place at 46C. You can no longer bathe in the baths or drink the water – it is very contaminated, especially considering they used lead pipes. But at the end of the tour you can taste the water after it has been filtered. It takes like heavily mineralized water, but warm. If it was cold, it would have been perfect with that icy bite that I love. Warm – it was a bit blech.)

During the ride home, we all pretty much slept. We saw Harrod’s, but were too tired to go shopping. Instead we went back to our area – found Boisdale Bar to eat at (Fortunes of War) where I had the Boisdale Burger and D had crab meat sandwich. Tasty! D tried a Spanish beer which was enjoyed.

Then back to the hotel to organize for the trip tomorrow, pack, etc. My sore feet finally showed the blister. Ow!