More pictures are up!

 

And happy day after Thanksgiving! The pictures can be found in the drop down menu, on pages titled Glasgow & Edinburgh, St. Andrews and the Scottish Highlands, and Giant’s Causeway. Peruse and enjoy. Cheers!

PS: More videos are up on the YouTubes.

 

Our bus driver owns a mini tank

Rather, the one that guided our tour to the Giant’s Causeway yesterday does. I elaborate since, right now, we’re on a different bus, one that is currently on a trajectory towards Dublin Airport.
I apologize for not writing the post few days. We were remarkably occupied while visiting Belfast and it’s surrounding areas, and came home each night tired, yet still in need of planning. At that time, writing did not take priority over sleep.
There are really only two days of note on our Belfast adventure, and they are Monday and Tuesday. On the first day, we went exploring around the city, which meant visiting the City Hall and the  Continental Market in front of it, seeing the Titanic Quarter, and walking around the city center in general. While in the City Hall, we managed to unintentionally get a security guard in trouble when he failed to tell us we weren’t allowed to go into a restricted area that wasn’t marked off in any way. It wasn’t our fault. Really. He looked right at us as we went up a giant staircase.
Shame, mister security man. Shame.
The Continental Market was also a fun experience, though come armed with cash if you plan to buy anything. There were offerings of hot food, dry sausages, clothes, leather notebooks (which I loved)… All for more expensive than elsewhere, but pretty and fun in any case.
The Titanic Quarter amounted to nothing more than a nice walk, though they did have many signs up recounting the history of the ship’s construction, the people involved, and it’s demise. The Titanic studios building was took expensive to enter and see what it was all about, but from what I understand, they have the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones there. If your willing to spend 18 GBP to see that, go for it.
Slight amendment to the setting of the real time story. We have moved from a bus headed to Dublin, and are now in a car bound for Galway. We ran the numbers, and it turns out that public transport is so expensive in the Republic of Ireland, that it’s worth it to rent a car. Go figure.
Back to Belfast. On Tuesday, we bought two bus tour tickets through our hostel, which meant we got a special rate of 16 GBP for a full day. We were picked up from the front door of the hostel, and set off almost straightaway, with one or two stops to pick up more people before leaving Belfast. Or guys drove us around of the few touristy places, including a castle, a location where some scenes from Game if Thrones are filmed, and Bushmill’s Distillery (which is the oldest licensed distiller of Irish whiskey in the world. Also, we learned that the major difference between types of whiskey is number of distillations. American, once; Scottish, twice; Irish, thrice). We ended the day at the Giant’s Causeway, a large rock plateau, consisting of hexagonal columns that make it look like honeycomb. It looks like the landscape on a computer game with very bad resolution. The scientific reason behind it has something to do with volcanoes, but the Irish will have you believe that giants had everything to do with it. Look it up, boys and girls, it’s amusing.

Final amendment to real time location. We are now in Kinlay House Galway, our hostel for the next three nights. It’s shaping up to look really nice, though updates will follow.
Our last hostel, Arnie’s Backpackers, was a bit small and very cozy, but those are two of the reasons we really enjoyed it. Yesterday I got to meet Arnie’s dogs, who reminded me if my own doggy, Frodo, and made me miss home a little bit. We also made friends with some of the longtimers and hostel workers, and had a very enjoyable time over a Guinness last night. The hostel was warm, clean and affordable, which is all I can ask. Definitely recommended for anyone in Belfast looking for a proper hostel experience.
For now, though, we’re off to figure out this new city and, now that I think about it, new country. Cheers!

Streets in Edinburgh are inexplicably slippy…

… and if a Scottish person would like to tell me why, it would be brilliant, as I’m quite keen on knowing.
Today was Edinburgh day and the city is, indeed, wonderful. It’s quite large, with an interesting mix of commercial and historical tourism. Once we have back the car at Edinburgh airport, we caught a bus back to the city center for a very cheap 3.50 GBP a person. The ride to Waverley Station was a quick one, no more than twenty minutes, and the subsequent walk to Edinburgh bus station would have been even quicker than the ten minutes it did take if we hadn’t gotten lost. We had decided ahead of time that we would leave our bags at the station, since we have currently just left for Glasgow from there, and so we rented a large, 12 hour locker for 8 GBP. Laden with nothing more than our documents and camera, we set off to explore.
The very first thing we did was try to find food. Matt and I both get tetchy when hungry and stressed, so in the interest of peace and happiness, we made it a priority.
That was accomplished quickly, and in good time we made our way to Edinburgh castle. It’s in the very center of the city, and is quite large and well preserved. It houses the Scottish Honors, which consist of a scepter, sword, and the crown jewels. The exhibits are well explained, and the museum curators put a visible amount of work into the paintings, illustrations, figures, and plaques that were displayed throughout the museum. As well they should, too; the castle ticket cost a whopping 16 GBP a person. We justified it with a, hey, we came all the way here, and we only need to see it once. Nevertheless, it was painful.
Interesting tidbit-along with the Honors, we got to see the stone that both the Scots and the Brits use at coronations, and that the Brits had nabbed for a while. We saw the coronation chair in Westminster, but no stone, so seeing it today rounded off the trip on the particular island quite nicely.
The rest of our time was spent wandering around. We walked a bit of a way to check out the Parliament building, wandered through a Christmas carnival, complete with rides, and went on yet another adventure to find cheap food. It was really a very enjoyable experience.
Now, though, I’m on a bus to Glasgow, and have a limited amount of time to grab worry free sleep tonight.
It’s going to be a long two days.
Cheers!

We saw the mountains!

We went north into the Scottish Highlands, into the national park, without really knowing what we will see. We knew it would be colder, and less populated, but we definitely weren’t expecting such beautiful, snowy mountains as the ones we saw. We even wandered upon an old looking ski resort, still functional for the most part, but certainly too derelict to use in some. There was a lot of empty space, some sheep, a few cows, and the occasional tourist town, but generally it was a lot of pretty, and a lot of lonely.
Tomorrow morning we leave the time share, and head into Edinburgh for the day. At 9 pm, we leave from the bus station, heading to Glasgow, from where we’ll go to the coast, then to Belfast. Tomorrow is the last full day on this island. I realized today that our time here is more than halfway done, and that truly made me very sad. The UK is very beautiful, and I’m sure that Ireland will be as well… Who wouldn’t love a country that has so many sheep, absolutely everywhere? All jokes aside, almost every place we’ve seen here, we keep saying we want to stay for longer.

It’s a pretty cool place. Congrats, guys. Cheers!

The business card of that really good restaurant in St. Andrews

It really does have some of the best food we’ve had in the UK.

I have highland cow earmuffs

Yes, you read that correctly. They look something like this:

Or this:

And they are the wonderful result of visiting St. Andrews, in Fife County, today.
St. Andrews is a smaller town, located on the coast of Scotland, north of Edinburgh. It consists of maybe three or four streets running parallel to the coast and about five streets running transversely to those. It doesn’t have a lot of area to work with, but it manages to fit a ton into what it has. A castle, a cathedral, shops, tons of restaurants, a railway station, a university… And people still have room to fit there. It’s an awesome little town.
We started off with finding a free parking space, which has turned out to, generally, be rather difficult in the UK. As it is, there were two areas of gratis parking in the town, one by the library, the other by the water. All the others were paid, with a maximum parking period of two hours. We capitalized on a vacated spot on the water side.
The castle was a short walk away from our car, and cost 5.50 GBP a person to enter. Although the castle is quite run down, due to some of the history explained pre-site entry, they put a lot of effort into extra exhibits that they house in the gift shop building. The site is also home to one of the few remaining examples of siege and counter siege, and we were actually able to see, and enter, it in person! I can’t figure out how to write it without including the whole history of the castle, so to the internet with you.
Unfortunately, we found out in the gift shop that the cathedral is closed for renovation, so we decided to consolidate a walk around the town with finding lunch. The street with all the main shops was crowded with high school age children, and the restaurants that weren’t too expensive has lines extending out the door. Forced to explore the side streets, we find a little place called The Dinner Plate and, in it, the best food we have had yet here. It has a large menu, including foods from several Asian countries, though we had our choices limited by the smaller, yet satisfying, lunch specials menu. For 8 GBP, we got a starter, entree and rice, and all of these were sizeable and very delicious. Look it up, if you’re ever in the area.
Tomorrow we’re going to go further north, so in an effort to get up early, I’m going to go to sleep NOW.

Glasgow park & ride (Monday)

Americans be warned, park and rides are not the same thing in the UK as they are in the States.

They are, in fact, much more logical here.
On the off chance that anyone from the UK is reading this, American park and rides are
designated parking lots which people who live far from their jobs, or work in major cities and don’t live in them, use to meet up with other such people. They leave their cars there, except for the one that they use to carpool to their place of employment. The thought behind this is to save money, help the environment and traffic congestion, and to, obviously, get to work.
The thing to note here is that most cities don’t have a public transportation system, unless they are New York, LA, Chicago, etc, and even then they might not be very good. In the UK, most bigger cities have at least a basic one. That’s why, here, park and ride means park your car, and then hop on the really conveniently placed subway.
Man, we wish we had known that earlier. Darn USA conditioning.
In any case, Glasgow is a charming city. We to a subway from the park and ride right to the middle of everything (no, really, the station was situated directly between an H&M and a Forever 21, and each of these stores was flanked by more designer ones). We ended up taking a stroll through the stores on Buchanan street, wandering along the river Clyde, and admiring some churches. We even had a chance to stop in a cemetery which was attached to one of these churches, and muse at the age of the graves. Some of the death rates were just a few years after the official start of the United States. They must have heard of those colonial rebel upstarts in the news.
Anyway, we had a very long day in Glasgow, so although I started writing this on the way home, I didn’t finish it until…

… as of 40 minutes ago, Wednesday. We did something different today, yesterday, Tuesday (darn early morning hours), which was equally as tiring, and equally as long. We didn’t really get home until a little bit after 7. I am even surprised I wrote this much. So I will mention today’s adventure, at Loch Lomond and Inverary, in a more in depth fashion tomorrow. Hopefully I will do this at breakfast, so I can reflect on Edinburgh tomorrow at dinner.
For now, please, let me rest my eyes. Cheers!

Scottish sheep are very welcoming

They are only slightly less indifferent than the British ones. I’m in Scotland, in the Sandilands, about half an hour from Edinborough, and 45 minutes from Glasgow. Today was mostly a travel and grocery shopping day, although Matt and I did go for a light hike this morning from our hostel to Hadrian’s Wall.
The funny story is that, last night, I pointed out the window of our hostel room to a section of a stone wall visible in the distance, and joked that, look! we don’t need to visit the wall tomorrow, we already have seen it.
I was absolutely right.
Nevertheless, we went to walk along the wall for a good distance, traversing cow patty mine fields, and avoiding an inscrutable bull. The section of the wall that we visited is claimed (by the visitor center almost immediately adjacent to it) to be the best preserved section of the wall. This, however, is not to be confused with the section by Carlisle, which is the longest unbroken preserved section, but tend to be only knee high. This part of the wall actually comes to be quite high, and we skene a good long while looking over it, and discussing the history involved with the feat of building and defending it. For the specifics, look to books and the internet, as I never claimed to be a historian. From what I do know, however, it’s quite worth looking into.
It was almost noon by the time we left the British countryside, en route to the North, as it is called on the traffic signs on the roads.
We got here much before the check in time, so we went to town and stocked up on lots of meat, rice, eggs (we already had lettuce and pasta), and spices for less than 25 GBP. We actually bought more than just that, so we actually made off like kings. If you’re ever short on money, Tesco tends to have wonderful deals, as long as your not too worried about the “best by” date bring within the week. It enabled us to have lamb tikka masala with rice tonight, and after a week of street food, it was quite wonderful.
Since today is a slower day, and we have already decided that tomorrow we would like to enjoy finally having a more steady homestead, and would like to say now about our time in the lake district.
The day we were leaving it, we decided to take the long way around, and see some of the  beautiful lakes and peaks in the area. We were must definitely not disappointed. I hope to find a Wi-Fi access point in order to upload some pictures, as I do not trust myself with words enough to paint a sufficient picture. Maybe I will try another day, when I haven’t already had two glasses of wine.
Tonight I plan to relax, and I have the same plan for tonight. For now, it’s time to watch some TV, then hit the hay. I wish happy counting sheep.

Last day in Britain

Tomorrow we head to Scotland, and our second and last time share. One thing about living so unpredictably, as we have in the last week, is that we are quite constantly tired. It’s not a sleepy tired either, as quite often we wake up in the morning and actually comment on how rested we feel. It’s a deep rooted sort of tiredness, one that we hope to counteract with a week of having a stationary home base in Scotland.
Today we are back in the Northumberland region, for one last night before heading completely north. It’s a place called YHA Once Brewed hostel, not to be confused with the somewhat affiliated Twice Brewed Inn. I’ve started in nicer hostels, for sure, but the area is wonderful (quite close to the Hadrian Wall, which we will check out tomorrow), and the price is cheap (20 GBP a night for two people). Considering how much long term parking costs, even at a rest area, we were happy to shell out the few extra pounds for warm beds, a kitchen in which to make a morning cup of joe, and a full set of cleaning facilities.
Today and last night were spent in Newcastle, for the most part. We slept in a place called Metro Inn, where we bought out a three person, which actually cost less than a private two person room, for less than 20 GBP total. It wasn’t the fanciest place ever, but it had a sink in the room, a TV, and very annoying but functioning showers. Not a five star hotel by any means, but we arrived late and left early, so for our purposes it was perfect. We got into the city center of Newcastle, and immediately discovered that we had been thrown into an unexpected and unwelcome war with parking. Everywhere was pay and display, with a time limit that often did not exceed two hours, and the receipt machines didn’t take credit cards, nor paper bills. We finally found an indoor parking lot in the Quayside region that mercifully offered all day parking for 5 GBP, and after some paper to coin currency exchanges at a local cafe, we had a parking spot.
It’s worth noting that we had not eaten yet that morning, so the first thing on the agenda was to find food. We ended up buying for sandwiches from Gregg’s for 7 GBP, and eating three of them between the two of us almost immediately outside of the store. Only once that had been accomplished did we at all start to plan out the course of action for the day.
We ended up checking out the Castle Keep, 4 GBP, the St. Nicholas Cathedral, and the Great North Museum, in addition to just wandering around the city on foot for a few hours. It was pleasant, but both Matt and I agreed: not our least, nor most, favorite city. The castle could have much more done with it, the cathedral was quite  beautiful and peaceful, and the museum was free and good for a couple of hours amusement and warmth. All in all, it was an enjoyable day, and as the sun went down, we sat in a gas station parking lot watching the clouds and sky change colors, discussing our next move. And, like I mentioned, we ended up here, at Once Brewed.
I would like to write much more about what we saw yesterday, but I fear that must be its own post. I figure I’ll do that tomorrow, in the car. We have quite a bit of ground to cover, although I fear I might fall into the same trap as yesterday, and become transfixed with the amazing scenery outside of my window, and just forget to write. I will do my utmost to persevere. Tonight though, my eyelids are heavy, and I have no problem letting them win this losing battle. Bon voyage. Travel safe, and be prosperous at parking!

This is what I see!

Wansfell peak

Cool, huh?