Mabie Forest Feb 09

The red route at Mabie - Neil and Fi












Lucy and Stevie














The crossing! Stevie



















Neil



















Fi



















Lucy



















Jane




















Oh no!













Late night BBQ












Lovely photo, boys














And another one












Warmed by the hot tub













Birthday present!

January 2009

I'm writing this in May and I can't really remember what we did in January! We definitely went skiing in Scotland for the first time, and went to our first ceilidh. Aaah that's exciting enough!!

Skiing was pretty fun. We went to Glencoe, and the weather wasn't too bad. A bit clouded over but our friend Stevie knew where to go so we just followed him, and it worked out okay. My legs were screaming after the first run but I got used to it, as you always do.

It really reminded me a lot of smaller NZ fields, maybe like Porter Heights. You had to get a chairlift up to where there was snow, but you don't have to do that all the time. There were mostly T-bars and pomas, and only one little shop which mainly just selled greasies. I totally expected to see keas about. But alas, there were none.

The Saturday night we stayed at the bunkhouse at the Bridge of Orchy hotel, and had an amazing meal. Really good food!! Would definitely recommend it :-)

The ceilidh was at The Ferry, and was great fun. Our friends from my work, Brian and Joao, came around to our place beforehand. It was Joao's last chance to do some scottish things before he moved back to Portugal and he unfortunately bought a bottle (small, thankfully) of Buckfast round to try. Yuck!!! This is a so-called tonic wine made by monks in Devon that is the drink of choice for neds in the west of Scotland. Here's a comedy youtube video to start to explain what neds are. If you know what chavs are, neds are similar but worse.

Anyway, Buckfast is pretty much a lethal combination of alcohol, sugar and caffeine, so it gets you drunk real quick but you don't fall asleep so you are free to cause havoc. I can't describe the taste, but its sugary and kinda thick and just yuck! We only had a wee bottle between us thankfully.

I've realise since I've been in Scotland that lots of the dances we did for folk dancing at school are Scottish. So some of the dances were familiar, like the Gay Gordons. My main conclusion from the night is that ceilidhs are exhausting!! And really fun. It won't be my last.

New Years in Amsterdam

From Devon we got a ride back to London and stayed a night with our friend Bec and Jeff. We had a great afternoon in a pub playing Jenga and drinking a little too much. :-) They're back in the southern hemisphere now so it was nice to hang out for bit.

Off to the airport in the morning and I was not feeling so good. I got progressively worse - all achey and uncomfortable. It was awful! So we got to Amsterdam and went to our hotel. I managed to go back out to get some dinner but once we got back to the hotel I felt awful again. And I had taken the maximum amount of Nurofen for the day so couldn't have any more. Don't think I slept much that night. It was really hot in our room and I was so restless. I tried to sleep on the floor, and in the bathroom, and I kept making up weird storied to pass the time. Bizarre!

From the next day on I managed my painkiller intake more successfully and although I was sick the entire time we stilll managed to see lots of Amsterdam. We took a canal tour and went through the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum. We also went to the Sex Museum on the mains treet. That was a laugh. I honestly don't think it's been updated since the 70s. Very cheesy.

We spent New Years Eve in a Spanish pub/restaurant - how ironic. But they were very friendly and it was lively and pretty fun. I made it until midnight!! Which I didn't think was going to happen. We went out onto the street to see lots of different groups of people just letting off fireworks everywhere. Chatted to a really nice gay French man for a while and tried to stay away from the path of wayward fireworks. It was pretty crazy. The next morning there was fireworks rubbish EVERYWHERE and even holes in the road and smashed car windows where fireworks had been let off. Mad.

Of course we went to the red light district for a bit. Not really sure what to say about this. You really need to see it for yourself. It's quite bizarre but apparently it works. We saw lots of people getting yelled at by the girls for taking pictures - a big no no. Some were obviously just not aware that they weren't supposed to but others were being really sneaky about it.

From Amsterdam we got the ferry back to Newcastle. It was quite an experience. Relatively cheap ferry, especially since it's effectively accommodation and travel all in one! The beds were not too bad. Food was okay but expensive, and drinks were pretty pricey too. Would definitely do it again though. There was some super cheesey entertainment - like what you would expect on a cruise ship.

Then we spent the day wandering about Newcastle. It's really cool! I would definitely consider it as a place to live. Lots of history all around and areally cool vibe.

That's it! Back to Glasgow and work and it soon seemed a distant memory...

A few pics from New Years

Sorry, these aren't in order...


The Castle Keep - it was closed unfortunately
















The stairs to the Upstairs Pancake House in Amsterdam - very steep, and only a few tables. Yummy pancakes though :-)















Flags outside the Rijksmuseum
















Amsterdam Centraal, train station












Newcastle again - the Gateshead Millenium Bridge. The whole thing tips up to let ships through. We didn't see that but you can imagine it would be pretty impressive.




Snowing in Amsterdam!


A canal













Jared and I on the canal tour














Swans on the canal in the red light district

Christmas 08

For Christmas we went down to Devon to stay in a cottage with some friends from London. I didn't know all of them but that didn't matter at all! We were staying near a wee village called Churston Ferrers, which is near Torquay. We flew down to Bristol from London then got the train to Torquay where Judes and Owain kindly picked us up.

What followed was a few days of good food, lots of drinking, some walking on the wild Devon coast, and improving Guitar Hero skills (so fun!!!), among other things of course! We played a very long pitch and putt golf game on Christmas Eve, which was followed by an amazing dinner at the local pub. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera but it was very cool.

Christmas Day itself was great too. The main dishes for dinner were goose, lamb and salmon. We had a lot of food!!

Probably best to let the photos speak for themselves...

Christmas 08 photos

Jared and Owain at Berry Head National Nature Reserve on the Devon coast









Jared and I


















Pitch and putt on Christmas Eve











Me!



















Water hazard...












Jared and Flon playing Guitar Hero on Nintendo Wii









Jared and I on Christmas Day













Flon getting into the Christmas spirit - I think

















Jared

















Hmmmm




















Christmas Dinner!












Secret Santa time

Copenhagen December 08

Bit of a gap before this post but thought I could just start from now and then fill in the gap periodically.

In the first weekend of December I went to Copenhagen on a Christmas shopping trip with some of the girls who live in London. It was very fun :-) We went on Friday afternoon/evening and two of the five came back to the UK on the Sunday and the rest of us left on Monday afternoon.

We managed to fit in quite a lot of shopping/browsing time and it was fairly successful for those who were looking for something specific. We also did a walking tour (which included the Round Tower), a canal tour (saw the Little Mermaid statue) and went to the Tivoli Gardens to check out all the lights and the Christmas markets. The lights are there all year round but there are more during the Christmas market time. Tivoli is also an amusement park and has a few restaurants as well. Unfortunately, we didn't book a restaurant and couldn't find one with space, but we managed to find some yummy suasages and mulled wine to have for dinner.

I was really keen to go on the roller coaster and maybe one other ride but no-one else was so I went on the rollercoaster by myself! It was actually really good because I managed to get right at the front for the ultimate experience :-) I also went on (with on of the other girls) a ride called the Star Flyer which was like a chair-o-plane that is REALLY tall. It wasn't that scary and it was absolutely freezing at the top but it also had a great view out over Copenhagen.

The Round Tower is, as it seems, a round tower with a spiral walkway to get to the top, where there is an observatory and a lookout. It was built to be an astronomical observatory, a student church and a university library. We also visited the cathedral Church of Our Lady, which was quite impressive and much simpler than many cathedrals I've seen.

All in all a great weekend!

Copenhagen photos

The Round Tower


















Inside the Round Tower













The Church of Our Lady


















A carousel at Tivoli Gardens












Tivoli Gardens
































Some of the mechanical elves and pixies (yes they move!) in Pixie Ville at Tivoli. Cute but also kinda weird...







The rollercoaster!













Tivoli Gardens













Canalside at Nyhavn

Innsbruck, Austria - Easter 2008

Jared and I went to Innsbruck, in the Tirol mountains in Austria, for Easter this year. Jared got a good flight deal through working for Expedia and we even got breakfast on the plane!! What a luxury...


The view from our hotel window













We arrived on the Friday and I had organised for us to go up a gondola and have dinner at the restaurant at the top. This restaurant is only open on Friday nights because they have to keep the gondola open specially. Normally it is just for transporting skiers up the mountain!

Because it was Easter they had a special Easter set menu. I can't remember exactly what we ate now, but we both agree that it was one of the best meals we've ever had. There was asparagus (white) in a few dishes because it was in season, and the meal was four courses, plus a wee welcome plate of food from the chef as well. But it was the perfect amount of food - so good!! I would definitely recommend it. And I'm sure their food is just as good at other times of the year as well. It was snowing when we were there, so the view was a bit obscured and we didn't take any photos, but here is one from their website.
Restaurant Seegrube

The view from where we had dinner (pic from www.innsbruck.info)

The next day we went to see the Bergisel ski jump tower, which was used in the winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976.

This picture is from the top viewing area on the ski jump tower, pointing out where the Seegrube restaurant on the other side of the valley is. Yes, we had dinner up in the snow!! And you can actually see the buildings in the zoomed in version of the pic :-)

The location of the restaurant



















The Bergisel ski jump tower



















Jared contemplating what it would be like...

















The inrun features a plastic track. During summer it is lubricated with water and in the winter it is covered with 30cm of packed snow. The inrun is 98m long and has a slope of up to 35O. Within 4 seconds after start the jumper reaches above 90km/h. The jumping skis measure up to 3m in length and 11.5cm in width depending on the height of the athlete. A special suit, jumping boots, safety binding, helmet, goggle and gloves complete the equipment.

So, the ski tower was pretty impressive. We had lunch in the cafe up there too.

One interesting thing is, when you are at the top of the ski jump, the next thing that you can see after the stadium at the bottom is a cemetery... Hmmmm - very reassuring.

We spent quite a bit of the weekend just wandering around, checking out the markets and some old churches along the way.

The next day lunch was at the Easter markets - and very traditional...

Beer, sausage...














And again :-)



















After lunch we went to Ambras Castle (Schloss Ambras) and walked around the museum, buildings and gardens there.

Next stop was a highlight of the weekend - Alpenzoo. It is the highest altitude zoo in the world and specialises in alpine animals. Since it was winter there were a few of the animals, like the ermine and the ptarmigan, that had there white winter coats. In the summer they both turn to brown in order to be camouflaged against the summer foliage. It seemed ok for a zoo, in terms of the animals having a fairly decent amount of space.

Photos...

Feeding time at the Alpine Zoo. Yep that's a goat of some description...





























The funniest, cutest little piglets.













I have video of these little dudes playing, fighting, running around... We couldn't drag ourselves away and it was snowing!

And then to warm up...

Aaaah, glühwein