The County Hotel Banff

... Edinburgh soon though..

Anyway, day trip to Ellon, which is just half an hour out of town. Yay! Friend from uni lives here so went round, watched movies etc etc. Nothing too interesting, but it was nice to be away from the dorm for a bit! Leaving for holidays in a few weeks so things will finally get just a little more interesting. Until then, back to the books I go..

Rothes is the little Scottish village where the Glen Grant Whiskey Distillery is located. It is part of the Speyside Whisky Trail, where the largest concentration of Scotch whisky distilleries is located in Scotland. This large valley is popular among distillers because this is where most of the barley is grown for the distillation process.

The distillery has a nice garden and a gift shop.

Dunno if I mentioned that the left hand front brake on our car had seivzed on the first day so Matt clamped the brake line & was using the other brakes. This was proving to be an issue as the front brakes kept locking up & we weren't stopping.

We headed to Aberdeen to find somewhere to get a new brake calliper & had no luck - Matt then bought some new brake pads but when he got the wheel off, he realised ...

... t call it Scotch in Scotland, they look at you funny. Also, its whisky NOT whiskey. Everybody up to speed? Ok good. The tour at the distillery was pretty cool. I learned more about the whisky process than I probably ever needed to. But we did get some whisky at the end of the tour. They also make a whisky liquer that even Jodi liked. It is pretty delicious! It is begging to be paired with some gooey dessert. Now back to ...

Stopped at the main part of town to get some 'chips' before the work function. I also was a tourist for a few minutes and took some pictures of the market cross and an interesting fountain. Then it was off to the lighthouse museum for the photo recognition.

... Most of all I know I have people who care about me, who love me, who are good friends and with their help and support I'm ready for that new chapter in my life, to reignite my passion for learning and to socialise. This is the benefit of modernity.....we can change our career paths and work our social relationships via Facebook, email, blogs and good old fashioned face to face (damn...thats a business term....maybe I still have some work to do!!) Yours Simon

... with all Dublin burglars not to bother risking their neck climbing up to our second floor balcony again - we don't have anything worth stealing. We're not sure whether to be offended or not that they found nothing worth taking? Anyway, back to Inverurie, which was lots of fun, and where I hunted down bears with Tanya's daughter. We caught several. The people of Inverurie can sleep easy in their beds at night now.

Today we started the day with a tour of the newest fishing boat in Fraserboro harbor. It is named the Christina and had been delivered only two weeks before. The crew was checking all the systems to make sure that everything worked properly before taking it out for its first day of fishing. The size of the boat is amazing. It has to be about 300' long and cost $40,000,000. The ...

... the girls and I went out for dinner and bowling. The President of the Fraserburgh Club was a GSE team leader and decided that the team needed to do something on our own. Thanks Margaret-Jane! Paul went out for dinner with some of the Fraserburgh Rotarians. Needless to say, a good time was had by all, except for the bowling results. Tami apparently minored in bowling in college and dropped the hammer on the rest of her teammates. A rematch will be forthcoming!

... in Scotland. Unfortunately the name escapes me at the moment. The drive to Aberdeen was very interesting as we took a narrow two lane road across the mountains. Fortunately the breath taking views made up for some of the near misses. After we were picked up in Aberdeen, we were taken to a quiet church cafe for dinner, and then headed back to our hosts for a bit of quiet time and then to bed.