Holiday Inn Express Aberdeen Exhibition Centre

... almost, my wonderful father is still covering the plane tickets but that's not me being a spoilt brat, that's me taking advantage of one of his few decent job benefits. Standby tickets for the win. *thumbs up*<br><br>But of course, why bother going to the other side of the world and just stay in one place? I have more vacation time than there is volunteering time, so I shall do an unfortunately speeded up tour of the south-east Australian ...

... a crapload of work. And I'm also trying to find one of those "job" things so I can get some extra £ for travelling purposes. So no real time for immediate fun, grrr. But I'm hoping at some point I'll be able to do a bit of mountaineering, and also planning on heading down to Glasgow and Edinburgh sometime. There's a couple other Travelpodians scattered around somewhere too, but I think it's ...

... all taken care of the adventuring will begin. I'm starting to think Ill hop over to Dublin for a day or two before I start traveling south because I am dying to taste their Guinness! Ill write as soon as I know, but I think Ill be lounging around Scotland for two weeks while I get my ducks in a line. Obviously there isn't much to log yet but i promise it will get interesting soon!!!!

Tomorrow I'm catching the a 2pm flight out to Heathrow, a couple of hours of transit and off to Istanbul...arriving just after 11pm. There's no public transport other than taxis and its probably gonna be expensive to Sultanahmet where I'm staying. But the flight's cheap so can't complain really. <br><br>For the past few days I've been packing and repacking, readjusting my inventory each time, trying to strike a balance between travelling light and having the ...

... I'll be back in Tucson by 8:35 p.m. I've drawn some conclusions from my trip to Scotland. First, it's not as foreign as I expected. Once you get over the accent and the fact that they drive on the other side of the road here, it's easy to forget that you're abroad. The day-to-day life seems very similar to that in any town of a similar size in the U.S.<br><br>Even so, there are a few things I've liked about Aberdeen ...

... exciting, but, as they say, when in Rome . . .<br><br>Things picked up as the evening wore on, and I ended my night at Cheerz, Aberdeen's gay bar and club. I took in a drag queen contest over a pint of Foster's, and even joined a conga line around the block. I called it a night after they played The Proclaimers' "500 Miles," as what evening is not complete at that point?

... que was rather long. So we didn't get to the Ardoe House until late. Since it was overcast, and getting dark, we bearly had a view of the Scottish coastline near Aberdeen as we landed. It was beautiful! The whole countryside, from what I could see, looked beautiful! Driving at night to the hotel, I couldn't see much, but at first light this morning, I was staring out the ...

... and stuff and are off, while the driver narrates a history/geogreaphy/orientation of the city. ON UNion Street, the main thoroughfare of aberdeen, every building is gray, and quite a few are ornate castle-like., A banner reads " Aberdeen International YOuth Football Festival". KIngs College, now part of the Univ of Aberdeen was founded in 1495. And the univ has a big presence here, out of chbe 230,000 people, 30,000 are students at the Univ, so says el taximan. and so ...

... for all eternity gazing wistfully at a cut flower (though I agree it's perhaps more tasteful than having a child's head hanging from his belt). Similarly ironic was the placement of the William Wallace statue. The Homeless historian was particularly keen for me to understand the importance of William Wallace (whose enormous statue was to be found a little further along the street) as "the rightful King of Scotland" and spent quite some time trying to educate me as ...

... things from the U.K than it is whilst travelling but it is. Getting visas is so much more complicated and hassley but it has to be done. So, in a couple of weeks we're off again, only for a short break but we'll tell you all about it. Then in July we're off to use up the rest of our round the world ticket..... We'll keep you posted as ever and look out for some more photos of the trip which we'll be uploading shortly. Take care all, S & K