Thistle Aberdeen Caledonian Hotel

... 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 ...

Well I have finally begun my journey!!! It seemed like it would never actually happen, but as I boarded that plane reality began to sink in....As we all know, i have no idea when Ill be home, where ill go next, what Ill see or who Ill be spending time with....which makes it so much more exciting for me. Now i have only been here for half a day and have yet to settle, but once that ...

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 made it back to Stonehaven today. Amazingly, the sun was out in full force, a complete contrast from yesterday. I walked along the North Sea for a bit, enjoying a Cornish pasty, and then made the roughly three-mile hike up to Dunnottar Castle, also overlooking the sea. The hike was amazing, but largely uneventful. The photos say more than I could hope to.<br><br>I leave for the U.S. tomorrow morning around 8:30 a.m ...

... example of a vice business operating inside what used to be a cathedral. It's really unusual.<br><br>I returned to the house, and Heather and Hannah (Heather's friend) explained to me that a typical Scottish Saturday involves going to the pub and socializing, watching sports, etc. We went to a pub and spent the afternoon doing The Times crossword puzzle. Not ...

... a cuppa with Mum and Dad before calling it a night. Sophie seemed mostly unaffected by jetlag the next morning, so we got ourselves going after a lovely big breakfast and made our way to Duncan and Kath's house to have lunch with them, wee Fox and Mikie & Clare. lots of fun catching up with them and sharing stories. We excused ourselves mid afternoon and all (Mum, Dad, Spencer Sophie and me) headed for a wee tour around Aberdeen, first stop a ...

... sunny day. It is the first sun that I have seen since starting this trip. It could not have been a better day for visting a beach. The ocean stretched out before us as did miles and miles of sand. There is an amusement park right across from the beach that could provided hours of entertainment. I could just imagine a nice hot sunny day of laying on the beach and then riding the rollercoasters all night. Sounds like a good day to me.

... pack horse bridge is still standing today only because it was rebuilt for the price of £5 by Robert Duff in 1729. It felt like we were the first people to have found this spot and this picture to me truly represents what I was looking for in Scotland. Oh I promise I'll be back! Stonehaven: We loved this little town by the ocean. It's very picturesque and intimate. I can't say ...

Often whilst travelling, especially towards the end of our RTW trip, we wondered how we'd re-adjust to life back in the 'real world' and how exactly would we cope with spending more than 2 weeks in one place - the most time we spent in any one place in more than two and a half years around the globe! We met heaps of travellers along the way who'd visited Scotland and talked enthusiastically ...