West Plean Stirling

We are visiting the UK and Norway at the end of May and first part of June in 2010. I have never been to Europe and am very excited about it.

Our daughter has been attending Kingston University this past year so we are going to see her, travel and pack her up to come home. We have family in Stavanger so we don't need hotels and ...

FINALLY, a real trip!

So randomly decided on Friday to accompany my friends on their Edinburgh day trip. Not for anything touristy, just to check out the place. Heard it was gorgeous, so why not?

After crawling out of bed at 5.30am, we got to the bus terminal for 7 and hopped onto the Megabus down to Edinburgh. Nice, quiet ride, nice little nap.. until they tell us that we have to change in Dundee. Ugh.

Out ...

... city and the first time that we have felt relay cold!

Porridge (with salt not sugar) for breakky.

Sunday morning was the "Barras". Markets selling all sorts of goods, trash, treasure and the like. "Come on folks, it's all cheap because it's all stolen"

Really enjoyable weekend and great to stay with a family and see what they say is "The Heart of Scottland"

Today, I was planning to go to the youth hostel at the castle, but the Land Rover had other plans!!!

Oh dear, game over! I popped out to start the Land Rover this morning at around 9am and the engine was smoking like a trooper and sounding a lot worse than it normally does. I called the AA at around 10:00 and they turned up at at around 10:45 from a local garage. He told me that the engine is fairly terminal (piston problem ...

The home of golf - I think Mark wants to stay!

Mark couldn't sleep all night and woke up very early to go to the office to try to get a tee time - tell him he's dreamin'! right?!
Only thing was they didn't shatter his dream right there and then, they just put his name on the waiting list and said to come back at 10am.

So breakfast and a bit of wandering around trying to get the laundry done - that was a flop as 2 laundries were too busy and the 3rd was ...

... see the bridge that the Hogwarts Express crosses in the Harry Potter movies. It….was….less than magical. 2. To Doune Castle, where the infamous scene of the arrogant French knight taunting King Arthur was filmed for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Had a jolly good time shouting “your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberry!” over the ramparts. At no one in particular. (If this does not make sense to you, please watch the following and ...

... yet since the move) and then a bunch of other people who were not awake yet, since it was 7am and the majority of people I called were on Spring Break. Finally, Sara said that I could call her mom who had done the OASIS registration before, but of course this was the one time *ever* she left the house before 7am. However, her dad was there and I gave him all of the information and he signed me up and I got all of my courses. Crisis averted. As stressed as I was, I think it ...

... against any of you who love Rome, I just have no strong desire to go there over other places. But I digress. How have I been otherwise, you ask? Well, I've been. Keeping up with classes and rehearsals is quite a lot on the plate, so even weekend travel has been limited, but this past saturday, I went up to Edinburgh for a second time, this time with my flatmate Aaron and a bunch of his mates and we spent the day watching football and putting down some pints ...

... be. Anyways, when that was done at 6, the night devolved into me and Mel chilling in the kitchen swapping music till 4 am. Note to anyone who likes dark, demented, gypsy-style music: the band/singer Voltaire is amazing. Friday was my third (and only other) class, another freshman level class, this one in Scottish History. I feel like it will be hard enough though, seeing as I have no previous research in this field ...

... stop spending frivolously, start clearing out the house and considering what we really needed to do to make this happen. A few months on ...we are now daunted by what we need to do to get the house rented, itinerary planned, things sold, things stored....the list is huge!! Not discouraged though...this will happen...watch this space :o)