HAPPY HOGMANAY!

Friday morning, we woke up a bit early and hit the showers before most everyone else in the hostel was awake. Bazpackers (www.bazpackershostel.co.uk). is an awesome place, a true hostel experience with an incredibly welcoming lounge that everyone hangs out around the fire. I actually heard a few people say that the fireplace was the clencher when deciding on which hostel to book. Excellent place.



So, we left early, and it was still quite dark. We were headed to Stirling and it was slated to take about 2.5 hours, but part way along the route, I heard reports of heavy freezing fog, black ice, and an accident that I believe was on our route. I saw a sign for a scenic route to Stirling, and having not eaten any breakfast, I decided to head that way. It seems that no one in Scotland eats breakfast except on the weekends and only after 10. I was very difficult to to find anything to eat, and in Karen's opinion more importantly we couldn't find coffee. We stopped in this little village that had 3-4 coffee shops as we drove through. Nothing was open, except the least appealing looking coffee shop, and their menu was so small and nothing looked appealing. We went to the Co-op and bought a few pastries. We stopped by the coffee shop and got Karen a cup of coffee that she described as mediocre. Back on the road!



I wanted to reach Stirling by 12:00, so even with the detour and the long stop looking for breakfast, I was happy to arrive just at 12:30. We drove by the Old Bridge a few times to get some pictures of it; unfortunately, we could not find a way to get to the bridge to get any stills, nor was there any parking nearby. It was pretty neat to see though.

(this picture is the NEW bridge)


After passing the bridge a few times, we headed to the National Wallace Monument. IN-CRED-I-BLE! This thing is cool as heck. I had no idea that it was 150 years old! Seeing the tower itself was really cool, but we decided to head up to it. After a fairly steep 10 minute walk up to the monument, we headed up the stairs. Karen had missed the sign saying that the monument had 246 stairs in it, and I had no idea that 90% of them are tight and small spiral stairs. It was pretty intense, the passages were really tight, and there is only one way up and down. The tower is 4 and a half levels highs, and each level is quite high. You would go up about 40 stairs in this amazingly tight spiraling corridor hoping that no one would be coming down and then quickly dart into the room for that floor to get out of others way. The first floor has William Wallace's sword in it as well as a history of his life and the battle of Stirling. The next level up was the Hall of Heroes, which contained a bunch of busts of people important to maintaining the Independence of Scotland. I have no idea what this room was really about as you pretty much had to have the audio supplement for this part of the part. Fortunately, the book we bought has pictures and descriptions of everyone in this room.



After this room, Karen's began to get very claustrophobic and creeped out by the heights we were at. She decided to go back down and I headed up. The next level was a room showcasing the history of building the tower and places around the world that had tributes to William Wallace. I spent the most time in this room reading about the history, it was intriguing. I then pressed onward to the roof top area. The first level of the roof pops you out onto an outer terrace that has these holes in the wall to glance around Stirling. The next level up is a large platform that has a great view of Stirling and the surrounding areas. The view of the river is amazing, but it was quite cold!



I made my way down to ground level again and quickly checked out the gift shop. After a quick look around, Karen and I walked back down to the parking lot and checked out the gift shop here. We got a few things, and got a stuffed Highland Cow to accompany Mr. Prickles. They are part of a threesome of friends, also including Nessie! I think we are going to bring Mr. Prickles along to find regional friends from now one.

By now, it was about 1:45, so we headed to the hotel to check in. We got checked in, dropped out bags and went to grab some lunch. There was a big restaurant next door called the Eating Inn. It is apparently part of a chain of restaurants/pubs that are more geared toward families and have two large play areas. I was actually quite surprised, I was afraid from the moment we walked in that I wasn't going to like it. They didn't have a bunch of vegetarian selections, but I settled on the veg lasagna. Karen manned up...... She got HAGGIS!!! It took a long time for our food to come, and I think Karen wanted to strangle two of the kids seated near us, but the food was pretty dang good. My lasagna was nice and light, with a good salad, and filling. Karen immensely enjoyed her haggis. It was served with mashed potatoes (not great) and bashed neeps (mashed turnips) that we bought thought were pretty good. Desert was apple pie for me that was fairly decent, and sticky toffee pudding for Karen. The pudding (which is a cake covered in sticky sauce, not pudding as in America) was AMAZING. I wish I had tried this before, it was great. I can now say that the Haagen-Dazs ice cream from two years ago was amazingly close in taste as well!
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We went back to the hotel and I crashed for a few hours. Karen relaxed and then got ready for Hogmanay before waking me up. We left the hotel around 8-8:30 and headed toward the castle and downtown area. We found a decent parking space and headed to a restaurant called the Filling Station. Karen ordered a lasagna that she said was okay, and I had a tomato, mozzarella, and basil sandwich. The sandwich was also okay. Karen ordered garlic bread to go with her lasagna, and ended up being a 10 inch pizza crust with butter and garlic. It was really tasty. On to Hogmanay!

Walking up the hill was a bit of a relief for me, as we were eating dinner, there was an amazing number of young woman dressed in the most embarrassingly revealing clothing, and I was really concerned that I was getting us into something that we had no idea what it was. Fortunately, the crowd moving to the castle was significantly different, and more normal with exception of the awesome kilts, and the girls were all headed to the clubs. As we got onto the castle grounds, Madnish (www.madnish.co.uk), billed as the best Madness tribute band in Scotland (there is more than one?!!?! AWESOME!) was playing. Each band was only given about 30-35 minutes on stage, so I think we saw most of their set and they were great! Baggy Trousers, Our House, Night Boat to Cairo and more awesome classics. It was great!

The next guy that came out is this somewhat controversial guy that was on this Idol style show called X-Factor. His name is Wagner Carrilho (or something like that) and he is a Brazilian living in England, a retired gym coach. He has a unique look, long hair and a goatee, neck bracelet (traditional Native American style) and generally wears tight pants. He is a singer and a bongo player, and in my opinion, not very good. Apparently, he was sort of like William Hung on X-Factor, but some people actually like him. It was weird, and we were both glad to see him off the stage. The next band was this guy Darius Campbell that is a cheesy lounge singer, apparently he is somewhat popular as well. Didn't really care for him. The last band, on stage to welcome in the New Year was a Scottish fusion band mixing traditional and rock called Skerryvore (www.skerryvore.com). They were great, we both liked them immensely. Excellent mix of new stuff and old stuff, great mix of instruments, and a pretty good singer. They had a fiddle player, accordion player, and another accordion player that also played bagpipes. Great show.

As midnight struck, everyone counted down and then an awesome fireworks display was launched from the castle. People all over the city began launching Chinese lanterns, it looked like some sort of alien assault and was amazingly beautiful. Everyone sang some traditional song that I recognized and Karen actually knew some of the words, and these awesome dances broke out everywhere. Large groups of people would cross there arms and then link hands in a huge circle and they would dance into a tight circle and expand back outward. It was great to see so many people having fun, grabbing strangers and swinging them and having so much fun. It was awesome. Skerryvore got back on stage and finished up their set, and then we took off back toward the car. Loads of people were on the streets, wishing New Year out of windows, and having a good old time. The nice thing was that I saw only a few truly drunk people. It was a great way to welcome the New Year. I hope to Celebrate Hogmanay again some day.

Tomorrow we are headed back to London.

More pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2031-Stirling%20and%20Hogmanay/?start=all

Too much science, not enough Nessie!

- That would be what Karen said after the Nessie Exhibit today. But first....

We started this morning off a little later than I wanted to, but it was still dark out when I got up. That makes it much easier to sleep in, or just lay around and chill out, check email, etc. By the time we finally got up, ate breakfast and got over to the reception building it was about 30 minutes later than I wanted, but the building was locked up. We went and got Karen some coffee and killed about 45 minutes.

Walked back to the hostel, but it was still locked. We finally found a doorbell and dropped the key off. On the road again! Along the way, just by coincidence, I saw a castle out of the corner of my eye. It was the famous Castle Stalker, a really neat keep on a small island. You may have seen it in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was not open due to season and tidal access issue, but we whipped around and took several good photos of it.



Our second stop of the day was Glenfinnan Viaduct, which some of you may remember from the Harry Potter films. It's the railroad platform that the Hogwart's Express uses several times and it the arched platform that Harry and Ron fly the Ford Anglia around when trying to find the train. I was a little disappointed with it, but it was still cool. It was wet out, so the structure was really dark, unlike in the films. The base of it is private property, and there was a bunch of junks (old cars and stuff) stacked up near it, making it hard to get a good picture. Still, overall, a really awesome area.



We then headed toward Loch Ness! The village at the southwestern end of Loch Ness, Fort Augustus is supposed to be a really good place to shop, especially for Scottish wool products, tartans, and kilts. I have this strange desire to buy a kilt, but while the price is quite affordable here (about £50, versus the £400 I've seen online), I have absolutely no idea where I will ever where one. I think that one would be nice for hiking, but I think I'd prefer a Utili-Kilt if I'm going to spend that much money on clothing. So, we drove through Ft. Augustus, seeing our first signs for Loch Ness attractions, inns that the word "Inn" was shaped to look like Nessie. We drove along the Loch for the first 15 miles or so, Karen had her eyes peeled the entire time. She didn't see much, not even a penguin, but quite a diligent eye open while we rolled into Castle Urquhart. The castle was built in the 13th century, and I honestly don't know more than that, as we decided to pass on visiting it. We took some pictures, but didn't feel like walking through another ruined castle in the rain, so we went just a few more miles to the village of Drumnadrochit to visit the Loch Ness exhibits, gift shops, and the like.



Our first shop was a small gift shop to take the obligatory shots with their Nessie sculpture. We picked up some souvenirs, including a pin with the crossed flags of Scotland (St. Andrew's Cross and Royal Standard of Scotland) and a Tartan scarf made with the Tartan known as the Pride of Scotland. I dig it a lot!



After wrapping up at the gift shop, we headed to the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre (www.3dlochness.com/loch-ness-2000.htm). We took some even better photos of their Nessie statue, and Karen snapped several of their small submarine that was placed right outside of the exhibit.



We stepped inside the exhibit and were prepared to be shown something impressive. Unfortunately, this did not happen. It was a 6 room multimedia display that had us asking more questions than when we came in. The weird thing about it was that guy that ran the place, wrote a book about the mystery, and also heads the most current research team looking for more proof of Nessie (and was actually working behind the curtain at the reception desk) seems to actually want to find Nessie, but all of the presentation was mostly evidence as to why something of that size would not be able to live in the Loch and explained most of the sightings as something other than a monster. Oh well, sort of a bummer.



We left the exhibit and made our way to Inverness. Inverness turned out to be a lot larger than I expected. The road layout in Inverness was also VERY confusing to me (I never felt this way anywhere else in Britain). We finally found the hostel and then finally found parking nearby and made out way in. After checking in, dropping our bags and relaxing in the lounge, I struck up a conversation with a German guy that was also staying in the hostel. Seemed like a nice guy. We made our way down the block to a tapas restaurant called La Tortilla Asesina (www.latortillaasesina.co.uk). SOOOOO GOOOOOD! I've never eaten in a Spanish restaurant before, and have never had Tapas. Little food is awesome! We really enjoyed the meal, it was extremely tasty. We had chickpea salad, spinach croquettes, stuffed peppers (AWESOME!), Moorish couscous, tiny roasted peppers, and sauteed mushrooms and Karen had ham and cheese croquettes as well. I think it may have been my favorite meal in Britain! We headed back to the hostel and chilled out some more in the lounge. Karen went up to the room to read after a while, and I stayed up until about 11:00 (not late, but we had to be up early and it was a long day) talking with a group of people from all over the world (Australia, Finland, Germany, Brazil, France, and Scandinavia). It was a really great experience that I hope to repeat one day!



Tomorrow we will be headed to Stirling to see the National Wallace Monument and celebrating Hogmanay at Stirling Castle. And who knows, maybe I'll buy a kilt tomorrow?

More pics from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2030-Oban-Loch%20Ness-Inverness/?start=all

TV and Radio in the UK

Radio is a bizarre phenomena on this isle. From everything I've seen, there are only a handful of radio stations here at all. There is literally BBC 1-4, Heart, and a few more stations that I would classify as "wide spread." They are assigned ranges and broadcast within those areas. As you move about, you'll begin to lose signal on one frequency, so you simply tune to another frequency in that range to pick it up again. The programs are geared toward everyone, everywhere on the island. BBC 1, for example, is broadcast from 97.7 to 99.7 and during the day plays popular music, with genre specific shows into the night. BBC is very similar, as is Heart and the other wide broadcast stations. BBC 3 seems to focus on classical, opera and Jazz, while BBC Classic is classical music. BBC 4 is mostly arts, culture, and news.

In addition to these long broadcast stations, we've found a handful of regional stations. There is a BBC Welsh and BBC Gaelic in those respect languages (Cymru and Gael). There is a BBC Scotland and I think a few in other major cities. What is odd is that in addition to these stations, we've literally seen only 2 other stations. One is a local variety station based out of Oban, and according to a Radio Maps website, the only station to service the 90,000 people that live in the Argyll and Bute area. The other was a rock station that I think was based out of Glasgow. The variety of stations focusing on specific genres of music that we are so used to in America is almost non-existent here. It's quite weird!

TV was a weird disappointment for me. We've seen a handful of new things that are good, but most of the British TV shows are pretty bad, even to the people that live here. Most of the TV on the air here is imported from America. Scrubs is vastly popular, The Simpsons are on regularly, Friends, and How You Meet My Mother and in demand as well. Many of the movies on TV and advertised here are, understandably, from Hollywood. The movies that I've seen advertised that are from the UK are generally quite bad looking. Understandably, Bollywood films are in high demand around the island.

It's a PENGUIN! TURN AROUND!

Yep - It's true!!!! Karen saw a penguin today! In Scotland! In a river, no less. There it was, standing in all of it's Great Cormorant splendor! hahahahaha, never mind that penguins don't live in this hemisphere. It's was awesome. She made me turn around and go look at it myself. It looked like a heavy heron. It was neat, but penguin?!?!?!

Apart from this massive excitement in the car, it was a pretty chill day. We left the Urr Lodge this morning after sleeping in, and attempted to locate a laundrette in nearby Castle Douglas after some quick shopping at Tesco for food and laundry soap. We FINALLY found the place, and it was drop-off only, no self service. BOO! Anyway, we got on the road and took the scenic route instead of the motorway. If was a nice, but very foggy ride toward Glasgow. Suddenly, outside of Kilmarnock, the sun began poking through in the distance. By the town we passed through Kilmarnock, the fields around us were awash in light, rich green fields lit up for the first time in days. I think we have literally seen sunlight for two short periods the entire time we've been here. It was great, really made us realize we had missed the sun.



By the time we reached Glasgow a short while later, the sun had disappeared, replaced by a misty fog, thicker than any fog I've ever experienced at 1:00 in the afternoon, and heavier than it had been thus far on the trip. It was really thick, visibility was down to maybe 100 yards, at best. Passing through Glasgow was pretty easy, we sort of just looped around the west side of the city, and then headed toward Loch Lomond. This area was a large park region, as well as a popular tourist destination. There were a bunch of fancy looking hotels, as well as a bunch of signs indicating mountain hiking and mountain biking were popular here. Looks like a great area to visit in the summer.



As we approached the Loch itself, we were pretty well floored. The "major" road here was extremely twisty; it seemed to take about an hour to drive the 17 miles on the map. It was curvy with good reason though, it followed right along next to the lake, tracing the bank, and shadowing the mountains. Magnificent! We stopped at a small gift shop that was near a very interesting power station. Water is stored in a mountain top lake and when more electricity is needed valves in these pipes leading to the generator at the base of the mountain are opened to power turbines. Very cool! We saw cars in the parking lot from the Netherlands and Romania! Steering wheel was on the correct side and everything.



As we headed toward Oban, our destination for the night, we were following a faster but still curvy road. The landscape opened up some and we were in a wide valley. The mountains still rose up around us. There was a juvenile braided river running in the valley, and it was quite nice. This is the river that Karen spotted her penguin in! Classic!



As we approached Oban, we began seeing signs of a fishing industry and larger bodies of water. Oban lies on the Firth of Lorn which in turn joins the Atlantic Ocean. Apparently, there is good seafood in the area. We rolled into Oban, literally rounding a corner above the town, looking out over the wharf and houses faces the waterfront. Very picturesque. We drove through the town, excited to see a small but busy stretch of shops, food stores, coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. After looping through town and finding the check-in for Backpacker's Plus (www.backpackersplus.com), we parked and headed inside. A quick phone call to the manager and we then hung out in the rec room until she arrived. A huge bonus, they do laundry! £2.50 a load, and the loads are big. They were able to do all of our laundry in one load, so we gave then the bottle of laundry gel we bought this morning. We had no need for it any more.



We got checked in, dropped our bags in the room, and took a walk around town. We did some window and real shopping, and then decided to eat out tonight instead of cooking. We found a weird Curry/Fish/Pizza/Kebab joint that actually looked good. Karen got Rogan Josh Curry and rice, and it was AWESOME. Probably the best Indian-style food since we got here, in my opinion. I got a veggie pizza that was GREAT, even if it had corn on it. I also got tikka potatoes that were very tasty. The two definitely hit the spot, and the price was quite decent.



Oh, while we were in the restaurant, the news was on, and the weather lady actually said that Northern England and Scotland were due for an "Outbreak of drizzle." Really? Outbreak? That implies something bad, not drizzle. Weirdos. I'm really concerned for these people, if they get real weather, they are going to be in for a real shock. It is LITERALLY 40 degrees right now and was probably close to 50 at some point today.

We are currently chilling out in our room, uploaded photos, and watching some TV. We've got to go get our clothes in a little while, and I think we may hit up the Irish pub down the street for a bit as well.

Tomorrow, LOCH NESS!!!!!!

More pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2029-Castle%20Douglas%20to%20Oban/?start=all

3 countries in one day!

Today has been GREAT! We started the morning off in incredibly wonderful Northern Wales; it was amazing there. I know I suck at describing things, but as we began to venture away from Wales and back to the Midlands region of England, the landscape really began to change, flatten out, get more brown and dreary. Wales was so green, the villages had a sort of Austrian feel to them, and it was wet and lovely. The roads were curvy, the villages set in valleys that had amazingly steep descents, and water was flowing in wonderful streams. It was sort of like the most awesome bits of the Smoky Mountains, but on steroids. I absolutely loved it. It was, quite possibly, one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever been. I could see living in an ancient villa hear, attempting to live by some old craft or art.



This morning started off a little bit different. We checked out of the hotel (which was GREAT and very affordable! www.whitewatershotel.co.uk/) and hit up the local co-operative grocery store. We spent less than £20 on enough food for breakfast and lunch. We got 4 mini baguettes, 2 chocolate croissants, 2 multipacks of crisps, 2 bottles of water, a chocolate bar, 2 apples and 2 pears, and 2 really tasty sandwiches for like £18!!! Breakthrough! We should have done this days ago! DUH!

After eating breakfast in the parking lot of the co-op, we crossed the River Dee and back toward England, soaking in the beautify countryside. Heading back into England was a bit depressing to me, but looking forward to Scotland was exciting. It got quite bland around Manchester and traffic a bit thick, especially in the opposite direction. We didn't have to stay on the motorway for very long, we were headed to Lake Country. This region is a famous as a holiday destination and even in the heavy weather it was still quite busy in the little villages along the lakes. As we rolled in to the southern part of the region, we passed loads of Bed and Breakfasts and outdoors shops, and a lot of families out hiking. I had initially planned on stopping at Hillside, Beatrix Potter's former house, but it was closed for the season and a good was out of the way, so we stopped for lunch alongside a creek and took a bunch of great photos. We then proceeded on to Grasmere, where William Wordsworth lived and were a museum about him resides now. Karen wasn't particularly interested in seeing the museum and Grasmere passed by so fast that we decided it wasn't worth stopping. I think it was a good idea.





As we rolled through the Northern part of the region, we were simply blown away. It had been extremely foggy throughout much of the day, and it had gotten even heavier as we arrived in the Lakes District. It began to lift some as we passed Thirlmere lake and the views we were afforded we breathtaking. Simply incredible, big mountains on the sides, smooth, partially frozen placid lakes and incredible rocky crags. The traffic was pretty light, so I slowed down and we really enjoyed it. We stopped at one point and took some cool pictures of this neat series of large, steep hills that had been divided up with stone walls, presumably to keep sheep in specific "fields." It was great!



We ambled out of the area, eventually making our way back to the motorway for a quick jaunt across the border into Scotland. It had begun getting dark so we didn't get to see much, but the fog got thicker and it started raining, which I think is going to be good for even more snow removal, unless it freezes tonight. It's not slated to be any more worse than today was, which would be fine with me. We arrived at the Urr Lodge (http://www.urrlodge.co.uk/) at around 4:30 and checked in. It's a hostel, but I really like it. Karen seems to as well. It's got a nice big eating area, communal kitchen, everything we need, and a nice community room for TV. After running to Tesco for dinner supplies (£9.56 for tortellini, sauce, 3 huge bottles of water, 5 tomatoes, a bunch of organic button mushrooms, salad mix (much better greens that at home), salad dressing, and a small coke! SCORE!) we cooked up dinner and chatted with the host couple. We've been watching various TV and chatting with them since. It's really nice. We are the only visitors here tonight, which is cool, but I think it takes away from the hostel experience some. We are staying at a hostel the next two nights though, so I think we'll get to interact with more people.

Tomorrow, into the Highlands of Scotland!

More pictures from today: http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll256/sandalscout/GB%202010-2011/Dec%2028-%20Wales%20to%20Scotland/