Bubbling Over

I took a lot of video during my European travels, not that you have seen any of it. I always intended to make lots of amusing videos set to music, conveniently forgetting my fear of video editing software (stemming from an unfortunate incident in high school, as do so many fears).

Today, however, I was stuck without internet or other entertainment for a 3-hour layover coming home for Christmas, and I put together a little something. Behold:


A bitty video of my time in Scotland! I'm pretty pleased with it.

Edinburgh, Entry II

On my last day in Scotland, Clarissa and I went hiking. Within the city limits of Edinburgh are the craigs and Arthur's Seat- an extinct volcano! Very extinct- most of it was covered in gorgeous green grass.

Our intrepid hikers:

We thought during the first part of our climb that we were in fact climbing Arthur's Seat, when in fact we had started over by the craigs. So we climbed craigs too. It started to rain lightly when we were starting, but we perservered. It was only light rain...

The craigs from above

Then the rain really picked up. There were little waterfalls cascading over the rocks we were supposed to be climbing. But turn around? Never! We were already so far/close.... 

It was a good thing that we stopped to have a Bubble Session while still on the craigs, because we were so wet and tired by the time we reached the peak of Arthur's Seat, it never occurred to either of us even once to whip out the bubbles.

Soaking wet at the absolute highest point on the volcano- one of only about six pictures that I took. 

And of course, on the way down, it stopped raining. Sigh. 

Glasgow

In the midst of my larking about Edinburgh, Clarissa and I took a day trip over to Glasgow, Scotland's largest city. Glasgow strikes me as very UK-esque, at least my generation UK-esque. Very hip alongside being very aware of its history, kind of edgy and gritty but simultaneously posh and country. Clearly, this city has personality!

We followed a walk in Clarissa's Rick Steves guide for the UK that wound us through the greatest hits of downtown Glasgow, including what was either Prince's Square or George's Square (maybe we went to both?) and the museum of modern art (some of which was interactive!).

Product Placement

Some random wanderings led us to a fabulous view of the rest of Glasgow...

Particularly from atop this neat graffitied hill thing.

For lunch, we found an extremely amusing restaurant that seemed to want to be everything stereotypically American and, more specifically, American university. Check out some of the decor: 

I am sadly without picture of some of the wildlife we saw passing through the windows, but there was a constant stream of college-age to twenty-something guys in really bad drag. Wigs askew, bright red bras on the outside of the shirt, unshaven, you name it. Lots of tiaras and beauty queen sashes as well. They kept coming in packs. We never did figure out what was going on, but it does give one something to ponder....

Thus concluded our time in Glasgow, and we packed it back to Edinburgh, where I moved over to Clarissa's floor. Up next: our Edinburgh wrap-up, and then onto Greece! Expect updates in fairly rapid fashion, as I was able to upload all of the photos today, even if I haven't written all of the annotations yet. 

Edinburgh, Entry I

We reached Edinburgh a little before midnight, and I checked into my hostel (Clarissa and I figured that 10 days of sleeping in the same room might wear on us, so I got my own hostel for 3 nights, then slept on her floor over the last weekend). A pretty cool place, right in the center of things. If I even decide to spend a month or two in Edinburgh (not out of the question, though I don't know what life circumstances would lead to such an event transpiring), it would be an excellent long-stay hostel.

Edinburgh was a much more relaxed time than running around to a new city each day. I slept in on a regular basis, and generally just walked around. 

My first day, I decided to orient myself with a bus tour. The guide had such a thick Scottish accent that I probably got just as much out of his narration as I do when I'm being guided in French! Which is to say, I followed it, but definitely missed out on many nuances. 

A proper-sized bustling hub of a city!

Aforementioned tour guide

This is where Robert Louis Stevenson lived!

Police box and a telephone booth! Love it. 

Clarissa and I met up for dinner and spent several hours catching up (apparently in 5 days of constant contact, we had barely tapped the barrel of available conversations) the first night. She kept trying to get me to order to vegetarian haggis, but I outsmarted her and got a Reeses shake instead. I was so insistent that they completely load it with Reeses that they actually served it to me with an entire monster Reeses on the side! 

Never did get to the castle, but it's on a list for future visits. It's good to leave some things unexplored, right? I need an excuse to go back! Something else I sorta meant to do but never actually did is take a Writing Tour of Edinburgh. So many notable writers spent formative and productive time in Edinburgh. Among them are Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and JK Rowling. I added myself to the list (self-aggrandizing, I know) with a day working on my writing in the main park that runs between Old Town and New Town.

An interesting part of my timing in Scotland was that it was in the two weeks leading up to the Royal Wedding. Every tabloid was all about it, and they had lots of engagement-ring knock-off jewelry in the stores. I actually considered a pair of 4-pound earrings based on The Ring, because it would be such a timely, topical souvenir, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend money on a copy that was so cheap the "sapphire" was see-through and light purple. Still, it was much good fun. I was in Greece for the wedding itself, and watched it with all of the other girls there. But more on that later...

Writing

Though I wasn't there for the Wedding, I was in the UK for another wonderfully UK-ish (British? Scottish? What on earth do you call something which refers to the entire UK?) thing: the premier of the new season ("series") of Doctor Who. Clarissa has a small viewing party that she would go to in the fall for new episodes of Merlin, and they decided to start it up again for Doctor Who. It was a fabulous time- we ordered pizza and flopped around on a couch, yelling at Dan whenever he messed with the TV, discussing various fandoms, and positing theories on the episode, while it was happening. It's been such a long time since I watched a TV show with someone. It's so much fun! 

The other main to-do of Edinburgh was our rainy climb of the craigs and Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano. But that involves lots of pretty pictures, and my internet is quite slow right now. So it will get it's own post, then it's onto Glasgow and Greece!

Iceland update: booked the hotel, now to look into what adventuring I want to do. Add another European volcano to my list? Whale watching and glacier spotting? Geothermal hotsprings?

Scottish Highlands: Oban

The trip to Oban started with a long bus ride at sunset- absolutely gorgeous. All of the pictures are through the window, so some get a little foggy as the sun goes down and it gets colder outside, but I think you'll get the picture, so to speak... =p

We arrived at our hostel just before 9, so we opted to just hit the gigantic Tesco (general grocery like Safeway or what have you, just generally a little smaller than US standard size) and make dinner ourselves. The Tesco in Oban is huge- we were giddily reminded of Target and WalMart and the like, which is perhaps a sad commentary on our mindset as Americans. (But seriously- why are all the grocery stores so small here??)

Once back in the kitchen, things took a dangerous turn. After spending so much time in constant contact, tensions between our two intrepid travelers were bound to occur....

*No kitchen utensils were harmed in the making of this blog*

After battle concluded, a lovely dinner was had, and we crashed in our adorable white-and-yellow polka dot room.

The next morning, we started out with the vague intention of taking a wildlife tour up to the island of Staffa, which is reputed to have some incredible cliff views, but the only ferry left ridiculously early, so we ended up scrapping that plan. Instead, we toured around the adorable little waterfront town for part of the morning before catching a ferry over to the island of Mull.

I actually have some pictures of myself for you all, because Clarissa's camera card filled up early on in the day.

It's a little hard to tell because it's upside down, but that formation of rocks makes a heart 

This set of bubble adventures concluded, we scurried off to the ferry that would take us to the island of Mull. 

We really thrilled some little girls who were walking on this sidewalk to my right (My right, not The right) 

And a-ferrying we go!

The wee island of Mull:

A truly excellent cat

The tickets for the ride back to Oban (they collect the tickets, sadly, so we had to photograph them for posterity/scrap-booking purposes)

A frequent sight on our journeys

The boat was late arriving to Mull, which got us back to Oban late. This put us in an unexpected fix: we had left our suitcases/backpacks at our hostel, about a 10-minute walk from the ferry and bus terminal. This was not a problem when we had 45 minutes between our ferry docking and our bus leaving. This turned into quite the problem when the ferry didn't even dock until 13 minutes before the bus left- not to mention, having to actually get off the darn thing!

We decided to have Clarissa man the bus while I ran back for the bags (mine was significantly larger than hers), and I took off running. It took me almost three minutes just to get through the ferry lot, and I realized that even running full out, which I would not be able to sustain for the entire trip, I wouldn't make it in time.

I rounded the corner, and inspiration struck: taxis were lined up. I hopped in the first one and told him I had an absolutely ridiculous fare for him: "I need to go about two blocks away, and then right back here. Fast."

It was highly stressful, but I made it. Clarissa didn't know that I had done this, so when I was climbing out of the taxi, victorious, she was still staring up the street, dancing in agitation. I called that all was well, she sagged with relief, and we hopped on board, for the long, two-part bus ride to Edinburgh. 

Still to come: various Edinburgh adventures, Glasgow, and of course, Greece!