Deep-Fried Scotland

The past weekend was spent traveling to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Friday night, we ran straight from work and just managed to jump on our train to Luton airport. In order to keep expenses down, we're traveling on the lesser airlines, who always travel out of the less known airports of London. Thus, we had quite the trek to get to our plane, but we made it in the end and all was well.

Our first night was spent finding out hostel and immediately heading to the nearest pub, which luckily enough was across the street. After ordering our first round, we got talking to this one overly friendly Scottish fellow, who turned out to be the owner of the pub. He had us all try our first taste of Scottish Whisky and then things got pretty out of hand. The end of the night was capped off with a rousing rendition of the Scottish national anthem, followed by the Canadian anthem. I felt pretty at home with everyone in the pub and I guess they felt the same way too, as one of the guys gave my chest a squeeze. What's the right reaction to this event? Of course you give him a squeeze back and keep drinking.

After somehow finding our way home and sleeping for a few hours, we decided it would be a good idea to climb the local mountain, known as Arthur's Seat. We left the hostel at 7am, in hopes of getting there to watch the sunrise. As we climbed our way up this hill, the wind really began to pick up. By the time we reached the top, the wind was the strongest I had ever felt. I dug my feet into a rock and had to hold on, less I be blown right off the top. The experience was well worth the early start to the day and the view was incredible.

The rest of the day was filled with the usual touristy stuff. We saw Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile, Princess Street and other assorted things. At one small gift shop, I started talking to the store keeper, whom I found out was also from Canada. She was nice enough to put a kilt on me and then on went on to explain that girls love guys in a kilt and you look really "sharp" in one. Needless to say, I didn't spend £30 on one.

That night was spent sampling local Scottish foods. First, I had to try Haggis. It was a most. Based on the advice of the kilt girl mentioned above, we went to a pub called The Last Drop. So named as it was the building convicts were taken for their last pint before they were hung. The nooses that decorated the walls of the place really made it feel welcoming. I had the Haggis with Neeps and Tatties (Turnips and Potatoes) and it was delicious. It really filled me up and was quite tasty at that.

From there, we went in search of a dish that I wasn't sure actually existed. I had heard about it, but I began to believe if it was something made up just to make tourists look dumb. I'm talking about the Deep-Fried Mars Bar. One local described the taste as 'I would never put that garbage in my mouth'. With that recommendation, we knew it must be done. We walked 15 minutes further and finally, a huge sign in the window announced its greatness. After eating it, I can say that it is exactly as it sounds. A slightly melted Mars bar wrapped in deep fried batter. Yum.

On Sunday, I split up from the group and went by myself to a small town called Falkirk. It was about a 30 minute train ride from Edinburgh and I went to see Celtic F.C. play against Falkirk F.C. It was my first European football match and I had such a blast. It's so easy to get excited for your side as everyone is cheering and yelling and swearing at the ref for the tiniest infraction. The fans hate each other and made sure to let each other know. To ensure that no fights break out, fans are sectioned based on what team they support. As well, there are separate entrances to the stadium and even separate parking lots! Nothing bad happened as there were police everywhere.

After the game, I hopped on a bus, as mentioned by a local Falkirk fan I was talking with, to see the Falkirk Wheel. I wasn't expecting a lot, but my low expectations were not even met. This thing sucked. It was in the middle of nowhere. It didn't help that it was closed while I was there for maintenance, but even if it wasn't, I'm sure it wouldn't be much better. As I left the wheel, I walked back to the bus station only to find that there weren't any more buses going back any time soon. I began to get a bit worried that I would miss my train.

I walked around the neighbourhood looking for someone, anyone, but the area was near deserted and few to no cars passed through. Finally, I found a guy who was just getting out of his car. I asked him if he knew a taxi number and he pointed me in the right direction back to town. I started walking and kept walking and continued to walk as the sun went down. It was now dark and I was in the middle of nowhere, with no sight of civilization in sight. I was beginning to get pretty nervous.

Suddenly, a car pulled up and sure enough, it was the guy who gave me the cab number! He asked where I was going and when I mentioned the train station, he said he lived right near there and could offer me a lift. I happily took the lift and only after I got in did the fellow tell me that I was lost in the rougher area of Falkirk. Good to know...

Even before I got the lift, I couldn't say enough about how friendly the Scottish people are and after this experience, I'm probably going to be telling everyone about them. I loved Scotland and can't wait to go for a longer time. There was so much of the country I didn't get to see, but I still have lots of years left to make that journey.

This coming Friday, I am taking work off and will be flying to Prague at 7am. Details to follow, as always.

Cheers.

Random British Musings

Now that's it been a couple of weeks here, I feel as though I've finally gotten the lay of the land. I'm no longer blown away by people's accents and have most of the slang handled. I say the food is for 'Take Away' (equivalent of take out, yet they don't understand what take out means) with confidence. Here are some other things I've noticed.

• Banking is unbelievably secure here. It's taken a solid two weeks just to get all four of the required letters (1 for debit card, 1 for credit card, 1 for debit pin, 1 for credit pin). As well, there are no service charges here for taking money out of a competitors machine. I can withdraw a 20 from a Barclays and not get charged a stupid service fee, despite being a member of a different unaffiliated bank.
• Despite British people being overly polite, I find some things a bit different. For example, no one really says "you're welcome" or "no problem" when you say thank you. As well, "thank you" has pretty much been dropped for "cheers". Almost everyone on my work team uses "cheers" in their professional emails.
• English girls are ugly. I feel like I shouldn't say British girls, but after I go to Scotland this weekend, I'll have a better idea. However, I can say for certain that the English shouldn't have given up looks for colonization. There are a number of good looking girls in the London area, but don't fit the typical English girl look.
• Cuff Links are so badass. A majority of my male coworkers wear cuff links and make my stupid non-cuff linked shirts look lame. I shall remedy this with time.

Enough rambling. So this coming weekend is Edinburgh, Scotland. A post about it will be posted after the weekend. I'm looking forward to Sunday, when I will be travelling 30 minutes on a bus to a small town called Falkirk. There, I will be in the stands to watch Falkirk FC play against Scottish Premier League giants Celtic FC. I am unbelievably excited, as it will be my first European football match.

As well, today I booked my ticket to see Chelsea FC play Reading FC at Stamford Bridge on the 30th of January. My money is quickly getting taken by my love of football and I couldn't think of a better recipient.

London / Stonehenge / Bath

This past weekend was filled with all sorts of places in England. In fact, the weekend could not come soon enough, as the work week seemed to go by very slowly. Friday night was spent at a delicious Thai restaurant with some friends. Since I've arrived here, I've been drinking to drink a new beer every place I go to and at this restaurant, I was able to sample my 9th, (out of 12 by the weekends end) Singha. After dinner, we ended up watching British late night tv, which is outrageous. Lots of swearing and when the host really gets going, he just starts rambling and rambling in a manner that makes no sense to me, but has the audience rolling in the aisles.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early (8am) in an attempt to buy tickets for the special Terracotta Warriors exhibit at the British Museum. We arrived at the museum around 930ish and found that there was already a huge line of hundreds of people. We asked if there was any chance of gettings tickets, and were disappointed to find out that we could only purchase tickets for the 9pm showing. Since we had plans for the night, we were stuck with the normal museum. While the museum was gorgeous and there was an uncountable number of irreplaceable artifacts, I found myself getting a bit bored of it by 12. Combine the fact that I had looked at about 500 different spoons from various civilizations and my growing hunger, we realized that it was time to head out.

For lunch, we descended on Chinatown, which is incredibly small. I guess there is not a large asian population in England, but the Chinatown area was one tiny street that was only about 500 metres long. Despite its size, we still managed to have some delicious dim sum. Full of food, we headed to Trafalgar Square, which is right beside the National Gallery. We played on the lions for awhile, before finding a pub for a nice mid-afternoon pint. That night, we hit up the London nightlife in Covent Garden.

The next morning, we woke up at 630, despite going to bed at 230ish, and dragged ourselves onto a tour bus to go see Stonehenge and the Roman Baths. Stonehenge was a pretty cool sight to see. I can imagine that a lot of people think it's not that big of a deal, or just a bunch of rocks, but I really enjoyed seeing it. It's pretty neat to think about how they put the rocks together 5000 years ago. After that, we went through the Roman Baths. Some parts of the Baths were pretty sketchy (read: fungusy and old), but there was certain areas that were still wonderfully well maintained. It was fascinating to think about the Baths as they had been built over 2000 years ago, yet they seemed so modern. They had piles of tile shaped rocks that were used to heat the floor of the sauna and hot tub rooms. Pretty posh.

After the sightseeing, we went to this place called Sally Lunn's, which is supposedly famous for their buns. We had lunch there, as well as my first taste of 'English' tea. Call me whatever, but I had no idea they served tea with the leaves in the water and not in a tea bag. We had to use this strainer device. Very cool. The famous buns were alright... They were basically huge buns. That's about it. I put jam on mine, but it was still pretty dry.

We got back home around 8ish and were all pretty beat. The night was spent planning next weekend. Only four more days of work until the next holiday...

First Week in London

After arriving in England last Friday, I finally feel like I've adjusted to the lifestyle here. It's a lot different than I expected, and I still find myself having trouble understanding what an English person is saying. Also, while I don't see myself picking up an accent here, it'd be near impossible not to pick up all the 'slang' here. It's just the manner in which people talk here.

In terms of housing, I've lucked out in that the place I'm living is only a 15 minute walk to work. However, any good points about this place is quickly contrasted by two major problems: No heat and shitty showers. First, no heat. I am serious about this. I've lived in my place for over a week now and it's been freezing. It's not too bad during the day, but at nights it can get pretty chilly - to the point that I wear sweat pants and a hoody to bed. Also, after taking a shower in the morning, I've found myself shaking and having to retreat to my bed before I begin the day. Our landlord seems pretty active though and has been trying to get someone here to fix the stupid thing.

First off, English showers are generally known to have less water pressure than North American showers. But really.. To operate the shower, I have to pull a cord hanging in a closet outside the bathroom. Then, I go in and turn the dial to one of four options: off / cold / medium / hot. Obviously, I turn it to hot and am greeted with a soft dribble of water. My showers tend to take twice as long now, and it seems the process only gets me damp. I have to rub my skin to make sure the soap is not stuck on my body. Once I am able to get a gym membership, I plan on showering there everyday, just to avoid this brutal shower.

Work is going well and it seems like things should start picking up soon. It's quite a different atmosphere than what I am used to, but one that I should feel more comfortable in a few weeks. As well, I have confirmed that I am able to take 7.5 paid vacation days this term, which I will be using to explore as much of Europe as possible. The other night, a few of us put together a list of places we plan on going to each weekend. They are (with thanks to Richard):

January 11 - 13: London, shopping and sight-seeing
January 18 - 20: London, Stonehenge, Bath, etc.
January 25 - 27: Edinburgh, Scotland
February 1 - 3: Prague, Czech Republic
February 8 - 10: Amsterdam, Netherlands
February 15 - 17: Buffer
February 22 - 24: Barcelona, Spain
February 29 - March 2: Istanbul, Turkey
March 7 - 9: Buffer
March 14 - 16: Dublin, Ireland, St. Patrick's Day
March 21 - 24: Venice & Milan, Italy
March 28 - 30: Buffer
April 4 - 6: Munich, Germany
April 11 - 13: Marseille & Nice, France
April 18 - 20: Paris, France
April 25 - 27: Buffer
May 3: Leave for Canada

There is a lot packed in there, but it should make for quite a time this term. I think I'm most excited about Prague and Munich.

This past weekend, we hit up London to see the main touristy sights such as Big Ben, Parliament Houses, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, The Eye, St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. We did pretty well to walk to most of the places and only had to take the underground a few times. St. Paul's was so peaceful, as we sat in for the 5 o'clock session and listened to the choral. Westminster Abbey was gorgeous and far better than I had expected, as well as Big Ben which was nearby. I found Buckingham Palace to be a bit underwhelming. I'm not sure what I expected, but there wasn't much to it. The statue in front of it, and the gates to the side seemed more impressive to me. As well, I was able to cross another item of my list of things to do before I die: Eat Fish and Chips in England. So standard, but it was so delicious when I ate it.

I shall continue to write more about each trip as I go.

Cheers.