a day in the life of sleepyeve

I’m averaging about 1 blog every two weeks here… sorry about that.  Special apologies to Jen since she wanted me to make sure to update often so she’d have something interesting to read

Day 5

Day 5 of our Scotland trip was our last day in the Strathyre cabins.  We woke up early, cleared everything out of the fridges and rooms, and checked out.  Christian showed the rangers at the front desk photos of the pine marten.  They were so excited and gave us their email address to send photos to.  Too bad the address was just a hair illegible enough for us to not be able to figure out what the correct address is supposed to be…

Clearing out the cabin means finishing up the milk…

Hogwarts Express Trestle

Once we checked out, we headed north towards Inverness to check out Loch Ness.  We stopped in Killin to take in views of the falls where I proceeded to FALL.  Yes, I fell flat on my butt and my camera came down with me.  At least I was able to spend a good 15 minutes taking some great photos before I went down.  I had slipped on a wet rock and my entire right foot landed in a puddle while my camera crashed against a rock, making a tragic “crack” sound.  It was sad, depressing, angering, embarrassing, and any other negative -ing you could think of.  My first concern was for my camera – I made Christian rescue it before helping me up.  He opened up the the lens cap and the glass on the lens filter was shattered to bits.  I had no idea whether or not the lens itself was okay (the lens that we just bought a week before the trip).  Next up was me.  I was fine – no broken bones or bruises.  Just a hurt ego.  My right shoe was soaking wet and the entire butt of my jeans was soaking wet and black with mud.  I hate dirt.  I hate mud even more.  This was disgusting.  Luckily, since we were traveling, we had all of the clothes that we packed for our trip to the cabins in duffels in the backseat of the car *whew*  And THANK GOODNESS that I always pack a spare pair of underwear and socks because both were soaked with gross, muddy water.  I even had a spare pair of shoes  – go me. 

Falls of Killin… before I fell

After I got changed in a random inn’s restroom, we headed up the windy road to Inverness.  Very long, windy road.  Not ideal for those prone to car sickness.  Like me.  After a 3 hour drive, we made it past Inverness and headed to the Loch Ness Hotel & Lodge to experience the official Loch Ness Visitor Centre (which we thought we were getting in for free, but ended up only getting a slight discount).  The experience was LAME.  Don’t ever go there – it consisted of a boring, out-dated, uber-cheesy movie and then hallways of posterboards covered with Loch Ness myths/stories/legends.  I was pretty disappointed, but Keith was pissed. 

LAME

We continued up the road to seek out a castle that we saw from the drive up, hoping to get a better view of the Loch and to, of course, check out a cool old castle.  Once we found it, we discovered that there was an admission cost (which was pretty stupid considering how much of it there really was to see).  Needless to say, we didn’t go in; we just took lots of pictures around the place (which was a little challenging with all the fencing that they put up). 

Urquhart castle with Loch Ness in the background.

We decided to drive back a bit and check out the town some more before stopping for lunch at a small cafe.  The food was very so-so.  I had battered haddock fish with a baked potato and veggies.  We ordered a side of fries that never arrived.   That was lame too.

After lunch, we were all pretty fed up with Loch Ness and Inverness in general.  Keith was exhausted from the drive and considered looking for a hostel to spend the night in instead of making the long drive home to Edinburgh.  The cafe folks had mentioned to him that there was a youth hostel nearby right up the road that we were on, so we followed the directions.  After about 15 minutes of driving, we saw nothing that resembled a youth hostel, so that was the breaking point and Keith decided that it would be best to just head home.  He downed a TON of Coke Zeroes during the drive and we all played name the celebrity for about 3 hours in hopes of keeping Keith awake for the drive.  We made several pit stops (too much Coke Zero for Keith) before finally making it back to Stefania’s flat in Edinburgh.  I did a much needed load of wash and had to wash the pants I fell in twice before the stain started to disappear.  I even threw my sneakers for a good wash.  Felt good to get stuff cleaned.

We spent the rest of the night playing MarioKart and watched a DVD of comic Michael McIntyre (funny guy).  Loooooong day.

Day 6

We all slept in the next day (a Saturday) and I think I slept in too much because my back was hurting by the time I got up.  Christian and I played some more MarioKart and checked out the weather on the Wii to pass some time while waiting for Stefania and Keith to get up.  Once we had breakfast (and tried French Fancies), we all headed out and hit the Royal Botanic Gardens.  We took lots of pictures and explored lots of neat and interesting plants.  We explored the giant greenhouses there and ran into some humidity issues – our camera lenses were fogging up too much to take decent photos in there. 

A plant

Greenhouse

Bananas!

After the greenhouses, we went to the Terrace Cafe in the gardens for lunch.  I had a scone and chicken soup.  Both were quite tasty


Scone!

Once were done with lunch, Keith drove us to New Berwick beach.  The clouds were amazingly puffy and the sand was very gingery-colored.  It was a neat little beach.  Stefania and the boys had ice cream.  Christian’s was an ice cream sandwich of sorts.  It looked tasty.

New Berwick Beach

Ice cream… mmm…

As we headed back to the flat, we made a stop at Keith’s grandmother’s place where Christian and I hung out in the car while Keith and Stefania paid her a quick visit.  She hadn’t been doing very well health-wise, so this was important to Keith. 

When we got back to Stefania’s flat, we had hummus and carrot sticks.  What a great combo that I had never thought of.  We didn’t want to have a full dinner because we made plans to see “Gran Torino” and get hot dogs later that evening.

“Gran Torino” played in a movie theater right behind Stefania’s flat called the Dominion Theater.  The place was BEAUTIFUL.  The theater that we were in had leather loveseats and little tables with a small can of pringles for each patron.  I had a hot dog, sweet corn (kettle corn), and a sparkling water.  Our seats were in the very back under a canopy of “stars.”  It was so awesome.  The movie was great as well!  Surprisingly funny.

The Dominion Movie Theater Seats

The Dominion Movie Theater

We headed back to the flat and watched more Michael McIntyre while playing Apples to Apples – British Isles Edition once we were done with the movies.  Once we had our fill of fun and games for the night, Christian and I gave Keith the birthday gift we brought over for him (cordless Wii sensor bar and several bars of Ghiradelli chocolate).  And that was that for day 6.

Day 7

Sunday AKA day 7 was Keith’s actual birthday.  We went to Montpeliers Bar and Brasserie for a Scottish breakfast.  I had a mixed grill breakfast which consisted of: Sausage, bacon, eggs, potato scone, haggis, black pudding, tomato, mushrooms, and baked beans.  It was a full breakfast!  I had a bite of the black pudding and gave the rest to Keith.  Not a fan of that one…  Christian had french toast.  It looked yummy too… if I cared for french toast.

My Scottish breakfast

Christian’s Scottish breakfast

Scone! (Christian’s)

We decided to have a casual day and hit up an electronic store, potentially shopping for a television for Stefania… and then we went to the Forbidden Planet Comic book store – Keith’s hangout   They had a doll of Blanc Neige in the storefront window.  I took a photo of it because I voiced that character for a game called Shining Tears.  Thought it was pretty cool.

Blanc Neige at Forbidden Planet

Keith drove us to Hollyrood Park and we decided to climb Arthur’s Seat.  Keith and Stefania decided to stay in the car and wait (smartly so, we later realized).  Arthur’s Seat isn’t a super-long way up; we just happened to pick a steep side to climb.  Once we were about halfway up, the wind decided to pick up suddenly and I felt like I was about to blow over.  The closer we got to the top, the worse the weather turned.  The wind decided to pick up even more and then pellets of rain shot down at our faces.  It felt like thousands of tiny razor blades cutting against my face.  Ouch.  Once we got to the top, we held on for dear life and tried to take as many pictures as we could without falling off.  We had hoped to get some beautiful shots of the city, but the weather had turned so bad that there wasn’t much of a view left.  Trying to make our way down was scarier than trying to climb up.  Wet rocks were now in play and the wind was still blowing strong.  We eventually made it back down, and it felt very rewarding in the the long run.  I felt rather accomplished.

View from Arthur’s Seat

At the peak of Arthur’s Seat

On our way back from Arthur’s Seat, we decided to hit a few more electronic stores (Curry’s, PC World – both of which looked like CompUSA, but with appliances… poor CompUSA.)  We also went to a catalog store called Argos and then a Borders.  Came away with nothing. 

When we got back to the flat, Stefania decided to give Keith his birthday from her and several of his friends – Guitar Hero: World Tour.  He loved it and started playing right away. 

Keith the Guitar Hero

Stefania made reservations at Karen Wong’s Chinese restaurant for Keith and his friends (as a surprise to Keith), so we took a taxi there.  Karen Wong was very energetic and happy!  She was very eccentric and so very entertaining.  The food was slightly different from Chinese food you’d find here.  I had a lemon sorbet for dessert.  Keith had an upwards of about 5 beers or so.  He had a very happy birthday!

Karen Wong – A Scottish Chinese Woman

A very happy birthday for Keith… after about the 5th beer.

3 more days to go… I’m getting there!

So it’s been how long since my last update…?  Sorry about leaving folks hanging on day 3.  It was a really long day, so you have to understand that I was just trying to give you a feel for what it must have felt like for me on that bike trail

On to day 4 – This was a busy day.  It started with a freaky deaky dream I had about a little girl who needed medical help and ended up dying while doctors focused their efforts on someone else.  It was really sad and disturbing, but thankfully, was also only a dream.  We didn’t sleep in too much that day since there was a lot on our to-do list for the day.  We decided that a distillery tour was a must for this trip, so we made our way towards Perth in search of one.  We first stopped at a cool looking place called Deanston Distillery; they didn’t have tours, so we moved on.  They were able to recommend another distillery to us before we left though, so that was incredibly nice of them.  We headed to Blackford to Tullibardine Whiskey Distillery and made a tour appointment for 3 PM.  Since it was still something like 10 or 11 AM, we had a lot of time to kill before the tour and ended up wandering the rest of the strip mall where the distillery was located.  There was a Baxter’s Soup shop we wandered into that had some really tasty looking goodies.  Baxter’s is like the equivalent of Campbell’s soup for us, I think.  They had tons of stuff there, ranging from whiskey to soups to jams.  They also had a gift section with lotions, candles, books, etc.  There was a mini market section with refrigerated goods as well.  The place was huge.

Deanston – Didn’t tour this.

Tullibardine – We toured this one.

Once we got bored of the strip mall, Keith drove us all through Perth to find something interesting to check out.  Nothing stood out in Perth, so we kept going until we hit Scone.  We pulled into the obscure parking lot of Scone Palace and decided to walk around.  The place was pretty empty as it seems we hit it during an off-season, so they didn’t have any tours going.  That meant we were pretty much on our own, so we wandered around for a bit.  We saw peacocks, an old coronation site, a very old graveyard, giant trees, and a cool outdoor maze called Murray Star Maze.  Not too shabby for being on our own.

Scone Palace                                                                                                                     


Old graveyard  

One of the oldest gravestones there

Murray star maze 

Peacock – reminds me of Titania in her bower

We finally took our tour of Tullibardine and had to opportunity to sample whiskies.  I passed on the sampling, but Keith, Stefania, and Christian tried a few sips.  It was a neat tour, though.  I bought my dad a bottle of whiskey as a souvenir and some Tullibardine chocolates for my co-workers. 

Tullibardine

Old whiskey barrels


1488 - King James passed through to pick up some whiskey

Whiskey tasting


After Tullibardine, we headed to Stirling and hate a super-late lunch at The River House restaurant before dricing up the hill to the castle.  The late lunch deal was faaaaaabulous.  I had angus steak and french fries – so tasty and super-duper affordable (7 pounds or something).  We didn’t expect it to be great or anything because of the price, but were so pleased that the food and service was so good (it looked like a pretty hoity toity restaurant).

Tasty dinner                                          

View of Stirling castle from The River House restaurant

When we got to Stirling castle, we walked around town I took a bunch of pictures.  Stirling castle was closed because it was off-season, but the view was still cool. 

Loch Lomond was next on Keith’s list of to-sees, so we headed there.  We were racing the sunset and got there just as the sun was going down.  The view was beautiful.  The sky was colored with pinks and oranges galore and there were no power lines in sight.  Beautiful.

After the sun went down, we headed back to the cabins and watched lots of TV to unwind (it was a really eventful day!)  We made salmon and pasta for dinner and watched hours and hours of “Scrubs” and “Supernatural.”  At one point, we heard some noise on our balcony, so we paused to see what was out there – lo and behold – it was the pine marten again!  It made two appearances that night while we watched TV.

We went to bed early that night since our plan was to get up early the next day to travel to Loch Ness (3.5-hour drive) and head home afterward.