Monday Feb. 27, 2012

Day 2 in Edinburgh began with a trip to the local Salisbury (the grocery store right around the corner from the Old Waverly) for our daily provisions and then it was off for more castle hoping.  Our first stop was to be the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal family's palace when visiting Edinburgh.  On our way to the palace we happened upon...none other than...The Tardis!!!  Yeah for Dr. Who!!!!

From there we headed down the Royal Mile, enjoying the many shops, pubs, restaurants, and kirk yards.  As we approached the Palace of Holyroodhouse we caught first sight of the new Scottish Parliament, a modern building that, to be honest, does not fit with the rest of Edinburgh's beautiful architecture.

From the modern Scottish Parliament we carried on to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.  Founded as a monastery in 1128, the Palace is closely associated with Scotland's turbulent past, including Mary, Queen of Scots, who lived here between 1561 and 1567.  By far the most beautiful part of the palace was the ruins of the original abbey.

After our trip through the royal's turbulent history at Holyroodhouse it was off to see the ruins and monuments on Calton Hill (we chose a closer hike than that of Arthur's Seat).  After a short jaunt up the hill we decided to venture to the top of the Nelson Monument, where once we reached the top had an excellent view of the city but faced gale force winds.

After hiking the hill and wandering back towards our hotel we headed back up the Royal Mile to the kilt/wool museum for Mom's Scottish wool sweater.  While we wandered through the store one more time Mom decided that she needed to stop and speak with the house genealogist.  She decided to purchase the Collinson history and crest (which I'm excited to see when it comes back).  After Mom completed her purchases we then headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before the most exciting part of our trip (thus far)...THE DOUBLE DEAD TOUR!!!  We headed out of the hotel, grabbed some fish & chips take-away (what we in the states would call "to-go") and sat in front of St. Giles waiting for our tour to begin.  The tour started with a small jaunt down into the depths of the city (which were completely pitch black forcing Mom and I to use her cell phone for light).  I have to admit, it was kinda creepy wandering around in the pitch black not being able to see what was around you, but alas no one got scared.  From there we wandered into the Greyfriars Kirk yard, which supposedly housed a poltergeist (which sadly did not show his face).

Mom and I then wandered back to the hotel saying our goodbyes to the first city on our journey!!!

Sunday Feb. 26, 2012

Edinburgh!!!

I guess you could say that this is the true first day of the journey.  Here is the view from our hotel room:

After getting up and going we headed out to Edinburgh Castle.  We headed out of our hotel, which was right across from Princess Gardens, and up the hill to the castle.  This was Mom's first experience with "the close" or as we call them in the States, alleyways.  We ventured past the National Gallery and the gardens and up the close.  This brought us out to the Royal Mile which we ventured up headed towards the castle.

As we approached the castle we realized that we were experiencing the "French Invasion", the castle was packed with hoards of French rugby fans.  But no bother, this was not going to stop us from experiencing the castle in all of its glory.  We headed up through the main castle gate and through the many museums (The National War Museum, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum, The Royal Scots Museum), the Royal Palace, the Honours of Scotland, and the Scottish National War Memorial.  Mom and I had a fabulous time taking some fun pics (see below).

From the kilt/wool museum we headed down the Royal Mile to St. Giles Cathedral, which I did not get a chance to see the last time I was here.  We wandered around the kirk for a while, the most interesting part being The Thistle Chapel, which is the place of worship of the Knights of the Thistle.

We continued to wander the Royal Mile for a bit until we turned around and headed back up the hill towards the Scotch Whiskey Experience.  Unfortunately they have upgraded the Scotch Whiskey Experience from the last time I was there and it was less like a Disney ride and more like a sophisticated educational experience.  The best part was definitely the tasting and the collection of 3,000+ scotches.  (I believe that is what my heaven will look like ;)

Due to the 6 Nations Rugby Match between Scotland & France, the majority of the city was closed so we wandered down to Greyfriar Bobby's Pub for a pint and some pub food and the match.  Unfortunately the match ended badly for Scotland but we enjoyed some good times.

After a quick pop back to the hotel for a nap, we headed back out into the night for dinner at Deacon Brodie's (Deacon Brodie was the inspiration for the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).  When we got to the restaurant we headed upstairs to the dining room, where we promptly ran into a long line waiting for a table (mostly French).  After putting our names on the list we had our first (of many) pints while we waited in line for our table.  Once we had gotten close to being seated the wait staff let us know that it would be at least 50 minutes after we placed our order until we would get our food.  We stated that would be fine and settled in at our table.  We decided that we would start our meal with dessert first, a fabulous dish called cranachan, which made the French around us none too happy.  Approximately 30 minutes after we had been seated, a table of 3 received all of their meals before all of the French tables who then proceeded to make our poor waiters night miserable.  They started pounding their silverware on the table and obnoxiously chanting like small children when they are hungry.  Mom and I thought that we were going to see a "French Revolution" in the dinning room when our appetizer came before any of their food came.  We enjoyed the rest of our meal and headed out to the pubs.

We started our night at the Royal Oak, hoping to listen to traditional Scottish music but soon after we got there the French arrived taking over the pub and overpowering the traditional music with French songs.  So we decided to take off to the next pub, The Captain's.  At Captain's we had another pint and some great music.  We ended up closing the pub and having an absolutely amazing time.

Saturday Feb. 25, 2012

So..I apologize that it has taken me an entire week to post but we did not have the most reliable internet throughout the first part of our journey.  I am going to break the days down for everyone.

February 25, 2012
We arrived at London Heathrow airport at approximately 11:30am on Saturday Feb. 25, 2012 after a fairly uneventful flight over the pond from Chicago.  Mom struggled to sleep but in true travelers fashion, I had no problem contorting myself into a little ball and sleeping for the majority of the 7 hour flight.  After we landed we headed down to customs where Mom (being super excited!!!) got her passport stamped for the very first time!!  I remember getting my passport stamped for the first time 8 years ago when traveling to Italy to study abroad (thank you Mom & Dad!!).  It is an exhilarating feeling to leave the country you are from and start exploring places you, up until that point, have only read about.  After completing our trip through customs, we headed down to the baggage claim and collected our backpacks, which have loving become our extra travelers (more on this to come).  From baggage claim we headed down to catch the Heathrow Express, a high speed train that took us from Heathrow to Paddington in 15 min. (much easier that attempting to navigate the tube with our backpacks).  This was another first for Mom, her first train ride!!!

After arriving at Paddington station, we headed down the stairs to the tube station to attempt to figure out what train we needed to take to get to Kings Cross Station.  After staring at the map for about 10 minutes, we decided that we would just take a taxi (which proved to be a great choice).  We then huffed our backpacks back up the stairs about out to the taxi stand and hailed a taxi.  Our cabbie was fabulous, but English through and through.  He wondered why we were leaving England so quickly after arriving and began playfully badgering us about going up to Scotland when there was nothing to see up there but Scots.  We reassured him that we would be back to London in week and that we would be sure to enjoy England as well as Scotland.

We arrived at Kings Cross and promptly headed to the ticket counter to get our Rail Passes validated.  We then wondered off, found some chairs and began our 2 hour wait until the 3pm train to Edinburgh.  We grabbed some coffees and waited.  Mom and I determined that the reason Europeans are in so much better shape than Americans is because the walk everywhere and are constantly running to catch the train.  After about 1.5 hours we wandered back inside the terminal to watch the board to see what platform we would be leaving from.  Man, that was crazy!!!  They announce the platform you will be leaving from approximately 10 minutes before your train is scheduled to leave, if you are not ready you will be left behind!!!  Hence, why everyone was running to their trains!!!

When we made it down to our platform we attempted to get on the train but soon realized that all of the seats in the car that we had gotten on were reserved, forcing us to attempt to get all of luggage back off the train and find a car that had seats available.  Unfortunately, that took precious time that we apparently did not have.  Luckily, we found a car with seats available, we ditched our bags in the luggage compartment and took our seats. Whew!!!

Shortly after pulling away from the station, the rowdiness on the train began.  Unknown by us, the train was full of Frenchmen heading up to Edinburgh for the 6 Nations Rugby match against Scotland.  The Frenchmen that had filled our car opened bottle after bottle of wine (and did not share with us, might I add) and played cards for the entire 4.5 hours.

Our train arrived to Edinburgh Waverly station ontime but by this point I had already been traveling for 36 hours (Miami-Chicago-London-Edinburgh).  Both Mom and I were exhausted but we managed to grab our backpacks and walk down the road to the Old Waverly Hotel (our Edinburgh home).  We got ourselves checked in, headed up to the room, dropped our bags and stepped out to Rose St. to find a pub to grab some food before passing out from exhaustion.  We wandered up and down Rose St. only to find that the pub we chose had already stopped serving food.  We got up to leave and Mom was promptly grabbed by a Scotsman (in a kilt no less) and started dancing.  She danced for only a few minutes (until the song was done) and out we headed to find some food.  We ended up at The Filling Station (the UK equivalent to Applebees).  We got seated, ordered our drinks and food and then promptly received a shower (not the kind we needed or liked).  The waiter came over with the drinks and spilled them all over the table, breaking glasses and dousing Mom in strawberry cider (thus eliminating one pair of jeans for Mom on the first day of our 2 week trip).  After enjoying our food, we received the check (which we were a little disappointed in, the waiter that dropped the drinks on us was the manager and did not comp us the one that he spilled on Mom).  From there we headed back to hotel and called a night.

European Adventure!!!

The European Adventure has begun!!!  Today started fairly uneventful with a smooth morning (thank you for that Bailey & Dakota).  I dropped the dogs off at Tiffany & Guillermo's house and headed to the Miami airport for the first leg of our journey - MIA to ORD.  The flight was rough but I managed to not get airsick (hooray!!!).  After getting to Chicago I sat at Starbucks and happened to run into a family that was waiting to send their college aged daughter off to Uruguay for 5 months to study abroad.  They were EXTREMELY nervous about traveling in Latin America and I was glad to reassure them that she was going to have the time of her life.  I shared with her the things to see in Buenos Aires and in Colonial de Sacremento and the food to eat (her college had told her to avoid street food!!! WTH?!?!).

After speaking with them Mom and Dad arrived, it was nice to see Dad for the 5 minutes I got to see him.  We said our goodbyes and then went to check Mom's luggage.  After getting all settled and checked-in we went to find a restaurant..O'Hare has some pretty decent eating.  We decided on Macaroni Grill and enjoyed our first drink of our adventure!!! Then, due to the fact that we were pretty early (approximately 5 hours) we wandered around the airport.  Good thing because I managed to forget some pretty vital things: 1) a pillow and blanket, and even more important 2) a convertor!!!  So I got a pillow and blanket and we managed to find a convertor.

Now, we are sitting at the gate and are getting ready to board.  Next post - London or Edinburgh, it will depend on where I can get internet!!!

Let the adventure begin!!!!

Sports & my "Miami" family

  Today was yet again another example of how my Miami family jinx all games in which we cheer for a common team.  This has transcended N. American sports (NCAA Football, NFL Football, etc) into international sports (Argentine soccer & rugby).
 

  Every time we get together we go all out...we have themed bbq's (i.e. Oregon roast duck), we go to sacred restaurants (i.e. the Sports Grill) and we cheer for common teams (even if they are not "our team").
 

  We have tried different locations...Dario's house, our house, the Sport's Grill and various other locations within Miami.  These locations have been sanctioned by my Miami family by wearing the appropriate team colors, bringing the appropriate team gear (i.e. flags, hats, jersey's etc.) and refusing to cheer for the opposing team (even if it is "their team").

  This has been to no avail.  Two summer's ago it was the football (soccer) World Cup (Argentine lost in a heated battle against Germany, the USA lost against Ghana), then it was the Rose Bowl (Wisconsin lost to TCU, damn the horny frogs!!!), then it was the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl, then it was the Copa America (Argentina lost on penalty kicks to Uruguay), then it was the Rugby World Cup (Argentina lost again, God help us all), and then again it was again Wisconsin losing again in the Rose Bowl.  Each time we stood for each other, drank with each other and comforted each other after each loss letting each other know that it would be okay and we would get them next year.

  So...we have decided after amazing grilled duck tonight that we must cheer for the opposing team in order for our team to win.  We believe that if we would have cheered for the Oregon Ducks tonight we would have won the Rose Bowl.

  Moral of tonight's blog...if you want your team to win (i.e. Stanford over Oklahoma State or Oklahoma State over Stanford) just let us know and we will cheer for whatever team you do not want to win.