Inverness and Isle of Skye weekend!

Been relaxing too much in the crap weather.

It was high time I explored Scotland!

I planned a 3 day weekend trip up to the Highlands and the Isle of Skye to the west with Steph and Linnea, who were visiting back in June. I managed to plan this trip in an afternoon, and it all turned out excellently. Here is a recap of our epic Highland adventures with some complimentary photos!

We got up at 7:00 am to get ready and pack our bags. Hustled our butts to Buchanan St. bus station... but cut it a little too close. We tried to find our bus, which I found, but I couldn't find the other girls in time. Bus was full anyway, and left, after I argued with the guy working there (who was a total jerk). We managed to get on another bus that connected to an Inverness bus in Perth. So we chilled eating Pocky and taking dodgy pictures of my Professor Layton figure.

We got to Inverness at about 2:00pm and were dropped off in the city center. We ate at the Riverside Cafe which was recommended to us by the Lonely Planet guide. It was alright. I had a gammon, brie, tomato and onion salad, but it had tons of red peppers. :(

Got a cab to our first hotel - The Kingsmills Hotel - which was considered 4 stars. There was friendly service and they showed us to our room down some cool halls, and there was a crazy birthday party/wedding going on outside. We tried to decide what we were gonna do around Loch Ness. The boat tours had already closed pretty much, but our concierge found a way for us to see Loch Ness... a tour taxi! It was perfect! The company is Tartan Taxis Inverness, and our guide's name was John and he was a total bro, gave us lots of info about the area, gum, a good chat and we listened to the Killers. He took us to some great look out points of Loch Ness, a really beautiful garden place with a maze of beautiful plants and trails, Urquhart Castle, and then the Loch Ness Exhibition center. He also took us to a place where we could dip our hands and feet in the Loch! We were super lucky as well, because it was a completely GORGEOUS day, barely any clouds in the sky, and apparently that is EXTREMELY rare. I got some souvenirs from the Ness store, but I lost the bag during the trip. I am a derp. :(

After our awesome tour, he dropped us off at a Turkish restaurant that was quite near. The food was good, but the service was awful. We had wine, Halloumi and Hummus, Olives and bread to start, lamb and rice grilled with a tomato, and we each had a different dessert. (Chocolate pudding, baklava and honey yogurt pistachio walnut creation.)

Taxi'd back to the hotel where we filled out what we wanted for breakfast and had tea time with Layton. :} Then went to sleep in the most COMFIEST BED I have ever slept in! In the morning we had showers and picked at breakfast which I wasn't charged for. (yesssss) Then got a taxi to the bus station where we got our bus to Portree on Isle of Skye.

We passed through the Highlands and OMFG the sights! So beautiful, never have I seen such images. The photos we took do not convey the largeness of these hills. They towered over us, over everything. We had to look straight up in the sky to see them/the tops. In combination with the sky it was just so nice. After getting to Portree, we got picked up by a nice guy who ran a car rental business. We got a car sorted, went back into town to get info, food and some books.

We traveled all the way to a nice spot outside of Portree to eat on the side of the road looking out at the hills. When there are no cars, it is SO quiet, you can hear the blood in your ears. The only thing that was crap was the midges (tiny flies). Other than that, cheese on buns, blueberry muffins and smoothies were had. Backtracking, we went to Edinbane where the Lodge was for our Bed and Breakfast. Greeted by a very friendly older lady who took us right in, made some jokes, took us up to our cozy room which was just awesome, and apparently haunted. We didn't stay long as we had a adventuring to do!

We drove to Dunvegan castle first. Most of it was getting renovated from the outside. We went inside and weren't allowed to take pictures, but there were some incredibly lovely paintings inside. And some cool things like a cramped dungeon and a post boat! I got Heather a bracelet from the shop.

After checking out the pretty gardens, we drove up to Uig, where the fairy glen was. We found it without trouble even though there were no signs. This place was incredible, it honestly looked like something in a picture book or fairy tale. There was sheep poop everywhere and stone creations of fairy rings people made, the biggest being a spiral where there were offerings in the middle. We put a strawberry there. We climbed up to this rocky cliff hill that was pretty scary to climb because there was a steep, grassy drop on either side. We went to the top and ate strawberries and had probably the most peaceful moment of my life. It was BLISS. We explored the glen for awhile, climbing hills, looking at bunnies and discovering wild thistles.

We took the car back to our lodge, where we got a delicious dinner and dessert and drinks. We hung out in the lodge lounge, where we played dominoes and laughed at the TERMINATORS on TV. We retreated to bed, and about an hour after I entered into REM sleep, my phone all of a sudden went dead and vibrated itself off my dresser, very strange! In the morning, we lazily got up and had a mediocre breakfast (these Bed and Breakfasts don't know how to soft boil eggs it seems) and set off.

First, we checked out Edinbane pottery, where the stuff was cool but hella expensive. We drove all the way to Plockton, where we went on an hour long seal boat spotting trip! We saw so many awesome seals. They were fat and hilarious and the boat trip was just awesome and relaxing. Then there came the stressful race against time down narrow roads for Steph. It didn't help it was misty raining and cars were slow. We did make it back to the car rental shop okay though.

During the bus trip, we made a brief stop in Fort William where we got out and found a hill to sit and draw where I saw a dude with Sephiroth's hair. HAHAH. Pics happened and you better believe the trip home was epic!


Steph, Linnea and I in front of Loch Ness

In the Gardens

In front of the KingsMills Hotel :D

JUMP IF YOU LOVE LOCH NESS

This reminds me of a very clever puzzle...

Edinburgh Spooky Spa Trip!

The summer has started, everyone! Yesterday night was summer solstice, the longest day of the year! So much sun, so much hot! This flat is positively BOILING! But we're beating the beat with ice lollies and water, and trying to get outside as much as we can! All in all, a Glasgow summer is no different than a Vancouver summer! However, I've been told a few times that the weather isn't normally like this.. haw haw! I guess we brought the good weather from back home!

Speaking of back home, my best friend Steph took time off work to come to visit me in Scotland! She got here June 10th, and we've been chilling out, having teas, shopping, exploring, generally being awesome. Kody and I took her up to St. Mungo's Cathedral, the Necropolis, and other random bits of Glasgow. The West End Festival has also been going on, so we've checked out random bits of that. The day it started, I got my friend Greig to come with us to see some random things, like the Japanese Matsuri (which turned out to be just taiko drumming), the Greek Food Festival, and hanging out in Kelvingrove Gardens, checking out the cool garden displays and KILLER PLANTS! whoaaaaaAAa!

We also went to the Glasgow West End Festival Parade on Sunday the 13th. Lots of cool costumes and a super hot day, incredibly crowded in the park, but I got a lot of really good shots. We also met up with my friend Jamie one day and we went to a great Scottish restaurant called the Bothy and had super excellent food!

On Monday, Steph and I got up early to go to Queens St. Station to take a train into Edinburgh. We had lots of time to kill before we went on our Underground vaults tour, so we explored the Royal Mile, and the huge Scottish store behind Edinburgh castle, where they also made tartans. We explored Princes St, and I got a swanky watch from SWATCH. Unexpected purchase FTW!

We went into a cool cafe and had some wine, sambuca shots, and delicious hot chocolate with marshmallows. I had a Belgian waffle with bacon, brie cheese and maple syrup on it and the salad. Super delicious. The Underground Vaults tour we went on was pretty neat, we went in there with about 10 other people. Our guide was an Australian lady. It was quite dark, cramped and musty down there, and the lights played tricks with my eyes, but nothing crazy happened in the creepy vaults. We didn't go to the area with Mr. Boots or anything, but there was apparently supposed to be a Bridge Entity who was hostile.

Afterwards, we took the Airlink/Taxi to our hotel, which was Norton House Hotel and Spa. It was very nice there, down a windy bumpy path offroad. We were shown our room, which had a nice shower, LCD TV on the wall, and a strange painting I dubbed "the Vagina Wall". We jumped into our bathing suits and checked out the pool facilities and had a very short swim, but we got to test the hydropool, "experience shower", with fragrance, drench and cold water, sauna and steam room (which smelled like menthol and feet) .

Then went for our swanky dinner. We both had some fruity rose wine, and I had cauliflower soup, and salmon on cress/tomatoes and vanilla pannacotta with summer berries for dessert. It was really amazing, and the waiters were young with hilariously posh attitudes. I felt so out of place, haha. We rushed to get back to downtown to our City of the Dead tour, but we were too late and there wasn't enough people. We walked around a bit, and got hassled for a "fag" by a 14ish year old fiesty pikey girl. Then we decided to were tired and went back to the hotel after late shopping a bit more. We got into pjs and watched most of the movie 8MM which was on tv.

The next day we got up earlyish to pick up Linnea from the airport, who was arriving from Sweden! We first had a nice breakfast at the hotel and went on a nice walk in their Woodland park area, where we found an awesome clover patch. Couldn't find any with 4 leaves, but the clover was really soft!

After getting to the airport and picking up Linnea, we got ready to go on our spa adventure. We had a drink and then lunch, which was carrot coriander soup, aubergine flaked pastry, chicken tikka rolls and tasty seasoned chips, and vanilla pannacotta with rhubarb for dessert with a glass of champagne each. Then we got shown our lockers with slippers/rober after we took a swim. Our spa books had hilariously mispelled our names. Molly "Nemeses" (Nemecek) and Steph "Laserr" (Larsen). I got a back and leg massage which I kept falling asleep during, and a really nice facial. Then I met with Linnea and we went into the relaxation room for a snooze and a cup of peppermint tea as we waited for Steph.

After we enjoyed ourselves and changed, we got a taxi and bus back into Edinburgh where we dropped off Linnea's suit case so she didn't have to carry it. We had All You Can Eat Chinese at Jimmy Chung's by Waverly station. (Ice cream and syrup, yum!) Then we headed to the cathedral where we went on our much anticipated City of the Dead Tour. Ours had quite a lot of schoolkids attending on it, which were more amusing than annoying. This one girl actually reminded me of Tasli, which was really cute. :D Our tour guide was a cool blonde lady, and she made sure we got awesome stories. The Greyfriars kirkyard was creepy, especially since we were walking on over 250K dead bodies under the grass! Going into the Covenanter's Prison was especially creepy because she really warned everyone that poltergeist activity can happen. So we went into the crypt where all the stuff happens, and it felt really odd in there. After about 10 minutes of her talking about stuff in there, a guy with a werewolf mask or something came in to scare us. How cheesy! Oh well. It was a good tour, then afterward we bought some things from the souvenir store and went to the train station where we left for home to Glasgow.

The next 2 days consisted of beadmaking, shopping, visiting Steph's lovely Great Aunt Myrtle, planning for Inverness, and cooking. We met with Jamie again for Ketchup's burgers and drinks, and that was awesome. Yay!

Next on the list of updates is Inverness and Loch Ness, and Isle of Skye! Stay tuned shortly..


Linnea and Steph and Layton eat my delicious Moroccan Carrot Soup!

Oh my gawd, GREYFRIARS U GAIZ :O

Steph inspects some lovely lovely clover!

Greig and Steph have a delicious greek lunch!

We found-a Maaario!

CARDIFF - PERTH/STIRLINGSHIRE ROAD TRIP - ETC!

So much to say, so much to say!

First off I must tell you of Tchai Ovna, which is a tea house in a weird part of Glasgow where you have to go down some creepy streets to get to, and it's basically a shed in someone's backyard that they decorated all hippie like. They have close to 50 kinds of teas you can choose from, ranging from green teas, indian teas, fruit teas, Russian, black teas.. it's cool! I've gotten to try a couple things from there so far, like the best one is the Moroccan Mint Apple, which is ABSOLUTELY FINE. They had another one called Fairies Blood, which is very strong, fruity, minty herbal. A lot of my recent tea count has been from that place!

Also went with a new friend to his friend's birthday party, where we went Go-Karting (my first time) which was HELLA FUN! Totally Mario-Kartesque, got the helmet, outfit and everything! Too bad I don't have pictures from it. It was my first time but I got 5th out of 9 experienced go Karters, go me! And had a really good lap time! :D We also did lazer tag, which I am DREADFUL at, I got dead last out of 17 people, some of them being seemingly blonde petite girls...sigh. I think my tactics of "storming everywhere and everything while shouting BLUE THUNDERRRRRR at the top of my lungs" doesn't work so hot..)

Also saw Sherlock Holmes with Caz last week, which was cool! The movie itself I enjoyed but it was still missing something so I didn't enjoy it to the fullest extent of Robert Downey Jr.'s sexiness that I could!

Anyway, a couple weekends ago, Kody, Caz and I went on a ROAD TRIP to the outskirts of Perth and Stirlingshire, to visit a couple of pretty places and basically just hang out in the countrysides! (because they were NICE and the BIRDS and the SUN was almost down from the TOP of the SKY !?!?!)

Kody likes driving fast on scary roads that have no fences on them :| but that seems to be a normal thing in the UK where people are so used to driving on these roads and they are ace at it.. it's still scary! The long road we drove on was called Braco Road. (Google it!) I saw Stirling Castle and the (phallic) Wallace monument from a distance! We went to a place called "Deil's Cauldron". Deil is another word for Devil. Had gorgeous scenery with all these dead, red ferns covering the hills. Also went to a waterfall called Fairy Falls in South Lochearnhead. Got dangerously close, but it was worth it! Really had an amazing, thrilling feeling with the powerful water flow making wisps of freshwater flecked air fly into my face! Whoa... just made an alliteration there. Apparently in the Spring/Summer Equinox when it turns midnight, you can see lights around the falls that look like fairies!

We also went to Kody's parents house in St. Fillans which they have a private dock on Loch Earn. It was quite cold and it was definitely not swimming weather, or even staying outside for longer than a few minutes weather.. but it was definitely beautiful! Afterwards we went to the small town of Calendar, where we hit up a couple of neat shops. I went to a Celtic Jewelry store where I got some gorgeous triskele earrings and a triskele necklace, so much better quality than anything I'd find at home, and pretty darn cheap, too! Another store we visited was a Shell shop run by a very chatty, nice Scottish man. After Caz and Kody bought a couple of shells, we headed back home!

**********
CARDIFF
**********

A couple of months ago, a couple of friends back in London (Chris and Andy) mentioned that John Barrowman was doing a Pantomime in Cardiff, Wales, and had invited me to come along. I didn't want to miss an opportunity to be in the same room as John Barrowman while he sings and prances around gay-ly, so I told them to buy me a ticket.

Cardiff is where a lot of Torchwood and Doctor Who is shot, contrary to what you might be thinking (ie, London), so I saw a lot of places where some episodes were shot (the mall where they shot the mannequin episode, a chip shop where Martha was in, etc) and from Torchwood, we went to the "secret gate" which is on the docks at a wharf (which has now been turned into an Ianto Jones memorial shrine), and we also went to the most famous Torchwood place, which is where the secret slab is outside of that huge theatre building with the giant writing on it. (See pictures, you'd recognize it if you saw the show!)

The Cardiff trip itself was pretty successful. I was picked up by Chris, Andy and Sadie at Cardiff Central train station where we then walked around a bit to scope out the area. We ended up going to Nando's right away because I was starved to death from not eating on a 7 hour train journey. I ended up eating half a chicken, mashed potatoes, a corn on the cob, and Sadie's half a chicken wrap. XD;; Afterwards we hit up a couple of pubs, both of them being Wetherspoons. The first one we went to was a gay friendly 'poons with 2 floors. We lounged in the upper floor's comfy couch seats where I had a WKD Blue and a huge plate of profiteroles (PRO-FIT-TER-OOOH-LEES!) (ice cream filled cream puffs with chocolate drizzled on them) that I barely shared. 8D~ Chris had to run to catch his train back to Swansea, and Sadie, Andy and I called it an early night and went to our pretty ghetto hotel in a garbage-littered part of Cardiff. Oh well, it was cheap!

The next day, Andy, Sadie and I had breakfast at Caffe Nero, where we were served by a one-man show - he was nuts, serving all the customers himself and making all the drinks! He had crazy dreadlocks which must have given him A.D.D. Spider genes. I had a blueberry muffin and a chai latte. We scoped out a Wales shop, where I bought a Wales touque and a flag sticker for my laptop. Andy bought a sheep plushie that we had plans for later. Then we checked out the large, two floored Cardiff Market. We hung around looking at the booths while waiting for Chris and Neil to arrive from Swansea. We tried Welsh Cakes (like flat raisin english muffins covered in sugar). Looked for a specifically titled book in all the Harlequin Romance novels with similar titles (tried to find 'Italian Billionaire's Virgin Bride' but ended up having to settle for 'Italian Millionaire's Virgin Wife'.)

We escaped the market where Andy had written "Ianto" on the side of the sheep he purchased. From there, we proceeded to have random adventures in malls, like Andy putting 1man1jar on the macbook in the mac store (DON'T LOOK THIS UP IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS I'M SERIOUS), trying to find a smoothie place, Andy sending horrible pictures to people's bluetooth on their mobile phones... We had lunch at an Irish pub where I had a Steak and Guiness pie, chips and peas. (I ATE ALL OF THE PIES.) We found some statues to pose Ianto the sheep with, like the two giant fists (lol) and the "Stargate" where we had a good laugh because some young army cadets were hanging outside out of it with a 'malp' looking device. We took pictures of us jumping through the Stargate, and throwing Ianto through it. We visited an Antique store where I found a Sherlock Holmes soundtrack CD...go figure! And they had a comic store inside with a Doctor Who merchandise treasury on the top floor! They had so much stuff.... I found some stickers, a Dalek bag and a David Tennant notebook in a £1 bin which I promptly purchased! Yay stickers! Also, there was a militaria section where a guy had Russian guns and Nazi daggers and swords - spoils from the war! :O There was a section that had bags, medikits, jackets, badges, patches, lots of stuff from all the countries who participated in the wars! I bought an armband that has a medic symbol on it as well as a Union Jack and a Scotland Flag emblem. It's recent, but it's cool looking! The boys said it looked like a thong from the way it's designed... hahaha.

Neil drove us all to Barry Island, where during the day they have faires and rides, and it's right on the beach. We went after 5 when everything was closed, but we did manage to waste time in a couple of arcades where we tried to win stuff in the 2p pushing coins game. Also had Neil try to win me a Scottish Terrier plush, but he didn't get it. Took some amazing pictures of the beach and sky with long exposure. We also got a ton of free chips, pies and sausages from a chippy that was closing! So yet again, I got to 'eat all the pies' except I didn't really touch it. haha. Also, some person was setting Chinese Lanterns up into the sky (the kind where you light the base on fire and the heat takes it up like an air balloon) They filled the sky with pretty orange lights!

We headed for the posh area of Cardiff on the water after that, where I got a Starbucks. We visited the Ianto shrine where the presumed 'outside of Torchwood' is filmed, and we talked to the theatre with the huge glowing letters on the outside. After taking hilarious photos of Ianto being silly, we went back to the hotel where we had delicious Whittards Dreamtime tea, and called it a night after Sadie, Neil and Andy tried on Sadie's "Russell from Up" outfit she bought at the Disney store that was made for 5 year olds. HILARIOUS.

The next day, Sadie, Andy and I had breakfast at a cafe, where I had an apple blueberry juice and a bacon and cheese panini. We wandered around until we had to meet up with Chris and Neil. I managed to buy a very pretty pinup rockabilly dress for only £20! We also went to a Welsh crafts store with the world's largest carved wooden Welsh Love Spoon! (see pictures) I got Steph and Terri presents from that store. We went back to check on Cardiff Castle which is situated in the middle of downtown, but we figured it was too expensive because it was £9 just to get in. We went back to "Torchwood" where we tried to find a place to eat that had lamb on the menu, but surprisingly our search was fruitless because it seems Cardiff likes their Italian restaurants more than traditional Welsh food, and it is also "cool" for restaurants to close between 4-6:30pm. :| WTF. We ended up going to a chinese/thai food restaurant that was completely horrible. I had peanut satay chicken and the chicken was so overdone, and 'braised lamb with ginger and spring onion' which came as a slop on a plate that tasted like slop on a plate. Worst £15 I've ever spent so far ughghgh.

We went back to the hotel to drop stuff off and get changed to see BARROWMAN! The theatre was pretty, with crowded, uncomfortable seats. We were pretty high up so we couldn't see too well, but it was still hilarious. Barrowman flashing his butt in shiny tights, haha yes! There was a questionable "ice skating of the FUTUR" part with a Russian skater dude who looked like Evgeni Plushenko. However, it was all made worth it when I saw John Barrowman sing "Every little thing she does is magic". :D

The next day I bought a chunk of welsh lamb leg for Kody to cook, some fruit for breakfast, had a chocolatey fika with cheesecake and hot chocolate at Caffe Nero, then a 7 hour train ride later, I was back in Glasgow, where Caz and Kody went to go meet me but didn't get a block outside of their apartment before I arrived. Hehe!

It's good to be back in Glasgow, which seems to be my home at the moment! <3 Edinburgh trip on the weekend though! Very exciting, going to go bead shopping and buy a muffin tin so Caz and I can make cupcakes and muffins! Squeeeee~


TORCHWOOD

Chillin' in the market with Elvis

MY SPOON IS TOO BIG!


Those wooden links are carved like that!


Clock Tower in Cardiff


Barry Island


Fairy Falls


Loch Earn


Deil's Cauldron featuring Kody and Caz!

PLANE ADVENTURES and HELLO SWEDEN!

Long time no talk!

So I was in Irvine for 2 weeks visiting my friend Leslie, who's also an awesome artist! She has a 2 year old boy named Aiden and a husband, Brian. It was quite nice to visit with her and talk with her, even though we were tired a lot from looking after Aiden! She's also pregnant again as well, so we got some art in, as well as a Fushigi Yuugi marathon and I showed her all of Hetalia!

Unfortunately, on my last week there I got really sick. I got tonsillitis with a little bit of a fever, so I was confined to the house for a good little while! I managed to get to the doctors after coughing up some blood and got myself some antibiotics. I'm all okay now! :D

Also I read this totally awesome book called "Skinny Bitch" which is basically like a no nonsense book about the truths of eating meat and non-organic foods, and how much our government lies about the garbage we put in our mouths. Also had some really scary horror stories about what goes on in slaughterhouses. Makes me want to give up meat for the most part. D: So needless to say we had a lot of great vegetarian dishes. :D

Leslie's mom lives in a Caravan park half of the year during the summer. I think it would be so fun to have one of these. It's just like a larger, wider motorhome amongst other Caravans. We visited it once at night time and it was directly opposite this large abandoned brick building which is HAUNTED! Apparently paranormal investigators confirmed hauntings there, like slamming doors and weird noises! I wasn't allowed to go in there though. Poo. :{

Also, on a really windy day, we went to the beach where there's a bit of a walkway that goes in between the crashing waves. There's no barrier on either side though so you could totally fall in, and it's only about 5 feet wide across. So because of the gale-ish winds, we were being pushed back from going forward to the very end of this walkway, with the waves crashing all around us. I actually took a video of it. Bluetooth's not working right now so you can get it later.

After the 2 week vacation there, I went back to Kody's for a couple of days. During that time I hung out with my old coworker Alan, because he's originally from Glasgow and he came home the same time I was in Scotland. So we shopped around and hung out, and we also went to this amazing Scottish restaurant called the Bothy, which had great food and a great atmosphere. The whole place was decorated like a beautiful tavern/inn with lots of foliage decor that was christmas themed, and all the seats were big and cushy, and everything was made of wood pretty much. I had this Chicken Bonnie Lass or something.. and it was chicken with a bacon mushroom wine sauce with potatoes and other veggies. Soooo good. *___*

So you might have noticed I am keeping up with my tea counts... it's been tough because sometimes I don't have access to tea, and being sick drinking hot drinks hurt. However, I've been keeping up since I've arrived in...

SWEDEN!!!!

That's right. My super awesome online artist buddy Linnéa, better known to others as Mirre, is letting me stay with her and her family for 3 weeks in Umeå, Sweden. Getting here was a whole different story..

I took a plane from Glasgow to London, which was fine. I got to London at 9pm and my string of 2 flights to get to Umeå was at 7am the next morning. I was going to spend the night at the Heathrow airport, but Chris texted me and gave me the option of spending the night at his place and getting up very early to catch a tube into Heathrow, because it was not very far away at all. After much debating with myself, I decided to stay at his place overnight so I could park my stuff and get some sleep.

After getting up at 5am and getting myself out the door, I walked briskly to the tube station and waited there for a good 35 minutes before I realized that there was no train coming, and when I went upstairs to the main area there was a sign that said "Trains not running to Heathrow, signal failure."

>:|

Unfortunately for me, stress levels then skyrocketed, as I frantically went around trying to find a cash machine so I could take out some pounds to pay for a cab to take me to the airport as "fast as he could" (which was less than the normal speed limit...) Long story short, I ended up getting to the airport through the doors to my check in counter at 6:30 am, 30 minutes before my flight, and they stopped taking bags at 6:15.

*sigh*

After almost breaking down in front of hundreds of people, I made my way to the SAS counter to buy myself another ticket on the next flight, which luckily was the same day at 2:05pm. However, 250 pounds later.. I had to wait around for almost 8 hours uncomfortably at the airport, starving and not wanting to leave my stuff. My 3 flights into Umeå. started from London, then to Copenhagen, then to Stockholm, then to Umeå. Copenhagen Airport in Denmark is a really pretty airport. Everything was dark wood decorated and it was very easy to find my next gate. Stockholm was a maze and it was too big. My flight to Umeå was pretty cool. I sat beside a huge muscular guy probably about my age who was a thai kickboxer I think.. or UFC style fighting? Anyway he won the Austria championship for his division and he was going to Umeå for his next round. How cool. He couldn't speak much english, but we communicated enough to talk for a bit. We were in the very last seats of the plane squished together, it was pretty funny. He liked my artwork. :}

So Linnéa was waiting for me in Umeå at the baggage roundabout! I gave her a big hug, it was great! :D After getting my stuff and driving back to her house and remarking how they drive on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE ROAD *cough*ukfail*cough* I came to her awesome house, and met her parents and her brother, Torkel. We had "Fika" which is like teatime, had some delicious tea I've never even smelt/tried before, with some banana cake Linnéa made and gingersnaps. They even decorated my room, it looks so cool in here! It's cozy, I have a couch, a bed, a leather armchair, a tv, with lots of really moody lighting and christmas decorations!

Speaking of Christmas Decorations, everyone in Sweden seems to have those light up paper stars in their window, or a 7 candle electric candelabra. It looks really magical, way less tacky then millions of colors of Christmas lights and weird decorations on lawns! It's super cool to see a huge apartment building on the horizon over the water and see every window with one of these!

The sun sets early because of how far North we are in the world, so it sets around 1:30pm. We don't get much sun, however it just means we get sunrise/sunset for the most part! 2 days ago, Linnéa and I went clothes shopping and I got a few things for myself since a few articles of clothing I bought didn't suit the weather conditions. We also had a really nice lunch at a café, and I tried "Portello" which is a soft drink kind of like cream soda. For dinner, we had a traditional Swedish dinner called 'pytt-i-panna', which had chopped up ham and potato, fried egg and pickled beets (which weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be, ahha) with some strong cheese on flat unleavened bread on the side. Later that night during Fika, I got to try glögg for the first time. It's like a hot mulled spiced wine that you drink with almonds or raisins in it with a tiny little spoon for scooping them out with. We also had Saffron buns, which is another Swedish christmas/Jul tradition with more Gingersnaps.

Yesterday, Linnéa and I went to a Swedish Christmas Market which was held at a farm. It was great fun, there were shetland ponies and pigs that we saw, and there were lots of stalls were people were selling crafts, homemade baking, jewelry, socks, candy etc. I bought a big jar of honey and took some great pictures. The way to walk around was lit with these large candles on the ground. It was so very pretty! After we looked around for a couple of hours, we went back home and had dinner (homemade pizza!)

Afterwards, Linnéa's best friend Åsa came over and we went disco bowling! Many lulz and awesome photos were had. Afterwards we went to a huge candy store and loaded up, went home and played some mega-yahtzee (with 6 dice) and card games, and chatted til about 2:00am when we decided to call it a night..

Today Linnéa and I have been baking Gingerbread cookies! I made an army of little piggies. Mwahahaahha!

So that's it so far. I'll update more because I'm sure we'll be doing lots of fun festive things. It's about -5 degrees and it snowed a bit!

ENJOY SOME PHOTOS AND BYE FOR NOW!

Linnéa and I are the best bowlers.

MAKIN' PIGGIES!

Outside! IT'S SNOWING!

Beautiful sunset! Oh yeah it's like... not even 2pm here.

Candy at the Christmas Market! Yummm.

Glasgow Fun Happy Time

How goes my peeps! I spent the last week in Glasgow with a new friend, Kody! I was so productive art-wise. I drew like, 4-5 comics and lots of sketches! :D Being here really has lifted my spirits and given me inspiration! It's fantastic!

I already talked about what happened when I got here, after eating the most awesome lasagna and having a Fireworks show, we watched the new Doctor Who special, Waters of Mars, which was pretty scary/epic. Good times.

Kody has a really cool looking flat. It's very modern, and all of the bedrooms have open walls where you can peek down to the floor below, which means you can hear everything that goes on everywhere! Kody and I would yell at eachother while we went to sleep in the next rooms! XD Too funny.

What's great about Kody is that he's an excellent cook, and the next night he made the best no-bone Buffalo chicken strips...ever. ;_; He apparently learned the recipe himself from testing the sauce from restaurant buffalo wings in his Chem lab. XD It was so good though, with fresh made blue cheese dip NYAM NYAM.

He also has his own webcomic with his friends called Space Prison, and I saw him work on his stuff, read lots of his art and comics, and we collabed ideas back and forth. So that's where a lot of my inspiration came from, just keeping the creative juices flowing with someone else to talk to about comics and stories and randomness!

Some of the things we got up to while I was there, was that we went to go to the small town where my Dad was born, High Ballantyre/Blantyre. It still was a tiny town, but the lodge he was born in was torn town and was now replaced by a nursing home! However, something cool we discovered in the memorial garden across the street was a GEOCACHE that Kody happened to remember from our excursions online. So we marked our mark in the tiny little silver container and we were on our way.

We stopped by into the Kelvingrove art museum before it closed and had a few laughs while we were there, and made a point to remember the Doctor Who exhibit and to come back. :D

Something else we checked out was Xscape, which is like a huge recreation play center. There was an indoor ski hill, mini golf, a couple arcades, stores, coffee shop, and all you can eat Chinese buffet! We hit up the buffet, did mini golf where we got points for style and weird movements/rebounds/etc, and tried the arcade, where I failed at DDR in my chunky army boots. :(

Glasgow gets lots of raaaain but it's really nice, still. It just meant we had to stay inside lots, and draw and make food and drink and draw more!

We did brave the rain one day and set out to venture and explore the Glasgow Cathedral, otherwise known as St. Mungos Cathedral. It was really creepy, yet beautiful in there. The architecture was just fantastic. I took lots of pictures there and they are all in my Glasgow album on Flickr.

We also hiked up to the Necropolis in the blustery rain and walked amongst the huge graves and crypts. It was really depressing how much graffiti and alcohol bottles were scattered in the crypts and stuff though. People have no respect for beautiful stuff. :(

On the weekend, Kody's girlfriend Caz came back and we hung out, played Rock Band, had some booze and dressed up (well.. I dressed up. Caz had cow pajamas on and Kody wore his kilt, and Kody let me wear his Balrog outfit...) so we had some cheesy potatoes Kody made that I think I remember tasting, some cheese and crackers (Wensleydale and Applewood FTW).

Earlier that day, we also went outside to find 3 geocaches without a GPS. We found them all, even the super tough one which was a tiny container magnetized to the bottom of a fence post! There was a lot of fences in the area and they gave us a very vague hint! I'm slowly turning all my friends into Geocachers! hehehe. We also visited the Glasgow Winter Festival in the middle of the square where I had an Angus burger. There wasn't much on it, it was just beef and buns, but it was still super tasty!

On Sunday we hit up the Doctor Who exhibit. Saw lots of amazing things, like the Blink Angels, ENORMOUS Daleks, and David Tennant's shoes and coat! Woo! We peeked around the rest of the museum and saw a lot of cool stuff, had some laughs.. and we hung around until 3pm where in the mail hall, where they have an ENORMOUS pipe organ, they had an old man come and play it. It was just phenomenal. Being in the middle of the large, museum hall, with it's massive stone pillars and cold, reverberating walls, having the pipes basically melt into your soul while he played live was like nothing I've felt. I just love the pipe organ, seriously. I tried to take a really crappy video with my camera, so I at least have a small token of remembrance, but it does it no justice.

We tried to geocache afterwards too but we failed something fierce. :( It started raining hard so we went back to Kody's and we bummed around drawing and watching TV and listening to tunes before Caz headed back to Aberdeen.

On Monday I was up early packing my bags, and Kody walked me to the train station where I got a mint hot chocolate, said goodbye, and got on the 30 min train to Irvine, where my friend Leslie was waiting for me. :) Now I'm at her awesome house with her kid and her husband. Also, her mom is awesome because she is like me because she wears 2 different socks. It's me when I'm older! yay! And I'm still cool!!!!

Tune in for more adventures! I'll be in Irvine for 2 weeks, just wanted to tell you all I'm ok!

Check in with the pictures on my Flickr here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/

BRADFORD + HELLO SCOTLAND!

HI I'M DAISY! Okay not really... but that reminds me of a really clever puzzle!

Again with the long delay in postage.. just didn't have a heck of a lot to report! I've gone from Cheltenham, to Bradford, and now I'm in Glasgow!

But for now let me catch you up on all the delicious happenings..

Last Sunday, one of my new friends Rowan hosted an incredibly great, and incredibly geeky party at her house. The theme was a "World Conference Party" a la Axis Powers Hetalia (the new anime my friends got me into) , and we all had to bring a different dish depending on which country we were dressing up as. I got England, since no one wanted to be their own country - which is okay, because all I did was buy a large chippy and a flat of pear cider and I was set! :D I also bought a white collared shirt and camo green jogging pants - along with Troy's Dalek tie and drawn on enormous eyebrows, I completed the look. The party itself was a blast, full of drinking and delicious food from everywhere. Jack dressed up as Canada, and I taught him how to make proper canadian pancakes and bacon! He took it to the next level and made bacon-infused pancakes! I was so proud of him. *Sniff*

All the pictures from the party you can see if you follow this link below!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43711291@N02/sets/72157622767701234/

Sarah came back from where she's originally from in Plymouth and her, Sabine, Troy and I went and braved the outside for a bit of a walk, and I introduced them to GEOCACHING! Except I didn't have a GPS so we pretty much did it via clues and Google Satellite. We managed to find one, and the other one was a bit lost to us (it told us to search near a rock under a shrubbery - there were a lot of those in the area we had to look!) Troy planted some Toy Soldier propaganda and a Warhammer 40k pin. The scenery was gorgeous. After getting up to some Blockbuster shenanigans, Sabine, Sarah and I watched the Prestige and hung out and drew for a bit (I drew Sarah a picture of her and the Doctor and she wrote me some really awesome poems in return!)

Sadly, I had to leave Cheltenham on Wednesday and say goodbye to all my sweet newfound friends. :{ They threatened to break my legs many times if I didn't return so I will MOST DEFINITELY return sometime next year, because I sure to love the use of my legs!

So a £61.50 ticket later, I was on the train to Leeds to visit my dad's cousin, Shirley, who I've only seen in pictures! She actually lives in Bradford, but she came to pick me up after I got there. After not knowing what I was doing to actually get out into the train station (that's what the tickets are for.. ohhhh) we drove to her awesomely cute house and ordered chinese food.

After getting accustomed to her place and settling into my nice clean room (WITH A BED!!! A BED!! YESSSSS!) I quickly learned that her cat, Frith, doesn't like being locked out of any room in the house with a person inside. So the next few nights of Bradford involved me waking up every hour to the sound of frantically scrambling claws trying to get into my room. :||||||| I had some earplugs but they fell out in the middle of the night quite frequently.. It was tough as well because I'm severely allergic to cats, so I constantly had my inhaler in my mouth, and popping Claritin trying not to die.

Oh well, SURVIVAL MODE ON, Shirley took me into town where we went to an old building that got turned into an art gallery and bookstore/diner. The guy who owns all the art posted around looks like he learned to draw from a 3 year old, but they had lots of really cool art supplies and books, and I bought a pink Copic sparkly writing pen. :D After looking at lots of cool books and having an Earl Grey, we went back home where we walked to a really tiny, tacky empty pub called the Blue Boar, run by a tiny old lady and her husband. Met up with Shirley's girlfriend, Lee, who is a freakin' gas. We had some drinks, and stumbled into a posh curry restaurant where we had great curry! Finally, some decent UK curry!

Unfortunately I've been having some problems with my electrical stuff, ever since my hard drive failed, the left side of my $100 headphones is busted and won't work properly, and the S key of my Macbook decided to stop working half the time (which I have since fixed, yay me!) and I'm always scared that the converter adaptor for my electrical stuff is going to blow up...

The next day, we went into a small town about 30 mins drive through countryside away to visit an Abbey in the middle of a tiny town. It had a huge graveyard outside with enormous gravestones, and it was all ruins. It was just gorgeous, really. There was a part of the church that was still functioning though, and I got some great pictures inside of it. There was ominous male choral music playing in the background.. like the Halo opening. It was kind of awesome.

We visited a couple of the pubs in the area where the locals hang out. The first one we had a drink at, two old men made a comment about my violently lime green tights and army boots. I said the tights were so that people could see me from miles away in case I got lost.. and they bought it! :D They liked my army boots too. They were just darling old men.

The next pub we went to had FOOD! And a great atmosphere, it was partly in a BARN that was converted into this dining hall, and it had a huge fireplace! And the old guy who ran it was really nice, and I got smoked salmon creamy penne and it was delicious! They also had this game in the pub where you had to swing a metal ring tied to a rope and try to hook it on a hook that was coming out from one of the ceiling bars. I failed harsh. :{ After finishing my "lemonade" (which is what British people call Sprite) we finished driving through the countryside back home!

That night we went to Shirley and Lee's coworkers birthday party at an Irish Club (not a typical "club" but a "Club" like the YMCA, somewhere where you'd host a really lame work party) and went to party with a bunch of drunk doctors, who were considerably less fun than I had anticipated. Humongous sigh. :{ Thanks to my salmon pasta earlier that day, every drink I had that night, including the double shot of vodka I had at the bar, was all for naught, and I wasn't even tipsy. However, they played Scissor Sisters and Lee and I got up and had to dance to that jazz.

The next day, Shirley had to go into another town to meet with her friend Pam, where I had 2 more cuppas at the beer and wine bar (I feel so lame not drinking beer..) and delicious cookies. It was POURING rain, and while everyone was scrambling around in hoodies and umbrellas trying to get out of the rain, I was the only one open faced into the air receiving the heaven's tears on my face :D Everyone must have thought I was insane..
Shirley got her hair cut, and we drove through some freaking awesome countryside where the rain had cleared and we got a DOUBLE AWESOME RAINBOW spread over the countryside!!!!!!!!!! It was so bright, the pictures don't do it justice! It was magical!

The next day involved rush hour traffic and almost missing my train into Glasgow, but we INDIANA JONES'D that noise, and got there just in the nick of time. Thank you Shirley and Bradford for letting me stay for a few days and showing me a great time. :D

So from Leeds to York, and York to Glasgow Central!

The train ride was fun and a half. 4 hours of screaming kids and obnoxious pikeys (those are hoodlums) , my non working headphones, Hetalia, talking to a sweet girl from London, a Wispa gold, and writing in my sexy new diary.

After a small mix up, I was met at the train station by Kody, Troy and Jack's friend, and his lovely girlfriend Carly. :D They proceeded to walk me back to Kody's where the BEST LASAGNA I've EVER HAD was waiting for me, and while we were eating, right outside of Kody's apartment in Glasgow center they had FIREWORKS! It's like they knew I was coming! And they were awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. Sparkly goodtimes.

Today was a rainy day and consisted of Kody showing me around town and the shops, and Glasgow Uni, and the museum where the Doctor Who exhibit I'm going to visit is (YEEEEE) . I got some strawberry marshmallow candy from this huge Candy shop where a thing of orange Koolaid imported from the states is £4.50 and a small box of Lucky Charms is £8.00!!! D: Dear god. Times that by almost two and you have that in Canadian prices.

I also got the COOLEST THING EVER... IT'S A RACING SNAIL WIND UP TOY!!!!



:D

After visiting the museum for a bit, Kody took me to a chippy place where we had chips and DEEP. FRIED. HAGGIS!!!!

The best part is..

IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes that's right my opinionated friends. Haggis is no more disgusting than a regular breakfast sausage. So if you'd eat that, you'd eat haggis which technically is just... a sheep sausage instead of a pork one. Honestly. It's not that bad. Tasty shite, man. Jak approves.

Excitement and joy of joys, my pretties. I will update again soon with more Glasgow-ness once the weather is better, it was spitting like mad today.

Love and-o peace!

Shirley's road in Bradford

Shirley (on left) and Lee (on right) in the Pub in the countryside :D

RAINBOW

View from underneath an archway at the Abbey

The Bolton Abbey and some gravestones

The Church inside the Abbey

SHEEP! You have pink on your butt.

View from Kody's balcony

"Hooray! Molly's here! Rejoice!"