Catch up: the Emerald Isle and a bit of British culture.

Ok! Just realised it had been awhile since my last post, and since I'm going away again tonight I have a bit of catching up to do, so here goes.  Apologies if its a little long...  But since my last post I've spent a week in Ireland, and also had a week of relaxing time spent hanging out with friends and soaking in a little bit more of British 'culture' :)  Have also not spent enough time doing work - hard to remember sometimes that I am still at uni!

So anyway, starting with my reading week trip to Ireland.  They don't have mid-semester break as such over here, but some schools have what's called a reading week, where you just don't have any lecture or tutes for a week.  And since I didn't really have any work due around this week, I decided to just spend the whole week in Ireland.

Flew to Belfast first, on the Monday morning.  Got there early afternoon, and after dropping my stuff at the hostel wasn't sure what to do so went for a walk into the centre of the city.  Belfast isn't the prettiest city I've seen, but it has lots of interesting old buildings which make it not too bad.  The first impressive buildings that come to mind include the Crown Liquor Saloon, the City Hall, and St Anne's Cathedral.  But I also found it interesting the amount of old looking buildings that had been either abandoned or neglected and so had lots of little greenery growing all over them, in or near the city centre.

Didn't a whole heap on Monday - the downside to travelling alone is that I don't really feel safe going anywhere alone at night.  So I bought my first ever burrito, which was actually pretty delicious, and headed back to the hostel.  Stayed at a place called Global Village, which I would definitely recommend to anyone going to Belfast.  It was fairly close to everything, clean and comfortable, the staff were really friendly and helpful, and it was nice and cheap.  It also happened to be filled with Australians when I was there - most from Melbourne but I shared a room with 3 girls from Sydney.  So everyone was quite friendly which was nice.

Did a day trip on Tuesday to Giant's Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.  That was really good - a bit of a long day, but the beautiful scenery made up for it.  Saw the castle at Carrickfergus first.  That was just a 10 minute photo stop, but a nice view to start off the day.  Then drove through some beautiful countryside to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.  Main feature I noticed was that most of the fences on farms had shrubby trees planted along them - whether they were low stone fences or newer wire-style fences.  The views of and around the bridge were beautiful, and made me wish I had a better camera that could do the views a bit more justice! Still got some rather nice pics though.  Unfortunately the bridge was closed for repairs so only got to see it not cross it.

After that headed along the coast to the little town of Doolin for a lunch break, then continued along the coast to the Giant's Causeway.  That really was amazing. Was too skint to pay the extra money to go into the brand new visitors centre, so I remain mystified by how the causeway was formed.  But I definitely recommend visiting both the bridge and the causeway if you're ever in Northern Ireland, especially if you can get there on a nice day.

Anyway, overall was lucky with the beautiful weather, and had a great day.  Didn't get back til late and so decided to grab some fish and chips for dinner.  Went to a fish and chip shop, and as I was deciding what to get - standing right next to the door - this young guy probably about my age walked into the shop, then starting yelling "Everybody get down! I'm robbing this joint, I've got a hamster (?) in my pocket!".  It was a little frightening really - though maybe I would have been slightly more worried if I'd understood what a 'hamster' was.  But I was definitely edging to the door.  However everyone in the shop just ignored him, and after yelling a few more times, the woman behind the counter called out next please, and he gave this really odd laugh and ran out of the shop.  It was really weird - I guess he must have been either drunk or stoned?  But anyway the rest of the night was pretty uneventful after that, just watched a movie with some Australian girls, and tried to figure out how to make the best of the time I had left in Belfast the next day.

Ended up getting a sightseeing bus on Wednesday morning.  Wanted to do a black taxi tour, where they take you around all the sites of political significance, but unfortunately it was too expensive to do on my own.  So the sightseeing bus was the second option, as it went through political areas just in less detail.  The bus route was really interesting - went through Titanic quarter, Stormont, Shankhill, Sandy Row, among other places.  Made me wish I had more time in Belfast though - cos I wanted the time to actually get off at all the stops and walk around for myself.  The weather also wasn't that great - a bit rainy - meaning we had to sit inside the bus and couldn't get many good pictures.  But I did have time for a walking tour of the Titanic quarter, which was really interesting.  It left from the brand new Titanic centre, and went through where it was designed and built.  It was a little mind blowing, seeing just how immense the ship was from the size of the places it was built.  In particular the dry dock.  The guide was great too.  Both on the bus and on the tour the guides told us about the inquiry in Belfast after the Titanic sank - apparently all they got from it was that Belfast only built her and she was fine when she left, it wasn't their fault she had an English captain, a Scottish navigator and hit a Canadian iceberg.

I found out a whole bunch of interesting stuff on my sightseeing tour, some of which I wrote down.  but unfortunately/lucky for you I don't really have to time or inclination to list them right now.  So moving on... I got the train to Dublin late afternoon after going back to the hostel to collect my stuff.  The train was fine - after some initial confusion where I got into a reserved carriage and took someone else's seat, I just spent the rest of the trip reading all the brochures I had collected in Belfast.  When I got to Dublin I dropped my stuff at the hostel, went for a walk to get some dinner, then chilled in the common room with some ciders until Meredith came.

And now I'm actually going to have to cut this short, as I have to leave shortly for Wales! So I'll have to come back to my time in the Republic of Ireland later..

But last week I will briefly talk about - the week in between Ireland and Wales :)  Didn't travel, but still had a great week.  Had my first experience of Nandos with Jo - despite walking past the Nandos in Canberra almost every day for at least a year, I had never been.  So that was tasty :) Along with that, I soaked up a little more British culture with Jo in the form of some films - watched the Inbetweeners movie on Wednesday night, Johnny English Reborn on Thursday night, and went and saw the new James Bond film Skyfall on Sunday.  Love it!  Also got to catch up briefly with Hannah, when she crashed at mine for the night on the way from Ireland to Elgin.  Luckily this reunion was not as eventful as the last one!

Also went to Jenna's 21st on Friday, with Jo as my lovely date :) Had a girly moment, and went shopping with Jo and bought a new dress, new shoes and even some makeup!  It was good, though there was a DJ who had a bit of a power complex, and also really did not seem to understand that DJs are there to play music, not constantly drown out the music with talking/announcements.  Though I'm beginning to think this is a Scottish DJ thing, because I saw another DJ thats supposed to be kinda famous at the Union, and he also talked far more than I think a DJ should!

Anyways, thats me done for now... Am taking my computer with me to Wales, as this time I actually have to do some work while I'm there :S So will possibly attempt to catch up the rest of Ireland soon.  But otherwise watch this space for some fun tales from Wales!

[And yes it is awesome that that rhymed, and it will probably be the title of my Wales blog :)]

zzOMBIE...

Ok so just reread that last paragraph of the last post and realised it really does not make much sense - I have to admit at this point I was actually falling asleep at the keyboard.  And this is exactly why I can no longer do all-nighters writing essays - imagine the marks I'd get for that!!  Edited one of the sentences, but decided to leave the other one there for your amusement...

So just to revise, I am indeed determined to get a tartan skirt, but I'm uncertain how that relates to being king... Basically it's because I figure I'm in Scotland, so when else is going to be a better time to get one?  I saw some in Edinburgh yesterday on my way to dinner, so I definitely have them in my sights.  Just gotta save up so I can actually afford to get to Edinburgh again (seriously!).

Also it was requested that I do go back to the last part a little more, cos I kept it pretty short last night.  No worries, this won't be a long addition as I don't have heaps more to say (on a quick side note though, I get laughed at whenever I say heaps, because everyone says loads not heaps over here) but just a few more quick comments...

Balmaha as I said was quite cute - a very small village surrounded by beautiful scenery and next to Loch Lomond of course.  As you can see in one of my photos, there were lots of boats there, and I did see people heading out in a canoe while I was standing there.  I also came across some campers when I when for a short exploratory walk near the loch.  Looked like a pretty nice spot, though I reckon it'd be pretty cold!!

Aberfoyle was also quite cute though a little bigger than Balmaha. Had a steak pie for lunch - probably my favourite dish so far over here.  I just love that they call it a pie when its not.  Actually will have to take a photo the next time I have one so you guys can see what I mean.  But yeah, didn't do much here cos we only stopped for lunch.

Duke's Pass was indeed very pretty, though it was hard to take many photos through the window of a bus.  Loch Katrine was also really beautiful, though it was definitely a bit chilly standing outside in the wind!  But worth it for the views I think.  This reminds me that I still definitely need to get a winter jacket - probably sooner rather than later - and also some good boots for walking.  Actually in all the writing I did yesterday, I forgot to say - I'M SO GLAD I CAN WALK NORMALLY AGAIN! :D Slopes are still not the best, as I can definitely still feel it pulling a bit, but I'm practically back to normal which is great.  Though I have to admit I was not too adventurous with climbing around on the yacht while it was moving, just because I didn't want to either step wrong and wreck it all over again, and also I had less faith in my ability to catch myself if I did trip, and didn't really fancy going for a dip in the water.

Not much else to say about Hamish, but hairy coo is definitely a thing - we passed another bus that had hairy coo tours written all over it. And Stirling Castle was pretty cool. I found that the inside felt a little fake - you can see in my photos how colourful it is, because it was all recently repainted and renovated.  Apparently they tried to replicate how it would have been, but you could still tell it was all new, which sort of took away from the authentic feeling.  But the castle is still very impressive, and from the outside I guess it's pretty much the same as it would have been when it was occupied (though maybe a little more weathered).  The views are definitely the most stunning feature of the castle - you just can't beat that location.  I also didn't figure out how the food was served when the kitchens seemed to be detached from the other buildings... obviously wasn't looking closely enough!  The old graveyard just down from the castle was quite picturesque too - as one of the girls I was with said, even the dead get a view!  Found the grave of a William Drummond, but I'm unsure why that name is familiar.  Figured he was someone important though, as his grave was set apart from most of the others.

The town of Stirling also seemed really cool as we were driving through - think I might have to go back there if I can find the time before I leave. Lots of cool old monuments and statues, and nice parks etc.  Anyway, that turned out slightly longer than expected, and now I need to get back to the real world and do some reading for my next tute!

On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond...

While it's only been just over a week since my last post, contrary to the trend of the past few weeks I actually feel like I've had an action packed time between then and now!  This is probably also just left over from doing a day tour with so many things crammed into it today, but nonetheless I am very pleased to actually have exciting things to report in this blog!

So anyway, onto the actual things I've done!  First of all, I finally felt like a real uni student again last week, while going to the library with Jo for study sessions every day except Friday!  (On a side note, is it confusing for anyone else that I now have two friends called Jo who I could be writing about? Lol.)
Had a horrible class test for comparative politics this week, that I was actually semi-organised and studied early for.

But anyway the (first) main event was going on the Dundee University Sailing Club's annual Booze Cruise!  This involved taking a bus across to Oben, which is on the west coast, then sailing from there up the Sound of Mull to the little town of Tobermory and back again the next day.  It was definitely a weekend of experiences - most importantly my first experience of real sailing.  But I think the best way to describe it is in chronological order, so I'll go back to the start!

Around midday on Friday I got a bus with about 13 other people (the larger group was split into minibuses and cars for the trip) to Oben.  Our bus went a bit earlier than everyone else's, so we could do a tour of the whisky distillery at Oben before it closed.  That was pretty interesting, I learnt that whisky only has 3 ingredients - barley, yeast and water - and that it takes a hell of a long time to fully finish a batch!  Also had a tasting of some whisky - both from a cask they had opened early (12 years instead of the usual 14) and from a fully matured bottle.  Actually preferred the younger one which was a lot more alcoholic, but possibly this was because I drank it all in one long sip, instead of trying to take lots of little sips.  I definitely find the taste too strong to take lots of little sips...  Anyway, after that we went and got fish and chips for dinner then headed down to the docks (marina?) to unload our stuff from the bus to the yachts that would be our accommodation for the weekend.  I've decided to try and be fancy and put some pics and stuff in this entry, but if you've been on Facebook you will have already seen them anyway :) So there were 5 yachts with 10 people on each (I think they were 40 something foot?).  And my yacht for the weekend was called the Oceanlord.

Inside they really were just like a caravan - fully decked out with beds aka berths, kitchen aka galley, sitting area aka saloon, etc etc. A caravan, but for water.  So yeah, eventually everyone made it to the docks and onto their boats, and then the trip really began with general partying on the boats.

The next day was a bit of a slow start, as I think many people were recovering.  But we eventually got out (my boat was a close second to being first out!) and then the sailing experience began.  We motored out, and then put up the sails and turned the motor off.  It really was quite cool - tacking in particular is definitely an experience.  To go faster you sail on an angle, that at times was alarming sharp!  Everything loose was sliding around in the cabin, but of course the boat is very well designed, so that even when you're on an angle like that, you can still boil the kettle for some tea.  So yeah, sailing up the Sound of Mull to Tobermory took most of the day (a good 6 hours at least I think), but the scenery was beautiful and it was quite peaceful.  Have to admit I had a wee snooze at one point inside the cabin, as a week of poor sleep caught up to me.

Once we got to Tobermory, we had about an hour to use the bathrooms/go to the supermarket or whatever before we all met for dinner at one of the local pubs.  Then we had dinner and drinks, including a 'boat race' which was basically a small team representing each boat, in a tag team to finish their drinks first.  I have to note, there was one guy who wore his kilt - something which I find awesomely in keeping with stereotypes!  Someone told me that Scottish boys will use any excuse to get their kilts out, and so far I have found this to be fairly true.  I love it!  Definitely means there's no forgetting where you are! :P But anyway, eventually the party was then moved both to the other local pub called The Mish Nish (love the name!) which even has a 'disco', and also back to the boats.  All round another good night had by all - though I have to admit I crashed early, cos I was so tired I wasn't functioning very well...  But I learnt an awesome tip for having a gin and tonic - don't just put in a slice of lime, but add a slice of cucumber as well.  It tasted great.  Jo (Australian) you should definitely try it the next time you make a gin and tonic, and then let me know what you think :)

Anyway, managed to make a relatively early start the next morning, which was good.  My boat was actually the first out that morning.  But it didn't leave before I went for a walk and found a bakery from which I got a coffee and a lamington - yes a LAMINGTON!  No idea what an Australian cake was doing in a tiny bakery in an isolated little island town, but it was delicious so I won't even question it.  Also managed to get a few really nice shots of the waterfront of the town (which was basically the whole town).  I reckon it has to be one of the most colourful towns in Scotland, it was so cute.

Thats not the best shot - see my Facebook for a better one - but you get the idea :) So anyway, as there was next to no wind, we motored the whole way back.  Which was actually really great, cos it meant that everyone could relax a bit, and we travelled in a kind of convoy all the way back.  We hoisted one of the guys on my boat up the mast in a harness, and then sent him up his brekkie (a beer and a bacon roll) in a bucket, so he could enjoy it while hanging up there on the mast.  A few other people on the boat tried it too, and then soon all the boats had someone up the mast.  We also watched some guys on one of the other boats wake boarding behind it. I wouldn't have thought they could go fast enough to make it possible, but I realised that because the rope they hold is attached to the top of the mast, its much easier to get up because they are literally pulled up.  But yeah, that looked pretty awesome.  Another boat had their own guitar player, so they were just chilling on the deck listening to him play and sing/having singalongs.  Basically it was just a really chilled ride, ending with all the boats rafting up together and everyone climbing onto the boats to hang out, get pictures and what not.  Some crazy guys even went swimming - despite the fact that I was sitting there in like 4 layers and not super warm!
Altogether it was a really good weekend, and I'm glad I got to go along despite not being a member of the sailing club.

The other main event of this past week was today, as I went on a day tour of Loch Lomond, the Trossachs and Stirling Castle.  This was the day tour I did, and while action packed it was really enjoyable.  Definitely glad I'm finally getting to see a bit of Scotland too!  So anyway, as the tour left from Edinburgh at 9:15am, I had to get up around 6am to first get the train to Edinburgh.  That was not easy believe me, and my mood wasn't improved when the return ticket cost a ridiculous amount of money, and then when I got to Edinburgh and had to pee I couldn't because it cost 30p and I didn't have a 10p coin!  That and they also had absolutely no bins around!  But definitely cheered up on the walk between the station and the tour meeting point.  Edinburgh is a beautiful city.  Not even because its that 'nice' specifically.  But everything is so old, and consistently old unlike York with its weird mix of architectures.  You get the feeling Edinburgh has just always been there, and has weathered the time with dignity and just the right amount of change.  And yes, thats the end of me waxing poetical, because yes it does sound a little odd.  But basically what I'm trying to say is that while it is not beautiful in a strictly aesthetic way like Strasbourg for example, it has a character that makes it beautiful in its own way.

So anyway, eventually found the tour, and we all boarded the bus and headed for our first stop which was Balmaha, a village on the shores of Loch Lomond.  That was cute, and we had a bit of time to go off ourselves and look at the loch and surrounding area.  Then we went to the nearby village of Aberfoyle for lunch, where I met and had lunch with 2 American girls from the bus.  They were both really nice, and it was nice to have someone to hang out with - the sole travelling thing can be a little lonely.  After Aberfoyle we headed to Loch Katrine for the cruise, going over Duke's Pass on the way - the prettiest road in Scotland in our tour guides opinion.

The cruise was nice - saw some really beautiful scenery, which you can see some of in my photos on Facebook.  Then we headed to Stirling Castle, via a quick visit to Hamish the Highland Cow, aka Hamis the Hairy Coo.  He is apparently so famous a bull that he has his own Facebook page Hamish the Highland Cow.  Our bus driver also took great joy in telling us several times that they are also known as 'hairy coos'.  He also took great joy in playing us some old Scottish folk songs.  As the title of this post might suggest, I definitely got them stuck in my head, especially the Loch Lomond song

But yeah, Stirling Castle was also great - quite interesting, especially compared to the few castles I have.  Definitely a bit different - especially size-wise - than other castles I have seen so far.  But awesome all the same.  I'm thinking Edinburgh Castle must be a similar size though - will have to go there soon and see for myself!

Could talk a lot more particularly about Stirling, but I'm pretty tired now!  So might need to come back next time.  New obsession is getting a tartan skirt cos I'm in Scotland so any of the point I'm totally king.  But now I desperately need some sleep so I shall bid you all adieu and til next time! :)

Freedom!

So since not that much time has passed since my last post, not a whole lot has happened since then either. This is more of a procrastination post than anything else, so I'll keep it short!  But the most exciting news since then, is that I am no longer on crutches OR in the moon boot!  I am left only with a tubey sock thing, which is great :) Shoes still feeling a little tight on the left foot (i.e. the damaged one), but its manageable.  

So yeah, I have (still limited, but definitely less so!) freedom now, which is great!!  Have been very much enjoying it, even if I'm still walking at the pace of a senior citizen... And since I am now free of the crutches, I finally got to get my takeaway coffee that I mentioned craving in my last post :)  But yeah, the last few days have been great, just because of that.

Probably also in a good mood because I only remembered yesterday that I had a test today, but then it turned out to be the easiest test I've ever done.  That and I'm feeling super organised for my test next week, cos I've already started studying with Jo (not Canberra Jo, but London Jo!) for it. I'm such a good student... :P  Jo and I have also discovered we make an awesome trivia team - got the wooden spoon prize the other night, yeah! Though it was actually pretty cool.  We're now all set with colouring books, crayons, and texta stamps!

My new post-crutches mission is to find the Chinese supermarket and the 24 hour bakery - both are apparently quite close, I'm just yet to see them.  On a desperate hunt for real rice crackers, and also pretty keen to find the stuff for Vietnamese rolls :) Also just realised today that our week long break known as Reading Week is the week after next - so I should get busy organising something fun to do for it!