Scotland Trip - October 15-20, 2008 (Part One)

Day 1: Arriving in Glasgow

After arriving to Glasgow by train, we checked into our hotel and explored around. It was too late to visit any museums, so we went on a quick walk around the hotel area and went back to the hotel to eat. I tried Haggis for the first time with neeps’ and taties’ (turnips and mashed potatoes).

My first bite of Haggis BTW Haggis is a combination of sheep’s heart, liver and lungs along with various spices and is prepared by boiling it in the intestine of the animal. To me it looked and tasted like ground beef but with a pasty texture to it. It's pretty decent considering what it's made out of. Day Two: Exploring Glasgow We started off by having a hearty Scottish breakfast. I tried another traditional Scottish food that has disgusting origins. The majority of Black Pudding is made out of cooked blood that becomes congealed when it is heated. They toss in a meat filler which has a lot of fat in it. This wasn't as good as Haggis. From there we went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery Museum.

Stephanie making friends with a statue

They had a lot of interesting things ranging from a Salvador Dali painting to a tacky Elvis with a glowing halo.

Stephanie with angelic fat Elvis

Call me uncouth, but I liked the tacky Elvis better. From the museum we had an early afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Room. It was designed by an artist named Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which I think was supposed to impress me. Seeing as how this was more for Stephanie than for me, I acted impressed and enjoyed a good cup of tea.

Russell enjoying an afternoon tea

After our tea, we walked to the University of Glasgow where we paid for a cheap, but very infomative tour of the campus. The U of Glasgow was home to Lord Kelvin (the father of Thermodynamics), James Watt (is cool because he has an electrical unit named after him), and Adam Smith (the father of modern economics). Honestly, I'm not a very big fan of Lord Kelvin. I can't remember my exact grade in Thermo, but I know it wasn't good and I hated the class. I did not become a civil engineer to remember pv=nrt. I'll never forgive him for taking up space in my brain that I desperately need for an equation that I'll never use.

Russell sulking in front of Lord Kelvin's statue

Other than their infatuation with Lord Kelvin, the university was a great place to visit. It had beautiful archicture and a really old feel to it.

Stephanie in front of the main building

The south side of the main building

Before leaving, we were told to check out the Hunterian Museum on campus where they had on display Robert the Bruce's toe. We saw the toe. Upon leaving the museum we decided to take a walk through Kelvin park. We ate at a restaraunt called Blas where we tried Cullen Skink, which is basically just chowder. It was good though, and we were able to see Kelvingrove Museum lit up at night.

Kelvingrove Museum at night

Here I am the next day describing the food we ate in an awesome Scottish accent. I totally blended with the locals.

Day 3: Glasgow/Inverness/Tain

We did a lot of traveling on Day 3 since we had to make it up to Inverness for a boat cruise out of there the next day. The train ride was six hours long, but we were able to see a lot of the scottish countryside and the William Wallace monument in Stirling.

The William Wallace monument in Stirling. "FREEDOM!!!"

We arrived in Inverness and then took a cab to see the Glenmorangie Scotch distillery in Tain.

Russell enjoying scotch at the Glenmorangie distillery

The cab was driven by a country music listening Scot that spoke both English and Gaelic. It was a very entertaining ride. He was especially excited to know that I was named after John Wayne (Wayne's my middle name). We arrived at the distillery and received three "wee drams" of scotch for tasting. They let us keep our nosing glasses and gave us a free hardback book about the history of scotch. We were able to walk around, look at the stills, go to their tasting room, buy some scotch and see where it was aged.

The Glenmorangie whisky stills, the tallest in Scotland

From the distillery, we walked to the Morangie House Hotel. It was the nicest hotel that we stayed in during our Scotland trip. It was even nice enough for both the Queen Mum and Prince Andrew to visit.

Stephanie in front of the Morangie House Hotel

Russell and Stephanie enjoying the posh environment

Dinner was delicious. We each ordered an appetizer and decided to share a main course (chicken stuffed with haggis, yum). It turned out to be a great idea, because my appetizer was huge. We went to bed tired, but with an empty stomach.

Russell with his appetizer - mussels

Scotland Trip - October 15-20, 2008 (Part Two)

Day 4: Inverness/Loch Ness/Edinburgh

We woke up very early and took a train to Inverness where we took the bus to our Loch Ness cruise.  Our main goal was to find the monster.  Although I believe in UFO's, I don't believe in Nessie.  Stephanie, however, was determined to find her.

Stephanie looking for the Loch Ness monster

The Loch was beautiful.  It reminded me a lot of Washington state.  There wasn't very many other boats out so a lot the time it felt like we had it to ourselves.   

Russell and Stephanie on Loch Ness

As you would expect, it was cold and very windy,... 

Stephanie trying to stay warm

...but we were still sad to get off the boat when we arrived at our destination: Urquhart Castle.

Stephanie and Russell at Urquhart Castle

At Urquhart we felt a little rushed, as we were only given about 50 minutes to look around before the tour bus left to take us back to Inverness.  Urquhart has been around since the 6th century and has seen many people storm its walls, but none as fierce as Stephanie (and definately none wearing a pink hat).

Stephanie storming the castle

Stephanie after storming the castle

From there, we took a tour bus back to Inverness and listened to a very entertaining tour guide that sounded like Willy from the Simpson's.  From Inverness we took a train to Edinburgh, found a hotel, ate dinner at a burger place and relaxed the rest of the night.

Picture taken by Stephanie from the Forth Railway Bridge near Edinburgh

Day Five: Edinburgh

The day began early with a monumental discovery.  See the movie below.

Wow, and you think you know a person. 

From there we went to visit Edingburgh Castle, which was the highlight of the trip.

Russell with Edinburgh castle in the background

The castle is over 900 years old and is where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James I who united Scotland and England under one rule when Queen Elizabeth died.  It holds the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny which is an ancient Scottish relic that King Edward I stole in the 1300's.  It was placed in Westminster Abbey until 1950 when a group of college students from the University of Glasgow broke into Westminster Abbey, stole it and took it back to Scotland.  England eventually got it back, but the backlash caused them to permanently "loan" it to Scotland, only taking it back whenever a new monarch was crowned.  Very interesting story. 

Russell on top of Edinburgh Castle

Stephanie touring the castle

Stephanie and Russell bombarding Edinburgh from the castle

View of Edinburgh from the castle

There were a lot of interesting things to see there.  We spent three hours walking around the grounds and through the various buildings.  In the dungeons they have on display an old door to the cells where the prisoners were housed that had a lot of graffiti scrawled into it.  The most interesting one was from an American prisoner held there during the Revolutionary War.  Long live the stars and stripes!

From the castle we went to the Scottish Museum and the Museum of Childhood.

Scottish Museum:  Can you spot Stephanie?

We went back to our hotel, rested and ate dinner.  That night we went on a ghost and ghouls tour of the Edinburgh underground which was, according to the BBC, the most haunted place in Scotland.  We saw neither ghosts nor ghouls, but as you can see below, Stephanie was still scared.

Stephanie trying to be brave during the ghost tour

Day Six: Edinburgh and back to  Winchester

Before leaving Edinburgh we manage to see the National Scottish Art Gallery and the Museum of Writers.  We walked around the Royal Mile of Edinburgh one last time and headed home back to Winchester.  

Stephanie on the Royal Mile

Stephanie in front of the Museum of Writers

London - October 11, 2008 - Texas OU Game Day

Is there any doubt that the best team in college football is Texas? Probably, but I'm not one of those doubters.

Things I learned from the game:
1. Jordan Shipley exists
2. Colt McCoy will win the heisman.
3. Jamaal Charles is no Ogbanaya.
4. Bob Stoops is no Mack Brown.
5. Stoops is poops (although I kind of already knew this).
6. The Oklahoma punter deserves a daytime Emmy award.

Stephanie and I traveled to London to watch the Texas-OU game on Saturday with the Texas Exes.  Since the game started at 5 PM over here, we spent the early afternoon at the British History Museum shown below.

Stephanie in front of the Museum of British History

The most intelligent exchange of ideas occured while we were in the ancient Egypt section. It went something like this.

Russell: They sure carved a lot of crap.
Stephanie: Yeah. They didn't have television.

Russell decoding ancient Egyptian Hieroglphyics

Anywho, from there, we walked along the Thames River to the BBQ place by the Tower of London where the game was being shown. We arrived at 4 PM and it was packed already (about 100 people). We managed to find a good seat, met some nice people and cheered the Longhorns to victory. It was a fun environment to watch the game in. You could tell that everyone missed football and BBQ. We met one guy that traveled from Amsterdam just to watch the game. The only things that could of made the day better would have been to see a crying Oklahoma child in the stands and a corny dog, but I guess we can't have everything. The video below is us singing the Eyes of Texas after the game. Hook Em!

Victory Celebration after the TX OU Game

London--September 28, 2008

Hello!  Thought I should blog about London before I forgot what we did there!  

Stephanie in front of Buckingham Palace

The International Society at The University of Winchester organized this trip for the foreign students. It was all Asians, Canadians, and Americans. I suppose London is old hat to the European students. We got a super discount and my Advisor was kind enough to let Russell go too (otherwise I would've had to hang out with undergrads--as if).

There were 48 of us on the bus, which is quite a big group to keep together in a big city but I don't think anyone got lost. The first thing that struck me was the traffic. It was Sunday and there were still back-ups, congestion, and a wreck with rubber-neckers (reminded me of home). To cut down on the congestion there is a fee to use a car in London--about $15 a day. The public transportation is so good though that most people don't use cars anyway. Our guide, Susanah, said that her husband had a car but never used it. It was parked on the street and gone 3 weeks before he knew it had been towed. Apparently the signs changed and he never checked. Susanah was really cool and a wealth of information. A 6 ft. 5 Blonde Californian who had lived in London for 12 years, she carried around a floral umbrella and was easy to find in the crowd. Her accent was really interesting to listen to as it went in and out of British and American.

We whizzed around the city as she pointed out different things to do when we returned with more time: Harrods, The London Eye, the British Museum, Half price show tickets in Leicester Square (yes please!). One interesting thing she mentioned about Harrods is that it used to be the official place where the Royal Family shopped. After the owner's, Mohamed Al-Fayed, son, Dodi, was killed in the car crash that also killed Princes Diana, he set up a memorial for them inside the store. However, the memorial says that they were murdered, not killed, implying the Royal family was involved. Needless to say, the Queen and co. shop elsewhere now. (Scandalous!)

We caught the changing of the guard, at Buckingham Palace, which was very cool and official. I love their furry hats which are apparently made out of bear fur (very warm) but have opened debate about their PCness with the Animal Rights peeps. (Controversy!) We did not see the Queen. Maybe next time.

Changing of the Guards

We then stopped by St. James gardens where the rich and royal used to promanade and where the Pelicans live. Then we went to Covent Garden for some shopping and lunch (Bangers and chips aka sausages and french fries :) and watched a real-live street performer. He stood on a ladder in the middle of the square and juggled three big knives. (Dangerous!)

Tower of London was next where we saw the famous Ravens (legend has it that if the Ravens leave, the monarchy and entire British kingdom will fall). 

Russell in front of the Tower Bridge

For those who want the British Royal family to stay put, don't worry the birds' wings are clipped. I learned that some of the guards actually live on the Tower of London grounds. I think this would be so fun--I mean you're right next to the famous execution spot of Anne Boylen, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey! We only had a short time at the Tower, so Russell made sure we saw the Crown jewels, dishes, Coronation robe, etc. along with one ginormous pure gold punchbowl. (Par-tay!) Then we went through the armor museum where you could see the different suits for horses, boys, young Henry VIII and big Henry VIII.

King Henry VIII's Suit of Armour

And then it was over. We got an ice-cream and hopped on the bus to go home. Did I mention the weather was really nice? It was.