Delightful Turkey

Okay, I know the title is totally cheesy...but hey I like cheese so I figured you guys wouldn't mind...too much.

Have been in Turkey for 3 or 4 days now and it's all quite nifty. Although I would like to take a moment to point out the irony of cancellation of our original Cairo to Istanbul tour because of the war between Lebanon and Isreal, and now that that's all quieted down and we've picked the 'safe' option of just doing a Turkey tour bombs having been going off every day since we arrived! Gotta love that, eh?

Istanbul was neat, but it's a huge city - about 20 million spread over more than 200 square kilometres. Therefore, we were only able to see the tourist area where we were staying, so I don't feel like I really saw much of daily life in the city. But that being said, the tourist area was phenomenal, so we certainly saw lots of cool stuff, including:

1) Aya Sofia (aka Hagia Sofia)
- Built around 500 AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, this was one the most important churches in Christendom for hundreds of years. (This was back when Istanbul was Constantinople...not Istanbul...so if you've got a date in Constantinople she'll be waiting.... oh you get the idea)! It was designed as a 'mirror of heaven' so all people who walked into it would be so impressed by its beauty that they would want to be better people so they could go to heaven. Then in 1453, Sultan Mehment II sacked Constantinople, ravaged the church and turned it into a mosque. Then, during the crusades, most of the most important icons and reliquries were 'borrowed' by 'devout' crusaders and taken to Rome. Now Aya Sofia is a musuem, however, the original design is still visible and it stunning.
1) The Sultan Ahmet Mosque (or the Blue Mosque)
- This was built in the early 1600s and was supposed to rival the beauty and majesty of Aya Sofia. It definitely does this. It's beautiful. The most interesting fact about it though is in regard to its minarets. Apparently, the Sultan asked for the minarets (the tall, pointy towers) to be made of gold, but the Turkish word for gold is very similar to the Turkish word for 6, so Sultan-dude's architect mis-heard and built 6 minarets surrounding the mosque. When the mosque was finally built and shown to the religious leaders of the day, the Sultan got into massive trouble because the only other mosque in the world that had 6 minarets was in Medina,which is one of the two most sacred places in the world for Muslims. So everyone thought Sultan-dude was trying to put himself on par with the mosques built in Mohommad's honour! In order to save his reputation (and most likely his hide) he promptly shipped his architect off to Medina to go and build a 7th minaret for the mosque in Medina. Neat storey, eh?
3) Topkapi Palace (now Musuem)
- Built in the 1400s, this Palace was the functioning home and seat of government for the Sultans of the Ottaman Empire for nearly 400 years. It ceased to be used around 1860. Man did those sultans ever like to live in style! The Palace was big enough to have 4000 permanent residents, but often visiting dignitaries would increase the temporary population to 5000 or 6000 at any given time. There were special quarters for the doctors, the scribes, the enuchs, bizzarely there was a circumcision room, and of course the ever important harem:)


All these things are 'must sees' for anyone who chooses to come to Turkey in future. I would not recommend coming in peak season though. That is unless your idea of fun is to get frog-marched along through halls and halls of jewelry, paintings and carpets with about 300 other souls all oooing and ahhing over the same stuff. Blah! Tourists! (For the record, I'd rather think of myself as the kettle, rather than the pot...thanks).

Another highlight of our short time in Istanbul was smoking a nagilah pipe, which is the Turkish version of the Sheesha pipe we smoked in Egypt. Mandarin flavoured tobacco! It was soooooo good! Am seriously considering giving up my life of wandering to open a coffee/nagilah pipe shop in Vancouver!! (just kidding)

Overall impressions of Turkey thus far:
- It's more expensive than I expected; everything is similar to Canadian or European prices which is damaging the budget somewhat. D'oh! (It's alright, I'm quite sure I'll be able to make up my budget on the next phase of our trip - Paris and Rome are cheap, right???)
- It's quite European; the public transit systems here are very advanced, clean and efficient. Also, there is quite a bit of English here, which is really good because Turkish seems like a rediculously hard language to learn. The would for 'thanks' is like 14 sylables: teshekularederimefindim!!! no joke!
- Everyone here still loves and reveres Attaturk, which is cool. If you don't know about him, I seriously recommend picking up a book about him. He is a very, very interesting character. For now though, all my courses on Middle Eastern politics and history are coming in very handy! All that education apparently didn't go 'in vain for nothin'!


Right now we are in Central Turkey in area called Capadocia (pronounced Kap-pa-do-kia). The reason this area has become famous is becuase the land was once entirely covered by layers and layers of volcanic rock and at one point is was also all underwater. This means that the current rock formations are absolutely bizzare and very cool, because of the way the diferent types of rock have gradually eroded. All quite beautiful. (Don't worry, cool photos are coming soon).


The big event for today was going to a small town called Nevshir where they have a pottery factory that has been hand-producing pottery for hundreds and hundreds of years. Apparently, this area was completely agriculturaly useless so the men had to learn how to become potters and the women had to become weavers. In fact, men were not allowed to marry until they had mastered the basic art of throwing a pot* and the better they were the more wives they could have. A master potter, capable of throwing the most difficult pieces was allowed to marry 4 wifes!

Anyway, I learned an important lesson at the pottery factory today: talent is not hereditary! They gave us a demonstration on how to throw a pot on a kick-spin wheel and then asked if any of us wanted to have a go. So, of course I said 'sure'! thinking that as I'd watched my mother do this a million times as a kid, that I'd be able to do it. Besides, the guy giving the demo made it look so easy! I then proceeded to embarass myself entirely by just making a big messy blob of clay. But I got really messy, and it was lots of fun and now I have a new appreciation for just how talented my mother really is!
















- View of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul
















- Inside the Blue Mosque
















- Fascinating rock formations in Cappadocia; yes those are actually windows...people used to live in rooms carved out of the rock faces.

















- Niffty camel rock in Goreme!
















- Me & B hanging out in Love Valley, Goreme, Cappadocia.

- Trying to throw a pot in Goreme, having fun and making a big mess!!!


TK

* For the unenlightened amound my reader-ship, the phrase 'throwing a pot' does not mean literally picking up the pot and tossing it against a wall. It means taking a lump of wet clay, putting it on a spinning wheel and shaping it into a pot with your hands; a delightfully messy process:)

Snorkling the Red Sea and Climbing Mount Sinai

Hello again everyone,

This will be my final post from Egpyt. I know y'all are probably ready for something new, so just to keep you all happy, we am flying of to Istanbul (not Constantinople) tommorrow:) As many of you know, I've been looking forward to a trip to Turkey for years now, so I am quite excited and we will be there for 3 weeks, so I hope to have lots of cool things to write about from there.

But, before I move onto Turkey, I have more to say about this fascinating country. I've been told that India is a country of colours; along the same lines, I would have to say that Egypt is a country of sounds. In Cairo, the sounds are unique and constant. The predominant sound is that of the car horns. The car horn is far and away the most important car-part here in Egpyt; they barely use the steering wheel or the mirrors, they just about never use the brakes or check thier blind spots, they just point the car in the direction they want to go and keep honking the horn to let other vehicles know that they are coming. Being in a vehicle in Cairo is a truly scary, adrenaline producing rush!! We even got in a car accident! We were in a small group with a tour guide going to the Egyptian Musuem. Our driver was going through an intersection and a taxi, coming from the other direction decided to continue going through the same intersection. It was completely obviously that we were going to hit said taxi, but our driver just honked his horn a couple of times, which, shockingly, did not work and so ! BANG! we hit the taxi! Now we were only going about 10km/hour, so the only injuries suffered in our vehicle were a bruised arm (poor Lisa) and a broken nail (poor me), so no need to worry Mom! But the whole thing was quite surreal.

The next sound that characterizes Egypt is the sound of the Imam calling the faithfull to prayer. It happens 5 times a day, every day, at the same time. The fasinating thing is that all the hundreds if not thousands of mosques througout the city all have loudspeaker systems set up, so you can hear the sound of the call-to-prayer verberating and echoing from building to building for about 15 to 20 minutes at a time. It is truly a beautiful, peaceful, and haunting sound. Even the car horns seem quieter for a brief space of time.

The next and last sound that I would say distinguishes Egypt is the sound of the merchants inviting us into their shops! I must have heard the phrase "Hello, my friend, come into my shop" a thousand times here! Their favourite phrases are "Special price - just for you" and "Don't tell anyone I give you this price". They also always ask where we are from, and when we say Canada the inevitable reponse is "Canada Dry". The funny thing is, I have not seen a single can or bottle of Canada Dry while we've been here, so how they have developed this instant association is beyond me!


So, after 13 days here, my synopsis of Egypt is that it is full of big, old things, fascinating monuments, pushy salesmen, and interesting noises. Below are some of my favourite photos from the things that we have done over the past week.


















- Snorkling in the Red Sea was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. These two photos don't do it justice at all, but our disposable underwater camera wasn't exactly of the best quality, so all the fish look grey in the pics. (sigh). The place where we went snorkling was called the Blue Hole, which was just 15 minutes outside of Dahab. While not an orignal name, the Blue Hole is certainly appropriate, because is was literally a vast circle surrounded by a stunning coral reef. It was located immediately off-shore. We just walked along a short walkway, jumped into the water, with snorkels, masks and flippers, and happily swam around for about 4 hours looking at the absolutely beautiful coral and fish. I was amazed at how colourful it all was. Since our photos didn't really turn out, you'll all just have to come here for yourselves to find out how amazing it is!


























- The above 5 pictures are a sampling from our hike up Mount Sinai - or to be specific, our hike up Moses Mountain, which is for the record the 4th highest mountain in Africa! So there! This was definitely also a highlight of our trip here. We left the hotel at about 11:00pm and drove for about 2 hours to the start point. This means that we started climbing at about 1:00am. It was about a 3 hour hike, so while most normal people were asleep in their comfy beds, we were hiking up a a very steep mountain in pitch black! Hard work, let me tell you. It was all worth while however, because when we arrived at the top, the view of the stars was something I will never forget. You may have seen or heard the phrase 'a velvet black sky' but to actually understand it you just have to climb this mountain and look out at the stars at 4 o'clock in the morning. (Or, according to some of the Aussies in our group, you can also see this kind of site in the Australian outback!)

As you can see from the second photo, we set up blankets on an outcropping of rock that our guide took us to. If you'll take a moment to note the pitch black outlines around the outcrop - that is not a trick of photography; we really were lieing on this outcrop, inches away from a sheer drop about 2000 metres strait down! We looked at the stars for a while and even slept for a couple of hours. Then we watched an amazing sunrise. The only bad part was having to hike back down the mountain! But even that was bareable, because at the bottom was St. Katherine's Monestary. It is the oldest Monestary in the world (built around 300AD) and is fascinating for at least 3 reasons: 1) The Burning Bush, which told Moses to Climb the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments is still there, and still alive 2) The Moses Well is there and 3) Actually inside the Monestary walls is a mosque, which was built to show that Christians and Muslims can live together in harmony.

All in all, it was an incredible night for all of us, but special mention goes to our new friend Charlie who was deathly scared of heights, but still managed to climb up and down the mountain!





- This is me, Charlie, Brad and Haylee (taking photo) having a relaxing and yummy breakfast overlooking the Red Sea the day after the hike.


























- This is me and Brad participating in a popular Egyptian passtime - smoking a sheesha pipe. The tobacco is usually fruit flavoured (I think this one was apple) and quite yummy. We are most definitely looking foward to visiting Haylee in Australia and Charlie and Lisa in England later on in our travels, so we can help test out the sheesha pipes they bought at the market in Cairo.







- Taken on our final day in Cairo, this is a picture of the city from the lookout point by the Mohammed Ali Mosque. (No, not named after the boxer, but rather the religious and policial leader of Egypt about 200 years ago; he is deemed to be the father of modern Egypt). TheMosque was stunning inside; we got to take our shoes off and walk around! The only downside was having to wear a headscarf in 40 degree heat!

I am particularly proud of this photo, because Brad and I made it to the Citadel (the name if the area of Cario where the Mohamed Ali Mosque as well as several other very important mosques are located) on our own! Our tour officially finished yesterday, so we've spent today wandering around Cairo on our own; we managed to get a taxi, both directions!, to the Citadel, and not get rolled for all our money and possesions. Very, very cool:)

So Ladies and Gentlemen, that was it! The moment I'd been waiting for all my life. Egpyt! Fascinating, beautiful, loud, and friendly. I'd recommend anyone to come here; and for the record our 'On the Go' Tour with tour leaders Mostafa and Sharif was AWESOME. Better yet, it was 'mashi, mashi'*!

Until the next country,

T

* Egyptian Arabic for 'all good'

Congratulations Dave and Christine

Hello all,

I recently found out that my friend Dave Crombie has become engaged to Christine, who must be a wonderful, funny, and patient woman!!

So, here's us raising a glass to Dave and Christine in Dahab, Egpyt.

I wish you all the best Dave,

T

Cyprus Photos

- Us with Caelem, Hannah, Malcolm and Jennifer



























- The beautiful Cypriot Villa








- Fun with Noodles



- - - The Unforgettable Banana Split Making Contest!









- More fun with Noodles!

Fun Times in Egypt

Hello everyone,

Well, we have now been in Egypt for about a week. We have seen Cairo, including the pyramids, and the sphinx; we have been to Luxor to see the Luxor Temple, the Valley of the Kings, and the Valley of the Queens; we have taken 17 hour bus ride from Luxor to Dahab, which is a beach town on the Sinai Peninsula; we have been snorkling in the Red Sea, and tonight we are going to be climbing Mount Sinai to watch the sunrise and to visit St. Katherine's Monestary, and to see the Burning Bush.

All in all Egypt has been incredible, due, in large part, to the fact that we are traveling with a very good tour company called 'On the Go'. This country would be difficult and in some cases impossible to travel in independently. For example, you cannot just walk up to the pyramids and wander around; you have to be with an authorized guide and they check his ID at the entry point. If you were to arrive on your own, they would just deny you entry, or make you pay lots of money for a guide at the pyramid itself. Also, when we took our 17 hour bus ride from Luxor to Dahab, we had to travel in a convoy of busses, with a police car in the front, middle and rear. It is simply not allowed to just get in a car and drive the route by yourself. Therefore, we are very grateful for the advice recieved from my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bern! Otherwise we might have just shown up here on our own, and then not been able to see anything or go anywere! Thanks!!

Below are some cool photos of what we've been up to, and some SUPER-cool photos of us snorkling in the Red Sea will be posted soon.

















- The Sphinx. Need I say more?















- Our super-cool group. From left to right Hayley, Me, Our guide Mahmood, Brad, Charlie, and Lisa.
















- The view from the balcony of our absolutely phenominal 5* hotel in Luxor. Yes, that body of water in the back ground is the Nile!!!!!

- A donkey swimming in the Nile.


- - Me and B swiming in the Nile!



- The Temple of Luxor























- The Temple to Hatchepsoot; a Queen of Egypt about 3500 years ago. Apparently she was a pretty darned effective Queen, because after her 25 year reign, her step son killed her and then attempted to erradicate every image of her and every monument dedicated to her. But there were just so many of them and they were so big (note above two photos) that he was decidedly unsucessful in elminating her from the records of Egyptian history; her Temple gets about 10,00 tourists visiting every year!







- Camels, with tourist buses in the background. I love the incongruity of it all:)


-














- Brad and Camel!
















- The Pyramids at Giza. About 3000 years old. Not bad, eh?

Pool-Side Relaxation and Curb-Side Stress

Hello Faithful Readers,

I'm sure you've all been chewing your fingernails in worry over the risk of Poor-Little-Me stuck at Heathrow, while all this horrible stuff has been going down in the UK. Bombs made out of mouth wash and deoderant...how utterly rediculous!

Anyway, you can all breathe a sigh of relief, happy in the knowledge that I have not been incommunicado because of chaos at LHR, but rather because I been working very hard at lounging poolside and beachside in Cyprus for the past 5 days...

I know, I know; you're all very relieved:0)

That, and you probably want to kill me because there is no logical reason why I should have gotten so lucky as to spend 5 glorious days sun tanning in Cyprus...Truly, there is no rhyme nor reason to the patterns of this crazy world. (Unless I was Florence Nightingale in a previous life, that is).

So Cyprus was lovely. We were put up at Hannah's parent's villa in Annarita, which is a lovely little town close to Pafos. Hannah's parents, being just about the most generous people I've ever met, let us stay at their villa, eat their food, and lounge by their pool. More than this, they took us to lovely secluded beaches and even took us to play mini-golf, where a most momentous event occured. I got a hole in one.

Yup.
Me.
Who has NOOOO patience for golf, in any of it's forms
Got
A
Hole
In
One

I even have a fancy certificate with my name and the date and everything on it as proof. I'm going to keep it forever and ever:)

Now, I just have to figure out a way of justifying the fact that even with the Hole-In-One, that I still got the worst score out of the six of us, and then life will be perfect.

So, Cyprus was 5 days of pure relaxation and fun with C&H and those floating noodle things that you put in swimming pools.

I do have some nice photos of Cyprus, but they will have to wait, as the Internet Cafe we are in right now a has already made Brad's fancy-smancy Ipod blow up - yes, he's cranky - and we don't want to risk blowing up the camera as well...

But, as the cliche goes, all good things must come to and end, and so this morning we got up early, packed our bags and headed for the airport to catch a flight to Cairo. Now, I am not a nervous flyer at all, however, I was a wee bit disconcerted to note that the windows of our lovely Egypt Airways aircraft had been put in upside down....the windows shades pulled up from the bottom of the window, rather than down from the top. Decidedly odd. Nevertheless, the one hour and ten minute flight flew by (pun definitely intended) especially because they actually fed us - Air Canada eat your heart out! They fed us on a one-hour flight!

And we landed safe and sound at Cairo International Airport at 3 o'clock this afternoon. Now, I was expecting the airport to be complete, unadulterated chaos. I expected a mad house, with millions of people yelling and crowding around with no order or organization whatsoever. On the contrary! My first surprise of Egpyt was that the airport was spotlessly clean, very efficient and not busy at all! Whew:) We sailed through passport control, got our bags in no time and then were whisked out of the airport by the guy from our tour group who was right on time to meet us.

Oh - I suppose I should interject here that the Tour that we were supposed to do, which was Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Turkey, was cancelled because of idiot people shooting at each other in the immediate vincinity of my vacation destination. Svolochie!* Anyway, as that tour was cancelled, we booked a new Egpyt one, which takes us to the pyramids, Luxor, and the Sinai Peninsula. We also rebooked a different tour around Turkey, so we will be there for 3 weeks after we have finished our 12 days in Egypt.

Now, interjections over with, I think the smoothness of the airport experience lulled me a bit; I was starting to think that Cairo was a pretty normal city. And then we got in the vehicle and started to drive into the centre of the city.

THIS PLACE IS HUGE.

And

CROWDED.
CROWDED.
CROWDED.

Cairo was apparently designed for 2 million inhabitants. The current population of the CITY - not the country, just the city is a wopping 23 million souls. All vying for a toehold on the pavement of this crazy town. The roads have no lines to divy up the lanes. There is just a seething mass of traffic** vaguely heading the same directions. To quote our driver 'accidents happen here every second'!

On the bright side, and this really is a bright side, we got upgraded to a 5* hotel for the night. I guess they figure that the tourists who are dumb enough to come here at the hottest time of year (the temperature is usually between 40 and 50 degrees in August) deserve some kind of compensation:)

So Friendly Driver Guy takes us to our hotel, and gets us all nicely checked in, while we stand there in our back-packs feeling decidedly out of place. Then he asks us if we have student cards as the prices to get into tourist sites are significantly cheaper for students. We hang our heads forlornly and reply, no, we are not students. Friendly Driver Guy says, ' no, I didn't ask if you were students, I asked if you had student cards.' Slightly puzzled, we reply that no we don't. He asks if we are under 36. 'Yes' we respond eagerly! 'We are under 36'. SO FDG informs us that the ever so friendly Egyptian government gives out ISIC (International Student Identity Cards) to any tourist who comes here, under the age of 36. 'Sweet' we yell! This is great news, so we blatantly lie on a nifty little piece of paper he hands us, stating that we are in fact hard working students, plus the cost of the ISIC card, which for some odd reason is about $10 more here than it is anywhere else in the world....hummm....odd...And tommorrow morning we will get fancy Student ID cards that should save us a bunch of money here and throughout the rest of the trip as well.

All in all we were pretty happy with our introduction to Egypt.

Then we found out that we had to cross the street to get to the bank machine.

Woah Nelly!

As I mentioned, traffic here is the dictionary definition of insanity. Add to this insanity the sad fact that there are no crosswalks or traffic lights for pedestrians to cross at. You think BASE jumpers are dare-devils?!? Nope; pedestrians in Cairo - now there are some truly fearless folks! As a pedestrian in Cairo who needs to cross the street, you must walk to the edge of the curb, take a deep breath, close your eyes, repeat 'I have good medical insurance; I have good medical insurance' like a mantra, envisage all those games of Frogger that you played as a kid, try to forget how many times that poor Frog died a gruesome death under the wheels of a pickup truck, and make a run for it. Horns honk, breaks squeal, drivers swear, and the lucky ones make it accross. So far B and I have been lucky! Man, what a rush!

But right now, after about 2 hours at this Internet Cafe, I am truly starting to melt into my chair, so I am going to play Frogger for the last time this evening and head back to the fancy hotel accross the street and relax in my beee-uuu-ti-fully airconditioned room.

Tommorrow we are going to see the pyramids and the sphinx ! Am very, very excited about this, so new super-cool photos should be forthcoming.

Bye for now,
T


* Not particularly nice Russian word.
** 'Traffic' in Cairo is not just cars and trucks, but also pedestrians, donkeys, horses, scooters, motorcyles (and NO ONE wears a helmet), and just about anything else you can think of.

Travels around Britain

Whew!
Now that it's taken me about a dozen greuling (no, I have no idea how to spell that word...) hours to upload these blinken' photos to this blog, I have almost no time left to actually write about what we've been up to for the past 10 days... sigh...I lead such a hard life...Is anyone out there going to sympathise with my plight?

No?

Didn't think so!

:)


Britain has treated us very very well; the past 10 days have been loads o' fun. First, we successfully managed to get Danika back to Vancouver, despite an impossibly short connection time in Ottawa on the way home. So, for the past littel while it's just been me and Brad travelling around the country!

We spent a lovely few days doing day trips around London and Essex. We went to Colchester and saw a fascinating exhibit on the impacts of the Roman rule over England, and learned some cool stuff about Bodecia - a very, very interesting lady. We went to London, to my very favourite museum: the British Imperial War Museum which was, as always, great. We also went to the British Musuem, and discovered that they have the cheapest luggage storage facility in London: just £1 (about $2) for all day luggage storage!! Ain't that great?!

The British Museum, however, is much more than just a cheap place to leave one's bags...it is a very famous museum, with all kinds of exhibits. Take the below picture for example. It is a fascinating display of people looking at the Rosetta Stone. It is, of course, impossible to actually see the Rosetta Stone, but it is neat to watch people try!

















After mooching of the good graces (and great food) of my lovely Aunt Valerie for what was probably far beyond our welcome, we toddled off to Petersfield, Hampshire (south of London) to visit Joana for a couple of days. We hung out, drank a beer or six, chatted and caught up on all our (mis)adventures over the course of the past year, and of course talked about wonderful cities like Vancouver and Bristol! Right Joana?!?!















- Very neat tree tunnel in Petersfield















- Joana and I being all active and going on a hike and stuff!




















- The REAL reason for the hike; this is the oldest pub in England; the beer is definitely worth the walk:)



---

After Petersfield, we had a very rushed lunch and catch-up session with my friend Kath and her bf Lex in Bourne End . It was a great afternoon, but SOOO very rushed that we didn't even get a chance for a photo op. All the more reason that B and I are going to spend a few days in Jolly Olde on our way back to Canada in January, and mooch some accomodation and yummy Greek food off Kath & Lex! There will be lots of time for photos then:)

After that, we zipped up North on the train to a wonderous and wonderful city called Newcastle. Now, Newcastle is legitimately a wonderous and wonderful town, however I may be a bit biased towards it, because as it is the place where my two lovely parents met, I have a certain affinity for it. Afterall, without Newcastle, I might not be here....what a shockingly terrible thought:(

In Newcastle we stayed in a great hostel that I would strongly recommend to visitors (link on main page) and just played tourist for a few days. One of the highlights was a trip out to Hadrien's Wall, which was a wall (go fig') built by the Roman Emperor Hadrien (well, not physically built by him, but you know what I mean) about a thousand years ago. It marked the Northern most boundary of the Roman Empire and was supposed to keep those nasty, barbaric Celts up north and away from the civilized Romans. After all, they couldn't have their bloody bloody gladiator games disrupted by some marading vandals, could they?!




















-Me. Drinking beer in Newcastle.















- The newest of Newcastle's very special bridges; this one opens and closes like an eyelid. There is a big plaque there stating that it is a miracle of modern technology. So there.
















- Trying to find Hadrien's Wall, which proved very illusive.















- Finally found Hadrien's wall, and discovered why is it so illusive; a wee bit on the small side, don't you think? As Brad pointed out, a wall 2 centimetres high can't have been very effective at keeping out the barbarian celts....no wonder Rome fell!!


-----
We spent a glorious 4 days in Edinburgh. The weather was perfect, meaning that it wasn't too hot like England was! The city itself is fantastic. Nice and small, so you can walk everywhere. The people are happy and friendly, and the coolest thing is that they speak with Scottish accents and actually wear kilts!

The only downside to Scotland was Brad's continous, and I do mean continous, quoting of Braveheart at every possible interlude!!! I've only seen the movie once, but now I think I could quote whole sections of it by heart:)

Probably the best thing about our stay in Edinburgh was our accomodation. We stayed with Christa and Craig Duncan. Christa is the sister of Brad's childhood friend Adam Rogers. Now, Christa and Craig live in just about the coolest place I have ever seen or heard of. Thier place is a wonderful old stone farm house, about 15 kilometres from the city centre. But due to some wonderful fluke regarding a protected belt of green space surrounding Edinburgh, it feels like 150 kilometres from the city centre! The view from their window was a field of grazing horses - so peaceful and beautiful. Big thank you to both Christa and Craig for being such great hosts, for taking Brad skiing (yes skiing) in Scotland, for giving us such a nice place to stay and, of course, for the McEwans!















- VERY cool picture that Brad took of the castle in Edinburgh.




















- This is me doing Cranky Blueberry impressions! I forgot my coat...okay fine... I foolishly decided not to bring my coat when we went sight-seeing in Edinburgh. And it rained.. Blah. So I had to buy a not-so-cheap-one-size-doesn't-fit-anyone-cheapo-plastic-poncho from the Gift Shop at the Edinburgh Castle. Hence the Cranky Blueberry look...

- Loch Ness! We saw the Monster and are selling the pictures to a tabloid for millions! (Fine, we didn't but it was a nice dream for a while)