Edinburgh & The Highlands

Our latest quick jaunt was off to Scotland. We flew into Edinburgh early Saturday morning and as our bus from the airport rolled into the old town centre and I got a glimpse of the castle on the cliff, I knew I was going to love it. Most of the old stone buildings are black with years of weathering but it gives the city a dark medieval feel - lots of character, lots of history.

We made it to the Royal Mile (the main road running from Hollyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle on the hill) by 8:30, which gave us a little bit of time to explore some of the many narrow alleyways (closes) and grab a quick Starbucks before our tour departed at 9:30.

With Rabbies Trail Burners, we boarded a mini coach that took us up into the highlands, by several castles and along many lochs, including Loch Lomond. Highlights included the view of Stirling Castle high up on a ridge near the William Wallace monument, Kilchurn Castle in ruins on the edge of Loch Awe, and 'Rest and Be Thankful", a beautiful view point in a pass in the highlands. On the drive between stops, our guide told us stories of Mary Queen of Scots, William Wallace, Rob Roy, and surprisingly, graphic depictions of sheep shagging. He rivaled our tour guide in Prague for providing entertaining thoughts you could only shake your head at, but with the added bonus of a Scottish accent.

He also played some great Scottish folk music, such as Roddy Woomble, which I’m listening to now. The tour was a great way for us to see some of Scotland’s rugged wilderness in the short time we had.

We arrived back in Edinburgh at 7:30 and went straight to Monster Mash, for a delicious dinner of bangers and mash. We could tell that the night life Edinburgh was starting to heat up (or 'hot up' as the Brits say); the streets were crawling with party goers. While sitting in the restaurant 20 guys walked by each wearing different super hero costume - very impressive! We must have seen a half dozen different stag/stagette parties on streets. Alas, we could not keep our eyes open to join in the partying so we headed to our cubby hole of a room in a hotel at the base of the castle.

We tried a 'wee bit' of Haggis on Sunday for breakfast, which actually wasn’t bad, but we skipped the blood pudding. We then did a tour of Mary King's Close, medieval alleys and dwellings that were sealed off when the city hall was built above it in the 1800s. We spent the remainder of the day walking through the city; up to the castle, down through the Georgian New Town, through all the back streets and closes, down the Royal Mile to Hollyrood, up Arthur's Seat, and then up Calton Hill. Arthur's Seat is this big hill in the middle of the city, like Nose Hill in Calgary but more rugged. Climbing up it gave us a nice view of the city and out to the Firth of Forth. We finished off the day with a drink at a cozy pub and then headed back to the airport. We weren't able to squeeze everything in but we were happy with what we accomplished in two days, and we were really impressed with Edinburgh. Check out our pics, and go if you get the chance!

Next weekend - Estonia and Latvia, where it’s supposedly snowing right now!

Norwegian Wilderness

This past weekend we went to Norway to relax and play in the snow with our friends. The captain of our Ultimate Frisbee team, Hildy, is Norwegian and her family has a cabin in the woods, far away from civilization. She generously/bravely invited the team to the cabin for a weekend. How could we not go? When would we have the chance to do something like this again? A lucky seven of us ended up joining her.

A week before we left, I found out that my cousin Haakon was cross country ski training in Norway and staying with one of his Norwegian aunts. It turned out that he was competing in the Norwegian Junior Nationals the weekend we were there, and the races were being held right in the area we flew into. I couldn’t believe this lucky coincidence! Haakon had races Thursday and Saturday. We flew in Friday morning and got to have a visit with him before he did his training for the day. It was so good to see him and catch up with him. He placed 4th and 5th in his races – Congrats Haakon!

We flew into Norway with Andrew and Jess and another Ultimate player, Francis. We rented a car and started the 3-hour drive into the woods. On the way we stopped in the small city of Drammen, where Hildy grew up. We were tasked to pick up dinner from Hildy’s parents who had made us a traditional Norwegian dish, reindeer stew (how sweet of them!). There wasn’t any snow in Drummen but as we headed farther into the interior of Norway everything was covered in a white blanket and there were huge drifts on the side of the road.

We were greeted at the cabin by Hildy, David and Maurice, who had arrived the day before. They helped put chains on the car and push us up the icy road. As soon as I walked into the charming cabin and looked out the front windows at the view and the softly falling snow, I instantly went into ‘lake mode’ – pure relax, no worries, content to do nothing, happy to be enjoying the wilderness.

The first night we ate the yummy reindeer by candle light and then ventured out into the night. I felt like a kid playing in the snow! We went down to a clearing by a lake and tossed around a glow in the dark Frisbee for ages. The stars were so clear in the sky and then the moon rose over the valley. The trees cast long shadows over the snow. What a night! Of course, the night didn’t end there. We went inside for a few rounds of drinks and some games, including Kerplunk and Diminishing Whist (DW).

After a relaxing sleep in on Saturday, we ate a very Scando (our shortened version of Scandinavian) breakfast and all headed out on different outdoor expeditions that day. Others did cross country skiing and hiking up the ridge. We went for a walk/snowshoe around a lake and by a waterfall. Our veg time inside was spent watching cross country ski racing and ski jumping on TV, running on a solar powered battery (the cabin has no electricity or running water). At dusk several of us headed back out for some tobogganing and more Frisbee. After dinner on Saturday night, the games came out again. More DW and the funniest drinking game I have ever played. I laughed so hard that tears were streaming down my face.

After another long sleep in on Sunday, we all went for a hike. The hike was short lived; we found an open area and were distracted by playing Ultimate. We got a game going and by the end we had all stripped down and were dripping in sweat. We drove back with A&J on Sunday night and the other lucky ones stayed an extra day.

Thank you Hildy (and your parents) for all the food prep, organization and hospitality. Thank you also to Maurice, David and Francis for helping out with the cooking (and David the apple crumble). Thank you Jess for all the snackage and especially the Mars Bar slice. Thank you to all present making it such a fun weekend! Fresh air, beautiful surroundings, exercise, long sleeps, reading, relaxing, laughter, delicious food, great company – can’t beat it!

Our photos are posted here http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/, but for some really good ones check out A&J’s Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/fushmush/sets/72157603981547434/, or their website http://www.fushmush.net/.

Zermatt, Switzerland

John has been working like a mad man for the past month so, thanks to Mom and Stan’s Christmas present, we flew away to Switzerland for an awesome long weekend and much needed break. It was one of our best weekend trips yet!

When I was in university, my sister was living in Switzerland and all the family went over to ski in Zermatt. Zermatt is a quaint little pedestrian village at the base of an incredible ski resort and the famous Matterhorn peak. I wasn’t able to go at the time, so this past weekend was my chance.

We flew into Basel in north Switzerland on the border of France and Germany. Zermatt was on the opposite side of the country, right on the Italian border. The 3.5 hour drive between the two places gave us a chance to see lots more of scenic Switzerland. On the drive we discovered the Swiss love of tunnel building; they spare no expense! Even when we thought a road over a hill might have been easier, the Swiss would stick a gratuitous tunnel there for the fun of it.

We stopped in a summer resort town on a lake called Spiez before heading up into the Alps. To get to the other side of a mountain range, we had to drive our car onto a train which shuttled us through a long, dark tunnel to the other side of the mountain. It was a very weird experience and I tried not to think of the huge mountain mass above us.

The road up towards Zermatt was windy and the towns we drove through were classic. Part of the road was on the edge of a cliff. The road pavement was crumbling away on the edge and the metal ‘safety’ barrier was attached to the crumbling pavement. I was wishing for a tunnel! (Future travelers don’t worry – they are building a tunnel and it’s about finished.)

We couldn’t find accommodation in Zermatt so we stayed in the village below called Tasche, at the hotel “Elite”. The Elite was built the 70s and hasn’t changed one bit, which we got a kick out of. Because no cars are allowed in Zermatt, you have to leave your car in Tasch and take a train for 15 minutes up to Zermatt. Despite being a pedestrian village, there are tons of electronic carts buzzing around Zermatt to shuttle people and luggage to their hotels. We almost got hit a few times because we couldn’t hear them coming.

We arrived in Zermatt late Friday afternoon and caught our first glimpse of the Matterhorn. We got acquainted with the town, rented our skies and decided which gondola we wanted to take so we could get a fast and early start on Saturday morning. We had a drink at the National Hotel and then a huge dinner including goulash soup (yum) and cheese fondue (not yum).

We were up and at them early on Saturday to hit the slopes. We were expecting forecasted sunshine but it was snowing and all we could see were clouds. We boarded the first gondola up towards the ski area under the Matterhorn – and still couldn’t see anything, it was a total white out. We blindly followed a track down to what was luckily another lift to take us farther up the mountain. We were really starting to get down, thinking we would be skiing blind all day with no mountain views, and then, a white light appeared above us. We broke through the clouds – and there was the Matterhorn, gleaming in the sunshine!

We skied above the clouds in the sunshine all day. The conditions were awesome; light fluffy powder and long groomed cruisers. We took a cable car twice up to a crazy high peak with excellent views over the Zermatt valley, the Matterhorn and into Italy. It was such a fun day!!!

The clouds below us cleared at the end of the day so we skied all the way into the town. Halfway down we saw the track that we navigated in the morning in the white out – it is a good thing we stuck to the track because otherwise we would have skied off a cliff!

That night in Zermatt, we had a beer in a pub and watched world cup ski jumping. This is not something we normally (ever) do but we got into it quite quickly. By the end of our beers we were judging jumpers techniques and speed, and estimating/betting on jump distances. (It was surprisingly fun.) After another filling Swiss dinner, we cozied up in our 70s hotel with our tea (yes, the Brit tea drinking has worn off on us).

We had a good long Sunday sleep in and woke to glorious sunshine. We took our time driving back to Basel, on a different route than what we drove in on. It took us through a new mountain pass, cross country ski land, beautiful Swiss villages, another car train in a mountain, and the pretty lake city of Lucerne.

We love all our weekend trips but this one was one of the best! Thanks Mom and Stan.

Salzburg, Austria

Despite her very busy work schedule, John’s sister Lauren managed to get away for 10 days and she flew to London to visit us. She spent a few days exploring London and then we flew to Salzburg, Austria for a winter getaway. Andrew and Jess joined us as well.

We found a great deal on a hotel, breakfast, ski bus package. It was a 4 star hotel and far nicer the accommodation we usually get. We had a good laugh comparing it the hostel dorm room we stayed in when we went to Salzburg in Nov/06.

We arrived Wednesday night, and after a great sleep and breakfast, we caught the ski bus to Shladming for a day of skiing. We had a fun day getting our ski legs back, and trying to navigate around a new mountain in the snow. We made a wrong turn near the end of the day which resulted in a panicked race down the mountain so we wouldn’t miss the bus back.

Friday was Lauren’s 29th birthday. She had sleep in and then joined A&J for breakfast. The hotel surprised her with champagne and cake. They got a tour of the old town, explored and shopped and managed to not get too bombarded by Mozart and the Sound of Music.

John and I skied Flachau on Friday. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to enjoy the gorgeous views of the Austrian Alps. My mom taught skiing in Austria back in the day so I thought of her as I cruised down the slopes. All over the mountain there are on hill lodges for eating and accommodation. They were so quaintly Austrian and one had an outdoor coffee bar.

Friday night was birthday celebration night. We went to the old town for dinner in a classic Austrian restaurant, which unfortunately for Lauren only serviced beer and wine. Lauren had to be introduced to a raddler (aka shandy ie beer with 7-up) and after dinner we made a bee line out of to the bar next door so she could get a rum and diet coke. After that bar, we went to a roof top cocktail bar with a view of the old town, and then we headed to another one where Lauren charmed the Italian waiter and he brought us several rounds of free shots. Our last stop was the hotel bar, where we managed to buy one more round before it closed. We then played a bit of poker and hit the sack.

We all slept in Saturday but woke up in time to enjoy one more delicious breakfast. Poor John had to work so the rest of us explored Salzburg. He met us in the afternoon and we had a beer at a traditional beer hall. It was like a college dorm cafeteria, but with 4 different massive rooms (beer halls) instead of one. Andrew figured out how to get the beer – you get a beer stein from a shelf, it is hot from the wash so you run it under the cold water fountain, then you pay and get a ticket, then you give the ticket to the beer vendor who fills your stein. We bought some of the shaved radish they were selling (why?) and headed for dinner at a great restaurant near our hotel.
We all flew out to London on Saturday night – thanks guys for the fun ski trip! Thanks for visiting Lauren!

Paris, France

We left for Paris on the Eurostar from the new St Pancras station early Friday morning, to meet up with John’s parents who had headed to Paris on Wednesday. The Eurostar was such a treat to take; easy to get to, quick check in time, pretty scenery to watch out the window, and seats with head rests that prevented me from my habitual head bobbing whilst sleeping.

I know I keep raving and gushing about cities, and that is not going to stop with Paris. It was so beautiful! I loved the monuments and Parisian buildings, and I loved how they were completed by the cities layout. The open streets and the well planned monument locations allow for perfect sight lines of the places of interest around central Paris.

We dropped our bags off at our hotel in the trendy Bercy area of Paris (it reminded us of Kits in Vancouver), and then we took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed the stairs to the top and took in the view of the city; the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, financial district, Champs Elysees, the Obelisque, the Louvre. A huge traffic circle (the intersection of 12 streets) surrounds the Arc and we spent several minutes studying the French traffic circle etiquette. I guess it didn’t really surprise us that the yielding rules were the opposite of England.

From there we walked to Trocadero, an area overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Enroute we grabbed two pain au chocolates, and once in Trocadero we had a coffee at a café with full view of the Tower. (Was paying EUR10 for average coffee worth the view?) We spent the afternoon hoofing it around Central Paris, hitting most of the sights on the west side. We capped it off with some crepes before heading to the hotel to meet up with Ken and Lindsay. (France is not good for our health – we eat way too many pastries and crepes.)

We had a lovely dinner with K&L and got caught up on all their Paris adventures. They were having a great time exploring. We also had some fun discussions about the US Presidential primaries.

On Saturday morning, John went to the Louvre with his parents. They wisely took tours once inside which showed them the highlights of the massive museum and gave some explanation of the art (helping with John’s non-existent art appreciation). The highlight for him was learning how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics.

I went to the Louvre several years ago, so on my sister’s recommendation I took a train to the Chateau of Versailles. The massive palace and the huge gardens really were impressive. There is a large silver collection in Louis the XIV’s state apartments of the palace, several pieces of which came from Rosenburg Castle in Copenhagen, which we’ve been to.

With precision timing, we all met back up in front of the Louvre in the early afternoon and walked east along the river to see Notre Dame Cathedral. The Parisian buildings along the way were equally interesting to look at. From there we split up; Lindsay went to a decorative arts museum and Ken went back to the Louvre. John and I wanted to check out the exhibit everyone was lined up for at the Grand Palace. We looked in the window and figured it was some sort of light show/exhibit. It turned out to be a large exhibit on trains, sponsored by the national rail company. The French seemed fascinated - we weren’t. A fashion show of French rail uniforms throughout the decades? No thanks. The most interesting part was that you could go into old trains, but there was an hour line up for each one, so we skipped that. Then John got yelled at by a security guard when he knocked over a barrier while trying to take a picture, and was told “This is not your home”. Great. We left. Now if the exhibit had been airplanes and airports, John would have been there all weekend.

Later on we walked through Place Vendome, a ritzy square where I can picture Posh Spice et al congreting at fashion week. Near the grand Opera House we found a quaint piano bar and had some drinks and French Onion Soup.

We finished the night off by going to see the Eiffel tower lit up. On the way, we had one of our funniest/embarrassing tourist moments to date. At the piano bar, John pulled out his pocket Metro guide and figured out the trains we needed to take and where to connect, to get from the Opera House to Trocadero. Once in the station, we double checked our route by consulting a large metro map on the platform wall. We were all staring at it, loudly trying to figure out where we were. We could see the green line we needed to be on, but the station names were all different. Just as we were about to give up thinking we were at the wrong station, a French woman took pity on us and managed to explain to us in French that we were looking at an advertisement, not the Metro map! We were so embarrassed but we sure got a good laugh about it. We were all chuckling, including the kind French lady, all the way to our connecting stop.

K&L of course got an early start on Sunday and they were out exploring a huge, intricate garden in Bercy. We rolled out of bed a few hours later and walked through the garden ourselves, and then along the river. It was nice and sunny so we went back into Central Paris to see some of the sights one more time before catching the train back to London.

Thanks for the fun weekend K&L and thanks to all John’s family for coming to visit us over Christmas. It was great having you here.

Scroll down for Portugal’s blog. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Albufeira, Portugal

After a lovely Christmas in London with John’s parents (Ken and Lindsay), grandma (Pat), uncle (Trev) and our Aussie friends Andrew and Jess, John left with his family VERY early on Boxing Day to fly to Portugal. They flew into Faro on the southwest coast of the country and did a short drive into the Algarve to Albufeira and our villas. They were busy the first few days exploring the towns in the area and walking the local beaches. After working those few days, I gratefully joined everyone on the 29th.

It was beautifully sunny every day of our trip. The sun high in the sky beating down on us felt so good after a few dark months in London. It wasn’t beach weather but we usually stripped down to t-shirts by mid afternoon with highs of 16 or 17. It really cooled off at nights though.

John picked me up at Faro airport and took me straight to the old Moorish capital of Silves where we met his family for lunch. Silves had a Moorish fortress and a busy food market. As we have said before, we love traveling in the winter. One of the perks is that the locals venture out and you can see more of what life is like when a place when it isn’t overrun with tourists. Locals were getting their food from the market and wandering through the streets at Silves. They all had their winter coats on, while we foolish tourists were in t-shirts. We all enjoyed a huge lunch in Silves of local fish and Portuguese chicken.

We were staying in villas in a golf resort. Our apartment had balcony facing the south sun, overlooking a pool and palm and cork trees. We spent our mornings there drinking coffee and reading. We felt quite at home in our villas, making and eating dinners, and playing Cribbage and Pentago. We also got our first Bridge lesson.

The small part of Portugal that we saw was similar to neighbouring southern Spain; the inland was less rugged and picturesque but the coast made up for it. The beaches and cliffs were stunning. On my second day there John, Ken, Pat and I went to the southwesterly tip of the country. We ate lunch on the sunny patio of a restaurant overlooking a beautiful beach and cliffs (big highlight of the trip). We drove along the cliffs, past the surfer vans and the big fortress. We stopped at one the lighthouses and admired the sheer drop to the water below. The cliffs and surge of the ocean took my breath away, not to mention the fishermen perched precariously on the edges, tied to the rocks and casting down to the water.

On the last day of 2007 (Happy Birthday Sarah!), John and I drove inland to the cute town of Alte. We walked to a waterfall that John’s family had discovered earlier, explored the town and then enjoyed a coffee on a terrace overlooking Alte’s valley. We tried a local delicacy, which looked like a tasty Beaver Tail style pastry. It disappointingly turned out to be a sweet potato concoction. We should have gone for the Portuguese tart. Later in the afternoon we hit some balls at the driving range at our resort. Much to John’s chagrin, they wouldn’t let us on the course because we didn’t have golf shoes.

We started the New Year’s celebration with drinks and appies at Pat’s villa and then we walked to our restaurant for dinner. Chef Chico and his family did not disappoint; the meal was excellent and great value. We finished the low key evening back at the villa where we tried out the fire place. We were told it might work – it didn’t and we smoked ourselves out (but noted that no fire/smoke alarms went off. Safety first in Portugal). Trev and his girlfriend where the only young ones at heart; they headed into Albufeira along with thousands of others for what we heard was an excellent fire works show. We watched the top of it from where we were and watched some of the spectacular London ones on TV.

We were happy to have a fairly mellow evening as we left for London early on the 1st. It was a nice, slower paced, relaxing trip to end off the year, and it was wonderful to share it with the family. Thank you to John’s colleague Octavio for providing us with lots of tips on his home region. Scroll down for Christmas in London blog. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Christmas in London

We had a busy December after getting back from Prague.

John has a new InterVISTAS colleague in the UK; Ian and his wife Sarah, who joined us in Prague and live in Bristol. So for the InterVISTAS-EU Christmas party, John and I went to Bristol and we all went out for dinner at a bangers and mash restaurant (very English). We stayed overnight with Ian and Sarah and they toured us around Bristol the next day. Parts of the city are really beautiful and grand. It is on a breathtaking gorge and the old buildings took me back 100 years. Where were the horse drawn carriages and men in top hats? We also went to the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum and learned all about the good and bad of Britain taking over the world.

We froze our butts off playing in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament on Sunday the 9th, and then counteracted any benefits of the physical activity a week later with a big Christmas lunch with the team.John’s parents arrived on Dec 14th and his grandma and uncle four days later. They roamed around London and England at record pace. We have managed to cross a few London things off our list with them – the Natural History Museum, a historical walking tour of the square mile of the London City and the Museum of London.

A highlight for me was on Dec 23rd when Jess, Lindsay (John’s mom) and I went to St Paul’s Cathedral for a carol service. It was an incredible experience. The Cathedral is so impressive but not excessive. We lucked out and got seats up in a gallery so we could over look the proceedings. The boys choir paraded through in their traditional robes and sang with heavenly voices. It certainly wasn’t like carol services I had been to in the past; it was much more traditional. The carols were ancient, the program quoted composition dates hundreds of years old. The only carol we knew Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I knew the words to O Little Town of Bethlehem but the music was from the 1500s.

On Christmas Eve day, John’s parents and grandma kindly got to work for me in the kitchen – coffee cake, nuts and bolts, xmas dinner prep, xmas eve dinner. Thank you! What a treat!On Christmas morning we opened our stockings, beautifully made by John’s grandma, and ate a hearty breakfast. John’s family did a lot of shopping at the London markets and they found some really lovely gifts – I was impressed by what they found. Our friends Andrew and Jess brought the turkey over midday and we all went for a walk through the local parks. We spent the afternoon reading, playing games and visiting and then sat down for some more eating.

Thank you to all our guests for making it a special day. I was exhausted by the end of the day, and I had lots of food help. I have much more appreciation for all of our family members who have put on Christmas in the past.
John and his family were off early on Boxing Day to catch their flight to Portugal. I worked a few extra days and joining them on Saturday.

Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/