Scotland!

I have not updated this thing nearly as much as I had planned. One update per week is pretty weak. My apologies.

Anyway, here is the Scotland update as promised.

For memorial day weekend Matt, Stavros and I took a roadtrip / castle tour through Scotland and it was awesome.

The first night we stayed in a bed and breakfast in the Speyside area of the Scottish highlands. This is where all the popular scotch distilleries are located. It was a long drive from Durham to where we stayed, but Scotland was much more scenic than anticipated. We made several stops along the way at a couple castles, loch ness, as well as some scenic outlooks. I'm not sure my pictures are going to do justice to the mystic vibe of Scotland I enjoyed so much. The bed and breakfast was great - we were all enjoying relaxing, drinking some scotch, and most importantly - not working.

At one point, Stavros and I were ordering a drink at their bar when I noticed what looked like an Emmy statue. The owner of the B&B had won this several years ago and kept it behind the bar. I asked if we could hold it, and surprisingly the bartender had no problem with it. I guess I can check 'Holding an Emmy' off my bucket list now.

The next day we tried to tour a scotch distillery but arrived too late. Instead, we bought a bunch of scotch to take back to the states and headed on our way. Matt had created an ambitious itinerary, so although missing the tour was dissapointing, it gave us a little bit of slack to relax and enjoy the drive. We drove up to main city in the highlands - Inverness, en route to a place called the Isle of Sky. The Isle of Sky is supposed to be one of the more scenic areas of Scotland but unfortunately it started raining when we got there, so visibility was significantly reduced. From Isle of Sky we parked the car on a ferry and took a mini-boat trip back to the mainland. The drive from this point on the mainland to Edinburgh was by far the most scenic. My favorite picture from the trip was taken at this weird column structure that overlooked some hills and a lake.

After about 8 hours of driving we made it into Edinburgh. In England they have a bank holiday the same day as Memorial day, so we were expecting Edinburgh to be fairly active even though it was a Sunday. We were sorely disappointed that we couldn't find any decent, active pubs. After searching for awhile we decided to just go to sleep. The next day the three of us woke up early and did a big walking tour of Edinburgh. The town was much more international than I anticipated. My favorite part of the city was a giant cliff/hill on the outskirts called 'Arthur's Seat'. It takes about ten minutes to walk to the top and you have a perfect view of the entire city.

We left Edinburgh in the afternoon on Monday and returned to Durham much more relaxed than when we had left.

Sorry this post is poorly contsructed and ramble-y. Its early and I'm hungry.

Going to the Scottish Highlands

Leaving tomorrow afternoon on an adventure through Scotland.

A brief preview of our itenerary:

- At least 3 castles
- Loch Ness
- At least 1 scotch distillery
- Some awesome sounding place called Isle of Skye
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow

...All in one weekend. Efficiency experts.

Two weeks down

Another week in the books here in the UK. This one was significantly longer and more stressful than the last. I wasn't sure that was possible. The first couple days weren't terrible. However, as our Friday status meeting approached people started getting much more anxious and rushed to finish their sections of the presentation. The morning of Friday's meeting was particularly rough as I was working on a hard deadline to prepare and format the presentation before the 1pm meeting.

By the time our meeting was over on Friday I was very much ready for the weekend. Matt, Jie and I went to a very delicious tapas restaurant in Durham that evening. It was probably the best service we've received since arriving in England. We were sat next to an older guy who was wearing a Broncos hat so I ended up talking to him for awhile about Cutler/Orton and Shanahan. He was very upset that they fired Shanahan.

On Saturday, Matt and I had heard there was a soccer match in Newcastle that afternoon so we decided to try to go. We took the 15 minute train ride and it was packed with Newcastle united fans. Very cool atmosphere already. We struck up some convos with local fans and made our way to the stadium. We got two tickets and then hit up a couple bars before the match. The brits don't tailgate before games - they just pack the bars and drink. Everyone we talked to on the way there had a regular bar they always go to before the games. The bars were packed and people were chanting - pretty much the atmosphere I had imagined. We made our way into the stadium a little bit late. Neither of us really cared much about the game...we just wanted to go for the atmosphere. The game was actually a pretty big one for Newcastle. They needed to win to stay out of the bottom three and potential relegation. Our seats were real cheap and real high up, we actually never sat in them once. We kept just walking around the stadium once we got in. We would find a nice place to stand until someone told us to move and then we'd just go stand somewhere else.

Around half time we started looking around the inside of the stadium and wandered into this one bar area we were not supposed to be in - you needed to have a ticket or something. There were several bachelor parties in there hanging out so we parked next to the bar and started talking to some of the dudes. They were all scottish and each was dressed in a different superhero costume. People in England really do it up for bachelor parties, apparently. Newcastle was down 1-0 and it started raining so we actually didn't make it back in there for the second half. We were having a real good time hanging with the Scottish dudes. Once the game finished we stayed for another beer or two and followed them to a bar.

We hung out with them for awhile and then parted ways. Matt and I wandered around Newcastle and then took a cab back to Durham.

I graduated a year ago

Seems like so long ago, and just yesterday all at the same time.

I just drove on the left hand side of the road

and it was sweet. Only one near miss.

A New Week in England

Back to the plant today. This week may be slightly less stressful than last, since we're in more of a groove and spending less time getting established and more time getting things done.

Stavros left on Sunday and Gus came in this afternoon. We left a bit earlier than usual since Gus was pretty jet-lagged. I didn't feel like we accomplished as much with our day as we could have, but the early exit gave me time to get a nice long jog and workout in.

Going for a run around here is real awesome. It still amazes me that I'm living in a town with a thousand year old castle and cathederal. Here is a nice shot of the river, cathederal and castle from a spot I ran by today. And a sweet shot of the cathedral.

During the jog, my adventurous side led me down a sweet looking dirt wooded path that led me no where. I decided to turn around and on my way back I scratched my knee on something and its burning a little bit right now. I'm going to see how it feels when I wake up tomorrow, hopefully its nothing big.

This past weekend I had to put a good amount of work in, instead of going out and doing something fun. I have a feeling I'll get some more free time this weekend so I'm busy scouting out some potential destinations. I'm thinking a trip up north to Scotland might be in order if I have a good amount of time. If not, I may just venture up to the city of Newcastle, which is close by. I hear that part of Hadrian's Wall goes right by the city.

Random Observation

It stays light out until past 9pm here. I was not expecting that, but I suppose it makes sense.