Trip Planning Take 2

I think I've found myself the perfect travel companion, now I just have to figure out where to go.

I'll address the first part first. So back in April I met these a few people through a chatroom. One of whom you've already heard quite a bit about as our relationship has progressed through friend and more than friend to basically to mere acquaintance status and everything in between. The other I've mentioned briefly here (don't worry I'm sure you'll be hearing more about him in the future as well). As we talk more I feel like we're becoming closer and closer each day. And we've discussed things like places we've always wanted to visit. Turns out we enjoy many of the same things so finding something to do that we would both enjoy is really no problem.

Some of the places we've talked about going are Denver (roughly half the distance between the two of us), Boston, Nova Scotia, and Portland or Seattle. I've already looked into Nova Scotia a bit for myself, as you might remember. And today I took a look at Boston. After reviewing the tourism website, I have to say I want to go even more now.

Now all I have to do is convince my parents that this guy is on the level (which given how they reacted to the previous situation might be difficult) and that it's safe for me to travel with him.

Vacation Planning

I'm getting to that point in my life where I've got to start thinking about doing all of the things that I want to do in my life. I guess in someways I hoped to have someone to share that with and I'm getting kind of old to go on vacation with my parents, although I had a great time with them in Scotland last summer. So I'm starting to plan my first trip alone.

I've always wanted to go to the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. So I'm looking into that. But so far I've run into a couple of obstacles. Number one, there is next to nothing to do in Sydney and if I'm going to pay $500 round trip for a flight I want it to be a couple of days at least. Also anything I have found to do so far has been for couples or familys. And since I am neither a couple or a family that leaves me with nothing to do, except rent a car and go out to Louisbourg for a day. I was thinking I might be able to hit up a spa or something too. But that's all I've got.

Anyone ever been? Any ideas? Should I just wait until I have someone to go with or scrap the idea altogether?

Post Vacay let down

You know that feeling you have when you come back from vacation and you just want to go back? Well I'm experiencing that now. I needed a couple days at home to get myself back in order again but now I'm ready for the next vacation. Lucky for me I already sort of have plans. Although they aren't exactly finalized.

I can't believe how much shopping we did. Seriously it was mostly eat, shop, drive, shop, sleep. I'd like to see the sites and do some stuff the next time and not just shop all the time. But we'll see what happens.

It was a nice trip though. But I'm glad to be back. It felt so good to sleep in my own bed.

Have you every experienced post vacay let down? Where are you planning to go next?

Vacay time

Everyone needs a little summer vacation. So my brother and I are taking ours this weekend in Fargo/Minneapolis. We're mostly going to shop but also there will be food and resting. And a whole whack of driving. Follow along here if you'd like.

more blogcation

Well I made it back from Regina in one piece. A very tired piece but still together. As for my health well that's not going so well right now. I was pretty good through our whole trip but since I've been back it's been pretty crappy.

Anyway I think I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while. Just until things settle down a bit.

It's almost over

2:59 Pm London Time

We're back in Glasgow now and we've parted way with the others. We fly out of here tomorrow and spend about 19 hours before we get to our final destination.

I have some more pictures to add to my blog but I left my SD card upstairs in our hotel room and I don't really want to go up and get it so I'll add them later. Since wireless is only available in the hotel lounge.

We're staying in the same hotel that was stayed in at the beginning of our trip so it's like we're back tracking our steps now which is kind of neat.

Our day in Edinburgh and at the show

7:01 PM London Time

It's been a while since I did an entry. There has just been so much to see that the days were packed and I have been really tired. Today was a shorter day. Mom and I went into Edinburgh city centre today where I bought a new ring and bracelet as well as some souvenirs for my brothers at home. We saw the castle and Holyroodhouse Palace but we weren't able to enter them because the Queen was in residence at the palace and we ran out of time at the castle.

As for the Royal Highland sow it was pretty damn good. The show itself was interesting. There were a lot of things that they did differently over here than we would but overall it was mostly the same. As for the grounds they were pretty huge. There was all sorts of things to do and see. There was a sheep shearing competition and crafter's tents and an outdoor living section with chainsaw sculpting demonstrations and pole climbing exhibitions. It was very interesting. Oh and the Queen was at the show too but we missed her.

Tomorrow we head up to the Highlands. It's supposed to be beautiful scenery and I'm sure there will be lots of pictures taken.

In search of Nessie.

5:39 PM London time

Today was probably the best day of our trip so far. it started off a little shaky, I got up really early, unnecessarily. And then we got out of the hotel too early and nothing was open which meant a lot of useless walking around. I should be used to this walking around by now. My mother loves to just walk around. Personally I'm not a huge fan AND the blisters on my feet were screaming at me to stop. Then we got on a Jacobite tour of Loch Ness. First we bussed from Inverness to the Loch. Then we jumped on a boat to go to Urquhart Castle which is really just the ruins of an old castle but that's what you see in a lot of pictures of Loch Ness. Anyway then we hit up the visitors centre there before getting back on the bus again to get to the Loch Ness exhibition centre. It was really interesting. I'm rather convinced now that the Loch Ness monster is a giant sturgeon.

Then we came back to Inverness on the bus and found a used book store where I picked up some book including a history of Scotland. I love books stores. I also love museums which is what we did before returning to our hotel.

The first day of the rest of my vacation

9:05 PM London time

So we've left Scotland and come back south to northern England to meet the rest of our crew. We're in the lake district and well these lakes are not exactly the most awesome lakes I've ever seen. I live in between 2 lakes that would be considered ginormous compared to these. Here's a picture that I took of the lake.

Here's another little detail that I failed to omit in my previous post mostly because if I had he would have read it over my shoulder but my seatmate from Montreal to London was super cute. I chatted him up for a while but it's hard to be flirty when your father is sitting in the seat in front of you. Anyway he was on transit to Israel and his name was Zach.

Alright moving on. Today we went to Gretna Green to meet the rest of our tour. Here's the deal with Gretna Green, way back in the day people didn't exactly have weddings. They just kind of said "hey we're married". Then a law was passed in England and the legal age was 21 and you had to get married in a church. But the law didn't apply to Scotland and the age of consent was 16. So English couples would trek over the border and Gretna Green was the first town they'd come to, so they'd get married in the Blacksmith's shop. We saw a mock wedding and visited the little shops and museum. One cool thing is that you can still get married or blessed there. Oh and they had a bagpiper (left) that you could hire out.

As I said we're in England but we're going back to Scotland the day after tomorrow.

In the Middle of the Night

7:08 PM Montreal Time, 2:08 AM London Time

Wow it sure does get dark when you travel forward into the night. It's probably about midnight outside the plane right now even though it's only 8 PM back home. We're supposed to be landing at 7 AM in London so we've got another 5 hours on this place. Actually it'll probably be a bit longer since we got off a little bit late.

Is it pathetic that I've only been away about 12 hours and I'm about ready to come home? It's just been a long day is all. One down, 10 days to go.

Success!

7:08 Montreal Time

So I've made it to Montreal and now we're on our way across the Atlantic. It's pretty insane, but I'm super excited. The first part of our trip has not been without it's ups and downs. First of all my mother and I got into a bit of a row on the tail end of our last flight. Then mom and dad got into it just a little.

Everything at the airport is s incredibly expensive. Here I was thinking $25 was plenty of domestic currency to leave with me since after all we would be overseas after the first day. Clearly I was wrong about that.

I'm seated in the window seat and my poor seat mate is going to know more about my bathroom habits than anyone should about a complete stranger but I have been informed that he's not one for sleeping on planes so at least I know he'll be up. It's also really noisy since it's a large plane and I'm right behind the engine. Good seating choice mom/CAA. But at least my seat mate is cute.

It's here it's here it's finally here

Well actually it doesn't arrive until tomorrow, and "it" is my first trans-Atlantic trip. I have seriously been planning and saving for this trip for well over a year and now it's finally arrived. We fly to Montreal and then to London and on to Glasgow tommorow and then return on the 3rd of July. I'll try to post some stuff while I'm over there but I'm not making any promises. I suspect there will be little to no internet access at some of the places we're going but we'll see.

I'm so excited I may not be able to sleep tonight.

Countdown to travel time

I'm sure I've mentioned it a couple of times but I'm going to Scotland in 6 weeks. Well 38 days to be exact. It seems like I've been talking about it forever and now it's almost here. I guess it's about time to get excited.

I haven't had a real go away type vacation in about a year and a half. The last time was when I went to Quebec with my parents. I actually like traveling with my parents because they like to see a lot of the same things that I do. I really like history especially Canadian history so when we went to Quebec we did things like visit Old Quebec and the Citadel and the Chateau Frontenac.

A few years before that we went on a trip to Saskatchewan. It wasn't very exciting but we did get to see some cool stuff. We went to Batoche and then the Saskatchewan Western Development museum in Yorkton. Yup we're dorky like that.

I'm just hoping we can get some of the historical stuff in too while we're there. We are going to Loch Ness and I'm pretty sure there is a museum there. Even if it is dedicated to a fictional lake monster. I totally want to go.

My Last Vacation Day

Today was the last vacation day I can take before my trip to Scotland. I need to save up everyday between now and then in order to go. But I think it'll be worth it. 

I only accomplished some of what I wanted to do today. I attempted to check on my graduation status but they apparently have to get back to me. I did go to the bank to see about mortgages and have discovered that I will never be able to own a home. Life just isn't made for single people. I also got my hair cut and colored. It's short and dark but I love it. I had wanted to get together with some people I hadn't seen in a while but it just wasn't going to happen. And I only got some of my laundry done. Oh and I didn't call my potential grad schools. 

Funny story about that. So I went to the bank for 10 and didn't get home until about 11:30. Then I had a little bit of stuff to do before I left for my hair appointment at 1:00. So I figured I'd call when I got home. Unfortunately I had left my phone on my desk so when I went to make my call the phone was dead. I wonder if it's kismet? You know the universe telling me I just really shouldn't be going to grad school.

I also did some unexpected stuff. Like go to the mall for supper/shopping and then go to watch my brother play volleyball. That was nice. I haven't seen him play in a while. And I bought and expansion pack and a stuff pack for the Sim 2. I realize that the Sims 3 is coming out soon but I'm probably not going to buy it right away anyway. 

Knittin' Mittens

I've been knitting on and off for about five years now and I've got a rather large collection of little bits of yarn that are just kind of hanging around.

So I decided to adjust my favorite mitten pattern to add a little holiday flair.Two hockey games and one episode of the Outer Limits later I ended up with these mittens to add to my collection.

I'm rather proud of them as this is the first time I've added a color pattern beyond basic stripes by creating my own pattern to follow.

It also used up a little bit of that extra cream colored yarn that I had originally bought to make a sweater that I never finished. Now I'm going to have to find something else to work on.

How I spent my Winter Vacation

As I'm sure I've mentioned several times I've been off work for the last 5 days. So what have I been doing?

Well I've been playing the Sims2, which passes the time quite nicely. Don't worry I'm not one of those people who trying to make a new life for them self in the game. I just like to see what kind of new challenges I can make up. I never play 2 sims the same way.

I've finished watching the 4th season of House. It's one of those shows that I really only watch when I can't come up with anything better to do. I've watched the first 4 seasons now and I'm still not sure if I like it. But I must if I keep watching it.

Also I've watched every televised game of the World Junior Hockey championships except for the one Sweden-Russia game on New Year's eve day. I was at work for that one. Well most of it, I was on lunch for part of it. Congrats to Canada on taking home the gold.

And finally I watched the entire 7th season of Smallville. I generally like Smallville but I can't be bothered trying to keep up with when new episodes are or when it's changed to a new time. Also I know that my younger brother will be getting the most recent season on DVD for Christmas. You know what I like about Smallville, besides trying to find inconsistencies with previous seasons ("continuity error"), the men they find for this show. First it was Tom Welling who is totally hot. Then Jensen Ackles who played Jason Teauge. Any one remember when he played Sammy's twin on Days of Our Lives? I was smitten. And then there was Justin Hartley (see right), who was Fox Crane on Passions before he was on Smallville as the Green Arrow/Oliver Queen.

Just for the record I watched Days of Our Lives in high school but haven't seen an episode since and as for Passions I don't watch that one either but I did see the very first episode of the show ever so I thought perhaps I owed it just a little bit of loyalty.

Mission Accomplished

I've had all sorts of big plans in my life thus far, most of which revolve around leaving Canada. Sure everyone loves Canada and most of the time I do too. But have I mentioned that it's -32 outside which means it likely feels very much colder.

Anyway in order to do any leaving of the country now I'm required to have a passport. Okay wait that's technically not true, I can still drive across the U.S. border until June, but to fly anywhere I need to have a passport.

So I've been planning to get one done for months, since September actually. But every time I had a day off I decided that I didn't want to get out of my nice warm bed and venture into the frigid wilderness (okay it's just Winnipeg) to go to the Passport office. Which is of course ridiculous since I'm one door away from the Passport office every time I go to work. There were also a lot of setbacks, first the photos which I got done in early November, then finding 2 people that have known me for 2 years who have passports and aren't related to me and thirdly the whole going outside thing.

Anyway today I hopped a ride with my brother on his way to work he dropped me off and one stop at Starbucks and an hour later I was home and now I'm just waiting for my passport to make it's way to me in the mail.

It must have been a good Karma day for me because not only were they super nice at the passport office, since I showed up early and they didn't make me wait at all. But my bus home was also the 2nd bus to arrive at the stop. In fact I was just coming to down the stairs when it arrived.

One slightly funny incident from this morning. I apparently spelled my name wrong on my passport application. Brilliant. But I don't ever use my middle name except in official documents. So I guess that explains it.

Taking a break

Barring some sort of change in my general mood over the next little while I will be taking a blogging break. I may drop in from time to time if I have something particularly interesting to share but for right now I'm saying that this is probably going to be my last post until the new year.

Given the current political situation which is well frankly retarded and the fact that I'm not seeing a whole lot of positives in my life in general I thought it would be a good idea to save you all from the bitching and complaining I'm going to be doing leading up to the new year.

See you in a month.

I'm so very bored

Here I am on vacation with nothing to do. You'd think it would be awesome but actually I'm really bored. I would nap but I'm going to see my cousin's baby in just under 2 hours and I'm afraid I'll miss my bus if I nap (I don't do alarm clocks), I've already read a 1/4 of my book this morning, I could work on my assignment but I just don't want to and as far as sports go well there is a replay of a World Cup qualifying match but really I just don't care enough about soccer.

Random Thoughts to End My Vacation

Crap, I have to go back to work on Monday. Am I looking forward to it? Not at all. Not that my week off has been spectacular or anything what with the spending all sorts of money that I don't have yet (but hey at least work knows I have to come back), getting stopped at the US/Canada border on the way back, losing my 12 pack of Folklorama tickets at the very first show I went to, getting in a huge fight with my mom when I went home and having a terrible cold for the last 2 days and accomplishing pretty much nothing that I wanted to get done.

On the upside I bought a bunch of new stuff down in the States, dyed my hair (I looked better as a blonde), watched a whole season of Gossip Girl (still haven't decided if this is a good thing) and watched the Olympic opening ceremonies 3 times (well only part of it each time really).

Oh I also watched a little bit of the Disney Channel games. Yes it's a little embarrassing but after a week off I kind of ran out of stuff to watch and I certainly didn't feel like getting up off my couch today. But I've decided that the Jonas brothers are the Hanson of the younger generation. Geez, when did I become part of the older generation?