The last Scotland post

Here she be--the last Scotland post. Should be able to finally get back to normal posts (and what's going on) in the very near future.

First pic--when we went to Edinburg, instead of meters they have a box at the end of each street that you pay to park at. It, in turn, spits out a sticker that you put in your window with the time you are allowed to park. Pretty ingenious, really.
Damien's Car. In the UK it's a Vectra Astra, in Bahrain the same car (which Laurie has) is an OPEL Astra. GM owns the company. That explains it all.
The Harley shop where I bought dad his shirt.
Shift gears. Now we're in St. Andrews. This is the beach right next to the world famous St. Andrew golf course.
Plaque on the beach.
A view of the first hole of the golf course. From my understanding this is one of the oldest courses in the world. I saw a feature on Discovery channel about the course in Bahrain once I got back. I don't golf, but if I did I'm sure I would have wet my pants seeing this course.
Rachel and I near the St. Andrew's beach. The course is directly behind the beach.
And what's left of the really, really old St. Andrew's cathedral. The sun was setting when we drove by this so I really didn't have time to go investigate the ruins. Sure looked cool, though.
Another view.
And what I assume is half of the front of the church.
And the Anstruther fish 'n' chips restaurant. This place was voted best chipshop of the year in 2001 and 2002 in the UK which says alot about the place. The British love their fish and chips, so to get that award would be like getting the American potato salad of the year award or something. When we were waiting in line there was a cutout from the daily paper telling about when Tom Hanks came and visited--it's that good (and world famous.) The place is kinda cool because it is in this little fishing town, right on the coast.

And it was the best fish n chips that I've ever had, for the record.
Proof.
A view looking away from the fish 'n' chip restaurant.
Sorry these pictures are all out of order, but the internet was really fucking fast tonight so I loaded all of the remaining pictures (not really, I've got about another 200 that I'll save.) This is a picture of me and Damien in their backyard the night we had a cookout. Damien is in the RAF (Royal Air Force) and lives in RAF owned property. Hence the barbed wire fence in the back of the yard.
Angela's (Damien's wife's) classroom. Angela went to school with Rachel in Minnesota and met Damien (a Brit) while she was working at MKS in Bahrain. She's got a job teaching at a Scottish school now. They were awesome hosts. Much, much better than Rachel's friend in Kuwait.
And Angela at her desk, doing the teacher thing.
A weird ass car we saw. Thought Ben would enjoy it. (I have more pics if you want, Ben.)
Angela works in Dundee, which is close to their house. This is a view of Dundee (which is up on the hill.)
A view of the bay. It was taken from the same spot as above, just turned about 100 degrees.
And here we are back in Edinburgh (from the same visit in the post below.) This is a view of the streets and our old ass tour guide. For whatever reason I like this photo.
Same thing with this one. This apparently is a church that isn't in use anymore. Kinda looks like it should be in a horror movie with the widows knocked out and shit. Scotland was a really clean and beautiful country--this church was definitely the exception. You would think someone would want to save and do something with this obviously very old building.
A street in Edinburgh.
Parts of Edinburgh were built on top of each other over the years, which is really cool. This is a good example. You can look above this arch to the right and see that there is a street with buildings right on top of other street with buildings.
This is Hollyroot (sp?) park in Edinburgh. You can walk up that peak, if so inclined.
And some more of those damned taxis. In this picture I can count at least 6. And all of them had advertisements on them.
So I mistakenly said in the earlier post that we had been on a specific bus. I was wrong. THIS is the bus we toured the city in.
While we were waiting for the next tour bus, I snapped this picture. Keep in mind it was in the high 60's that day but to these cold-blooded fuckers it was a hot day. (And check out the castle in the background.)


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More Scotland

So I have this post that I did a while back and forgot to post. Here it is.

One of the places we visited while we were in Scotland was the city of Edinburgh. It's a hell of a lot smaller than London, but cool nonetheless. The building above is in Edinburgh.
We took one of those open-topped busses (which were everywhere--just like London) and got some cool pics. Like this billboard.
In the center of Edinburgh is this massive castle way up on a rock. It is the focal point of the city, and frankly is bad ass.
A side view of the castle.
A pic of the bus we were on.
A look up one of the streets.
A look up the "Royal mile" which leads up to the castle.
Old ass bank.
Some really really old monument in the middle of town. Apparently you can climb to the top of it if you are so inclined. Fuck that.
A street performer. There was some festival going on and there were performers and exhibits everywhere. This dude was from Australia. And by the way--he's on a unicycle, getting ready to juggle a knife, plunger and flaming stick.
And him balancing blocks on his chin.
Higgins--this is why I didn't get you a kilt. They were like 400 bucks.
Another view of the castle.
And another view of the castle.
A look down one of the streets.
That's the railroad bridge that we came across on the train (where I took pics of the big suspension bridge.)
And Damien, driving. On the wrong side of the road.



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We're goin' on a train ride...

By far the cheapest way to get from London to Scotland was to take a train (although it still was pricey.) This is a pic of the Scotland skyline. A bit depressing, as is most of that island (in terms of sunshine.) Once again (btw) the pictures are in reverse order.
The tail end of the Forth Road bridge, a suspension bridge in Scotland that rivals the Golden Gate (although not as colorful.) Once we got to Damien's and Angela's (Rachel's friends where we stayed) we went across this bridge everyday. It's impressive.
Another better view of the Forth Road suspension Bridge.
Some town at some train station. And this was a long train--6 hours, with only a dozen or so stops. The U.K. is much larger than I had anticipated.
Sheep. Lots and lots of fucking sheep in this country. I saw more sheep than anything else.


A railroad crossing.

At the King's Cross train station in London.
Another train station shot.
And yet another train station picture.
And one of my all time favorite pictures taken this trip. Like I said before, the English like to drink. Everywhere. At this train station you can buy beer and drink it in public. And of course I had to try it. And look at all that fucking luggage. That's 5 bags plus 2 laptops. We had to cart those motherfuckers all over London AND on the train. That was hands down the worst part of the trip.


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