Howdy all. Hope you've enjoyed your summers in your respective places. I figured that it'd be best to get caught up before fall hit, and really I've not too much time left!
I spent the majority of my summer working on my dissertation for school, and Brian spent his working. However, we did manage to get out and see some stuff here and there :).
For our anniversary in June, Brian and I went to the Royal Highland Show! It's an agriculture fair celebrating everything about rural Scotland, and it was super fun! Why, you ask? Oh well, because there were loads of horses and dogs, and a bunch of other animals too :).
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| Clydesdales! Look at that faaaace! |
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| Who loves a good horsey nuzzle? ME! |
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| Coo. Massive, massive coo. Well, actually a bull, but whatever. |
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| Sheep shearing competition. It's serious work to keep those wriggly fatties under control long enough to get the wool off in one thick blanket. |
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| Ahh, the majestic Clydesdale. Amazing. |
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| K, how cute is this? These guys were snuggling at their owners' retail tent. A-dor-ab-le. |
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| Plus, show jumping! |
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| Drool. So much fun! Wish it were me! |
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| Sheeptastic. The backyards of our neighbours could really use one of these. |
At the very end of June, Brian and I moved flats (pics to follow when I remember to take them!). On my way to get the new keys I found this awesome churchyard in the area of the city known as Leith, dating back to the 1400s.
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| Beautiful graveyard. |
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| The walkway leading up to the church. |
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| Wow. All this, tucked behind a wall in the middle of a neighbourhood. |
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| Almost stepped on this guy, whew! |
For Canada Day, we headed over to Glasgow for a party at a local bar, the Bacchus. It was great. There were tonnes of Canadians happy to high five and jibe each other about their hockey teams, Canadian food (poutine!), Canadian drinks (Caesars and imported beer), a Bryan Adams tribute band, AND a reshowing of THE gold medal game.
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| Our cool hotel had an oldentimey elevator in the middle! |
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| So. Neat. |
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| Pretty much the niftiest hotel I've stayed at in a while. |
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| Rad. If I have kids, I'll be tiling the walls for easy wash downs... |
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| In Scotland, the monuments have this amazing ability to collect traffic cones on their heads. This happens in Edinburgh regularly, and clearly Glasgow as well. |
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| Yah! Canada! |
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| Um, yes please? |
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| For first timers, the bar staff made pretty decent Caesars. However, the thought of clamato juice made them shudder pretty good, lol. |
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| Beeeeeeaaaammmmm! |
On the morning of Canada Day, Brian and I trekked around the city to try and find the birthplace of Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald. The original home had been converted into a pub a long time ago, and was slated to be demolished so that a new shopping/arts district could be erected (oddly enough, fellow Canadian Galen Weston is the financier of the new facility). When it came to the attention of the builders that the area was tied to Canada's first prime minister, a halt was placed on the demolition so that the site could be named a heritage spot of some sort. The Glasgow and Scottish authorities had no interest in protecting it, so it's still in limbo due to the required planning and archival processes being undertaken by foreigners.
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| It's yet to be proven whether Sir John A. was born on this street, or grew up here instead, but in any event, the records show this site as having strong ties to our first PM. |
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| Yeah, as you can tell, the Scots don't really care too much about one of their own jumping the slums and being the first leader of a major nation in the new world. |
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| We couldn't tell whether the building on the right or the left was 'the one', so we got pics of both. From my internet searches, Sir John A. lived on the second floor of one of them at some point in his life. |
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| Apparently it was pretty slummy back in the day as well, so perhaps the ambience was right at least. |
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| Glasgow's Olympic rings. |
Then, the fun was over and we had to head back to Edinburgh, darn :).
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| Edinburgh's Olympic rings. |
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| One night coming home from the library the fog was so thick I could barely see across the street. |
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| Seriously, you half expect Sherlock Holmes to come sauntering around the corner at any minute. |
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| They have some massive slugs 'round these parts. I had to use my snack bar for perspective. |
Our new place is really close to the Edinburgh end of the canal system that winds its way to Glasgow. There are boats you can rent to float your way from one city to the other, and you can even ride your bike along the groomed trails beside the canals. Part of me would like to ride my bike to Glasgow, but when I put more thought into it, it seems like a painful idea. Perhaps some day!
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| B. |
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| Me. |
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| Aquaduct making the water go over the road. |
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| !!! |
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| Yep, it really is an outdoor gym, complete with instructions on how to use the machines. |
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| Brian gave the treadmill a go. Let's just say it could do with some WD-40. |
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| Cool sunken boat. |
Very happy to have moved to our new neighbourhood. Not only are we close to beautiful things like this, but we can finally get a good night's sleep since there are no hostels across the street (high-five, us). But, as alluded to above, I'll save a discussion of the new place for a later date :).
Awright! I think that's about good enough for one night, even though it is really fun to flip through pictures :). Not quite done with our Edinburgh summer, though, so stay tuned!
M
