Vacation: July 24th

I'm not sure how we did it but we were checked out of the hotel room at at the Haggis Adventures office by 8:00AM. And then we were off on our 6 day Compass Buster tour. I knew we were in for a fun time when our tour guide & bus driver Ped told us we were going to start the tour by learning & singing the national anthem of Scotland. Little did I know that "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimer's is the national anthem (you know... "I would walk 500 miles & I would walk 500 more. Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles.."). And did you know that you could have a light show on a bus... Anyway, these are some things I saw on the 1st day. The William Wallace monument.
The Wallace monument is HUGE. And it's on top of a hill overlooking Stirling Bridge where Wallace (& his men) defeated the English in 1297. (Ok I don't actually remember all those facts... it's called a travel book)
A view of the monument from the bottom of the hill.
Trina taking her photos of the monument.
Stirling Bridge is down there somewhere.
A statue of Robert the Bruce. Bruce took over after Wallace was executed in a very nasty manner (& lets just say, Braveheart sanitized the execution scene). This was also where we discovered that one of the girls on the tour lived in... Knoxville. How random & small world is that?
"Run away, run away". If I have to say anything else, you are not a Monty Python fan.... and you wouldn't understand any ways.
One of the billion lakes (I mean lochs & I may be exaggerating on the number) in Scotland. Unfortunately by the end of the trip I had all these wonderful photos of lochs & just can't remember which is which.
This was in the middle of a wilderness area. I can't remember the name but we were told the Royal Army does some of their elite unit training (you know survive on the land with nothing but a pocket knife & duck tape... oh wait that was MacGeyver).
The beautiful & sad Glencoe. The beauty is obvious. The sadness is hidden.
So what's the sad story, you ask?
Well in 1692 the leader of the Glencoe MacDonald clan was 5 days late in getting his oath to follow William III. So William decided to make an example of the MacDonalds.
He sent the Campbells in to kill them. How they went about doing it was especially brutal.
They took advantage of the unwritten rule of hospitality between the clans. They were entertained by the MacDonalds for 10 days. Then, on the 13th of February, 1692, the Campbells killed the MacDonalds. And you can imagine, the ones that were able to escape & hide didn't fare too well in these mountains.
Like I said, beautiful & sad.

Hockey

After one preseason game , the pretty tickets are going away. Michelle & I sat in our seats for one period. Between Michelle feeling very squished (& me too a bit) & missing all of our friends we decided to go "visit" our old section for the rest of the game. Today Michelle called to ask if I'd like to just upgrade for the entire season. She didn't have to twist my arm at all. Sometimes, being with friends is more important than a little extra money. So at the next preseason game this Saturday, we have to take & trade in our cute little books for regular boring tickets. Oh well...

By the way, the game was great. Erat, Sully, Kariya & the new guys Arnott & Dumont looked great. And then the rookie Radulov... wow. Too bad he'll probably begin the season in the minors.

Vacation: July 23rd

After checking out of our hotel, we walked a few blocks to Kings Cross station... you know the one where Harry gets on the Hogwarts Express. Only we were heading to Edinburgh instead of Hogwarts. The trip was pretty uneventful. I thought we'd see a lot of pretty scenery along the way but the trip was pretty boring. So if you are ever traveling between London & Edinburgh & the prices are equal... just fly. You won't be missing anything. After a nice little hike, we finally made it to our hotel, The Royal Terrace Hotel (which surprise, surprise was undergoing renovation... & somehow AAA got me a very good discount). It wasn't long until we were on the move. We walked over to what is called the Old Town & in particular a street called the Royal Mile.It's called such because the street begins here at the Palace of Holyroodhouse (the Queen's residence when she's in the city) and ends about a mile away at Edinburgh Castle. Or maybe it begins at the Castle & ends at the Palace... who knows. Any way, the Palace is where we began.
Moving up the street, we saw Canongate Tolbooth.
And wouldn't you know it, there was construction happening on the street.
And just like Nashville did the catfish & guitars around town, Edinburgh had cows sitting around town. This one's dressed like the very famous William Wallace. Very funny.
We finally made it up to Edinburgh Castle. And actually it's not construction in the photo. In this case, they were setting up the bleachers for the Military Tattoo which takes place every August. Wish we could've seen it (I adore bagpipes).
Since it was almost closing time, we didn't actually go into the castle. Here's another photo of the castle showing a bit of the extinct volcano it's built on top of. Now how they know it's completely extinct & not just in a very very deep coma or something, I don't know. :)
We then headed back towards the hotel. When we were crossing the North Bridge I noticed all these cool monuments on top of that hill.
So I zoomed in & took some more photos. I later learned this is called Calton Hill. And here's Arthur's Seat. And no, we didn't even consider climbing it. The weather in Edinburgh was heavenly... probably in the mid 70s. Then we were sitting in the hotel room & suddenly realize that it was around 10pm & just dusk. I could really get used to spending summers in Scotland!

Vacation: July 22nd

One last day in London. We had to make some hard decisions of what of the many sights left to see we would actually squeeze in. Westminster Abbey won out over St. Paul's Cathedral. In the end, the Poet's Corner was just too much of a draw. And look, flying buttresses!
And another photo of the entrance to Westminster. So after we left Westminster, we had to check out the Portobello Road market in Notting Hill. If you've seen the movie Notting Hill, you know that scene where Hugh Grant is walking down the street & the season's change while the song "Aint No Sunshine" is playing in the background... that is the Portobello Road market. Unfortunately for us, we finally got to experience typical London weather... rain.
After the market, we thought, what kind of tourist would we be if we didn't at least see Buckingham Palace? So we took a little stroll over to the Palace. Here's the front gates.
The Queen Victoria memorial.
A closer shot.
And here's Lady Luck right in front of Buckingham Palace.
And Trina taking a picture of one of the guards. There's so much more left to see in London. I'm sure I'll make it back. I mean, I didn't even make it to the British Museum, St. Paul's, The Globe Theater, or Harrod's. Take my advice, 3 days are not nearly enough time.

Vacation: July 21st

After the whirlwind tour the day before, this was the day to see the things that we absolutely HAD to see & do. Well, after you see "the gherkin". I couldn't tell you what this building is actually called. Even the tour guides called it the gherkin. I actually thought it looked more like a Faberge egg.
1st stop was the Tower of London, which just happens to be right beside The Tower Bridge (which I believe I mistakenly called London Bridge before).
This is the view of the Tower as we were about to enter. This is the White Tower. It currently holds lots of armor & stuff like that. It made for a nice tour except the fact that it was very hot that day & really old buildings like this do not have air conditioning.
I wish I could say exactly what building this was. Whatever it is, it's cool.
Looking at my handy little map, I believe this just may be Lanthorn Tower.
A view of Wakefield Tower & The Bloody Tower. The Queen's House is the Tudor style building at the far right.
And here's another photo of the Queen's House. Of course you know, the current Queen does not live here.
Here's one of the ravens that live at the Tower. There's an old saying that as long as the ravens remain at the Tower, the monarchy will stand. And just to make sure that's the case, all the ravens have their wings clipped & 2 remain back in the cage each day.
Here's Trina in her usual position;)
Now because we had to make some decisions, we didn't get to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We did however get to see the changing of the guards at the Waterloo Barracks (which hold the fabulous Crown Jewels).
And because we were so great at timing things, we got to see the military parade in front of the White Tower when we exited the Crown Jewel exhibit.
Just so you know that Trina did more than take photos, here she is without the camera. Probably my favorite part of the Tower was the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist which is located in the White Tower .
And the view in the Chapel looking towards the altar. The sunlight streaming in the windows made this room seem so peaceful.

But this wasn't all we did. It's just all I have photo's of. After leaving the Tower we ate a sandwich at Subway (yes we went to a foreign county & ate at a American chain.. & we did it several more times too... it's just nice & cheap when you're on a budget). Then it was on to The Charles Dickens Museum. It's a bit off the beaten path, so it took us a little while to find it. Trina will tell you that it was worth the time. And yes, even I thought it was nice. Now there was that girl that was carrying around a very old edition of one of his novels clutched to her chest looking at everything in awe that I thought was a little strange (& no it wasn't Trina).

After that we had just enough time to get back to the hotel room to get ready for MARY POPPINS ! I will say that there are some differences from the movies, but the stage version was almost as great as the movie. I only say "almost" because it's really hard to try & replace Julie Andrews & Dick Van Dyke. It's opening on Broadway sometime in the next few months so if you have the chance to see it, definitely go. There's one scene in particular that's amazing but that's all I can say without ruining the surprise.

I Got Them!

Hockey season's just around the corner... and I just received my season tickets! Yeah! I will say there's a difference between being a partial season ticket holder & a full season ticket holder. Last year my tickets were the usual box office tickets held together with a rubber band. This year the tickets are bound together in a book with pictures of the players on the tickets. Just a very nice presentation... if you care about such things & you've probably noticed that I do. But that's not all. I also get to go to a meet the team party & several other nice perks.

I do have to say they did a pretty good job on the photo shop on some of the players. The photo's are all action shots of the players... only Jason Arnott & Josef Vasicek haven't worn a Predators' uniform & yet there they are in Predator's gear. The only reason I really noticed was the helmet on Vasicek's photo just looked a little weird.

Vacation: July 20th

Our 1st full day in London & we did what all 1st time visitors to the city do (& I highly recommend it). We took a sightseeing tour of the city. There are a couple of big companies that use the double decker buses. We used the The Original Tour. For one ticket, you have access to 4 different tour routes plus a river cruise. You can hop on & off of any bus for 24 hours. It's Big Ben!... oh &Parliament too.
And here's Trina taking photo's of Big Ben.
And here's Lady Luck showing off in front of the London Eye. We didn't actually ride it because... well... I have a little fear of heights & one rotation of this thing take 30 minutes.
The dome in the back is St. Paul's Cathedral. And the rest is um... stuff around St. Paul's. All I know is that every time I see it, I start humming the Birdlady song from Mary Poppins.
The Tower of London. I'll have more pictures of this on the post for the 21st.
London Bridges. For some reason, when I wasn't singing the Birdlady song, I was singing the Clash's "London Calling".
I have to confess the rest are photo's that Trina took. This is Big Ben from the bus as we were going across the Thames. While we were on the bus, my batteries died & my back-up rechargeable batteries weren't actually charged. So until we found a Boot's & batteries, I was camera-less. What's Boots, you ask? Think Walgreen... & just like Walgreens, they're everywhere except they have a really good sandwich, chips, & drink deal.. & the sandwiches weren't bad.
a statue of Sir Winston Churchill.
The Lions at Trafalgar Square. And yes, I believe that's a bit of construction going on. Although it could've just been part of the set up in the Square for a big show they broadcasted on Saturday night on the BBC. They set a world record for the most different kinds of dancing done simultaneously... or something like that. Trina & I actually walked by while they were taping but we had some very important magnet shopping to do so we didn't stay too long.
Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery in the background. It was so hot that I did squeeze in & put my feet in the fountain late in the day. We got to see a lot of beautiful paintings in the National Gallery. The Monet's were wonderful. Unfortunately the room with the Van Gogh's was being remodeled. So there's something to look forward to in the next trip. On of the dragon's leading into the City of London. You should know that London is actually made up of a lot of smaller communities. Only part of London is truly London. If the dragon is facing you, you are entering the city. If you see it's tail, then you are leaving the city.
And last, here's one of the buses that we traveled on. I had heard before I left that London had done away with all the open air double decker buses and was sad that we would miss that. I soon discovered that it was just the city buses that no longer are open.