Shoving yer granny off a bus in Edinburgh

A day after we arrived back from Dublin, Ross and Jennie arrived in Cambridge for a wee visit before Ross, Matt and I set off on our road trip around Scotland. Unfortunately Jennie couldn't make it because she was busy with two 21st parties back in Hereford!

First stop: Edinburgh. And our friend Kimmi joined us there for the rest of the trip. Our hostel neighboured the Edinburgh Castle which helped a lot when we tried to find our way home a few times after beers a plus. "Just look for the Castle" - easy!



On our first night we were lucky enough to catch a live one man show. He was dressed in the awful tartan pants and played a banjo and a harmonica (sometimes at the same time!) and sang old time scottish tunes (some of which Ross and I recognised thanks to Ed's attempts!) and some more contemporary tunes. It was quite a sight and we had a great time - and came close to spending 15 quid on one of his CDs, as you do!



The city is beautiful, even on a dreary day - the cobble-stoned streets that were paved with Georgian style houses that don't look at all out of place. With statues commemorating all sorts of figure heads including the Duke of Wellington and David Livingstone, we felt we were constantly walking through a museum. Fantastic!


We took in an open top bus tour of Edinburgh and a walk around the castle. We attempted a pub crawl down Rose Street and added a few more of our own.

I also managed to spend a good 2 hours in the Scotland Registers Office tracking down copies of births, deaths, and marriage certificates to take back to Ed for addition to the Parker family history. It was uber interesting and I can appreciate how people can get really enthralled in tracing back family trees. I myself was happy to meet Ross and Matt at the pub afterwards for a well earned pint!

We fell in love with Edinburgh and highly recommend it to anyone visiting Scotland - not to be missed!

Having a craic of a time in Dublin

We discovered that Ryan Air had a sale on flights to Dublin, so we hopped on the net and picked up free flights (but obviously had to pay airport tax) so we were happy. We then tried to book accommodation and that was when we discovered that Dublin is the second most expensive city in the world (after New York)!! Oh well, at least we got cheap flights hey.

Unfortunately the start to our trip didn't go too well - we were delayed for 3 hours! We arrived at about 2am in Dublin so needless to say we couldn't really see too much of the city!



But that was probably the worst of our trip, because we had a fantastic time! We fell back into being tourists quiet easily and managed an open top bus tour of the city, a visit to the Guiness Storehouse, a walk around famous St Stephen's Green, a trip to Dublin Castle, and a couple of nights out in Temple Bar. And we went and saw a movie as well.





We were also lucky enough to meet real, proper Irish people - everywhere we went there were loads and loads of Americans all tracing their family history, we thought we were never gonna meet a real, proper Irishman - who took us round a few pubs, which was awesome!

A long weekend was long enough for us in Dublin, mostly cause we would never have been able to afford to spend any more time there!! Would have been nice to see more of Ireland but time just didn't permit, as we were off to Scotland a day after we arrived back in Cambridge!

Love being back on the road again!!

Festival fun!

Some people may think that we did the Isle of Wight Festival grandma style, but personally, I think we did it the best way ever! We bought some tickets through a tour company so bus down, ferry across, accommodation on the isle, and transfers to the festival were all taken care of. It really was awesome and we didn't have to deal with horrible camping toilets (which I have a phobia of, ugh, nasty!)

The day before the festival we checked the weather forecast and were bitterly disappointed to see that the English weather was planning to stick to true miserable style. So we packed our jeans, docs and hoodie water proof jackets instead of short shorts, thongs and singlets. And were a bit sad when we woke up on the Friday to clouds. But happiest of days; as soon as we left the mainland and got the isle we realised that we were in for a treat and as it was it NEVER rained all weekend, awesome!!



The line up was pretty impressive too - headlining on day one was Kaiser Chiefs, day two was Sex Pistols, and day three was The Police. Other notable mentions were N.E.R.D, KT Tunstall, The Wombats, Kate Nash, The Zutons, Sugababes, Scouting for Girls, and The Kooks. Enough to keep us entertained anyway.



And Matt was stoked when he discovered the Guitar Hero tent which he spent pretty much most of his time at. We found out that the top three players of the day were asked onto the main stage to battle it out in front of the crowed. Awesome. Even better, Matt got asked to go up!! Not so good, he declined. He said he saw the competition - a 10 year old wonder Guitar Hero punk of a kid - and he wasn't about to be shown up in front of thousands of people! Fair enough. He did get a shirt and a wee badge for his efforts. Bless. LOL ;-)



So all up, lots of sunshine, tunes, mates, and drinks made for a great weekend away. Oh and couldn't resist adding *another* video!

Long weekend away to Leeds

Who can say no to a bank holiday long weekend away? Well we couldn't and we jumped onto the train for the 3 hour ride up to Leeds to see my cousin Darren and his fiance Lindsay.

They took us out and about and also on a day trip to York (only 1/2 an hour from Leeds) which was lovely. The weather held out for us and it was really nice day out (except for Darren who was supporting Leeds in a very important football game that I can't really remember much about now - anyway they lost...not good). Matt and I got our carricature done, which of course was hilarious!



We had such a good weekend away and it was great to see family and another new town. Leeds is quite a big city (much bigger than Cambridge) but what I didn't realise is that it's also a bit of a university town, so needless to say lots of uni students out and about and inevitably dressed in some sort of fancy dress. Although we didn't sample a lot of them, Leeds also has a lot of hip and funky bars and clubs - lots and lots to choose from.

So thanks to Darren and Linz for a great couple of nights and hopefully we'll see them again before we leave!

Girl's week away to Barcelona

Hola mis amigos!

Earlier in the year I met up with a couple of soccer chicks and after a few ciders we decided that it would be totally awesome to meet up and go for a holiday to Barcelona and stay with our friends Beth and Jules. So it was set and decided that it would be girls only week away (but that was okay given that Matt has never had any interest in going to Spain).

And what a holiday! Beth and Jules live in a district called Barceloneta which is approximately 5 minutes walk from the beach. Jules works in a coffee shop right on the sand and Beth rides tourists around in her rickshaw - what a lifestyle! KatyB, Pickle, and I were very very jealous!



We arrived at about 11pm to no Beth. We had to figure out somewhere to stay for the first night as we couldn't get a hold of Beth on her mobile or facebook. What the?! Although in hindsight we were very happy with ourselves for not freaking out. When you've got two pedantic planners (KatyB and me) and a free spirit in your group (Pickle) freak outs are bound to happen. But we were quietly impressed that this wasn't the case.

After we stayed in a hostel that smelled like boys feet (eew!) we managed to find Beth riding her rickshaw happily oblivious to the fact that she had three visitors roaming La Ramblas desperate for somewhere to call home for the week. Gosh!

The rest of the week went quite normally - sight-seeing (Gaudi's church), drinking (1 euro sangria and san miguel beer), eating (chocolate con churros, paella, tapas, all so delish!) and chilaxing (being ridden along the beach front on a rickshaw in the sunshine). Right until the day when Beth wanted us to film her doing a few wheelies....everything was going fine when all of a sudden she didn't see the concrete block in front of her and, bam! She ended up with a wee bit of bloody broken nose. Oops! Poor Beth, and she was so happy with her new rickshaw hat (a wee pressie from us to her).




So a bit of an adventure for the soccer chicks. And after all of if the best part of the trip (for me) was getting home and realising that I got sunburnt - hoorah! Enough sunshine to actually get sunburnt. My arms aren't as white as what they were when I got to Barcelona, happy days!

And after sangrias on the beach, there's now talk of another trip before Matt and I go home but this time Matt wants to come (he was a bit jealous when I spoke of stories about rickshaws and sunshine) and we're thinking of going via San Sebasitan and Bilbao. For sure.

Skiing holiday to Soll

Well we took the plunge and booked a last minute 7 day skiing holiday to a resort called Soll in Austria. We were really looking forward to going back to Austria but weren't too sure about the skiing part of the holiday - were we going to like it, were we going to break an arm, was it going to even snow (given that it was the last week of the season). But all our worries were in vain cause it rocked and we had a great great time. Although our arms, legs, and backs (and okay, sometimes heads, what with all that jagermiester around!) didn't like it much, ouch!

When we arrived in Soll we were a little skeptical, there was no snow! But the following morning we woke up to a blanket of fluffy white as far as we could see and it was so beautiful. The first snow we've ever seen - we were so excited!! And it pretty much snowed (and got even close to a snow-storm!) the whole week.




Not knowing what to expect at the time of booking, we didn't book a full skiing package. However our advice to anyone reading this that may be considering a simlar holiday - book the full skiing package (hire, lessons, ski lift pass) as it really is cheaper as a package and not pay as you go. Also some other advice - definitely pay the extra dollar something to upgrade your skiing boots, omigosh does this make a massive difference. End of day one of ski school and Matt had to upgrade; and end of day two, I had to upgrade. And our feet and calves were much happier for it!



We started out in the nursery slopes and were being shown up by three year olds everywhere we turned! After a couple of days falling flat on our faces and trying to master the ski lifts (where you had to stick a pole between your legs and hold on for dear life) we finally graduated to the gondolas...ooo...aahhh... We then braved the 'easy' blue run and the 'hard' blue run and discovered that speed actually makes turns much easier as well as falling much easier! But we managed not to break an arm or a leg, although bruises are starting to show up now...



So definitely a highlight of our trip so far and we're now looking forward to going skiing when we get back home and possibly a trip out to NZ - we're definitely basic-intermediate skiers now, and can even dismount from the ski lift without poles! LOL ;)

Couple of days in Cardiff

I took some time off of work and Matt took some time off of job-hunting and being a house husband for a trip out to Cardiff to see my cousin Lisa, her hubby Jamie, and their wee one year old, Gracie.

To be honest, Cardiff was never on our list of places to visit and this trip was really more about seeing the Stephens' than seeing the sites of Cardiff.

And we had such a great time - drinking lots of wine, playing with Gracie, seeing a bit of the shopping district (and the "massive" Cardiff Food Festival, where they had Cardiff mountain meat - meat made out of a mountain? How do they do it? LOL).




The weather wasn't very inviting when we arrived and it seemed like a gale came through during the time we were there. And typically the sun came out the day we left. But regardless we had a great couple of days away and it was lovely to catch up with the family before they jetset their way to the Channel Islands!

Thanks Lisa, Jamie, and Gracie! xx