Surgery Tomorrow!!

So, this second surgery kinda snuck up on me. It's tomorrow!! I just had my pre-op appointment, and it looks like everything's a go. I should be under the knife around 11, so positive thoughts welcome at that time. As per last time, Bobby will be updating the blog with any post-surgery announcements. If everything goes according to plan, I hope to be home from the hospital on Monday!

Wish me luck!!

The Wizard of Oz

Watching the original version of The Wizard of Oz, in all of it's Technicolor© glory, is quite a strange experience in your mid-twenties. Sure, I remember the story (wicked witch, crazy chick in a tornado, lots of little munchkins), but the details are both fascinating and kind of disturbing.

Last weekend, one of our first stay-in-London weekends in quite some time, we went to the Prince Charles' Cinema with some friends. In the "Upstairs" part of the theatre, they have new releases, while "Downstairs" they show lots of movies that aren't running elsewhere for super cheap.

There were a few general things that struck me while watching The Wizard of Oz. First, for a movie release in 1939, this film has some fantastic production value and staying power. Second, after having seen Wicked (but not read the book yet), my whole world view of The Wizard of Oz is completely skewed. And finally, a whole lot of this movie is quite campy - the theatre cracked up during the munchkins scene, and just about every time the Cowardly Lion opened his jaws.

The details that I had forgotten, or never saw in the first place, were what really stuck out watching on the big screen.

• After the wizard demands that the group bring back the broomstick of the wicked witch, the scarecrow somehow comes up with a gun. A gun?!? What kind of message is that in a land 'over the rainbow'?
• The Scarecrow - immediately after being granted his Diploma - states "The sum of the square of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square of the remaining side." WRONG! C'mon, we all know that the Pythagorean Theorem only applies to right triangles, not isosceles.
• The cables holding up the Lion's tail, or carrying the flying monkeys, are something you really only see on the big screen. I'm sure the 'digitally remastered' version has photoshopped those out, but it carries a certain spark of realism and grounds the movie into the era in which it was made.
  

In any case, it was a lovely day out and a fun way to spend time on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

The Lake District

For the final phase of our whirlwind UK tour with Kim and Ed, we headed to the English Lake District. A popular retreat for hikers and campers, it is famous for its lakes and its mountains (or fells), and its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth and the Lake Poets.

We decided to stay in a little town called Ambleside, which is just near the largest of the Lakes, Windermere. We lucked out and had fabulous weather the entire time we were in the Lake District, so we spent our time hiking around the mountains and even took a nice little boat ride out on lake Windermere. There are many pre-planned and well marked hiking paths, so we opted for one that was supposed to take about 4 hours and looped around to lake Windermere, a little town called Troutbeck, and back. The hike actually ended up taking us about 6 hours (maybe we’re slow walkers?) but it was some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen in the UK.

We stayed at a fabulous little B&B in Ambleside called 3 Cambridge Villas. We were treated to a full English breakfast every day (toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, roasted tomatoes, tea, coffee) and the owner Sue was simply fabulous.

After our jaunt in the Lake District, we headed back to London.

Scotland, Part II: Edinburgh and Stirling

We arrived in Edinburgh to find that there were cops everywhere and that many of the streets were shut down (much to the chagrin of our driver, Bobby, and to the confusion of our TomTom navigation system that we named Sean). It turns out that there were so many street closures because we happened to arrive on the last day of the Edinburgh International Festival. I was kind of bummed that I hadn’t found this out beforehand because we might have attended a day or two of the festival if I had planned for it. We did, however get to catch the closing fireworks which were fantastic as a background for Edinburgh very gothic-feeling skyline.

The next day, we took one of the free walking tours that I’m always pimping out on this website. As per the usual, our guide was young and quirky and took us on a fun and informative tour of the city. We learned about the history of Edinburgh castle, the Stone of Destiny, some stuff about Harry Potter that I wasn’t especially interested in (I guess it was written in Edinburgh?).

I was, however, highly entertained by the history of witch trials in Edinburgh. I guess Scotland was at the forefront of witch-hunting in the middle ages. I don’t find this especially surprising; I just found it humorous that, according to our guide, witches were accused based on three characteristics - red hair, freckles, and a third nipple. If they had all three of these characteristics they were thrown into the Nor Loch (a lake that used to exist adjacent to Edinburgh but has since been drained) to see if they floated. If they did float, they were a witch. If they didn’t float, well, then they were just a dead regular human. I guess Monty Python is surprising historically accurate after all.



Once we finished our walking tour, we proceeded to do what is always my favourite activity in any new city/country we visit: test the local food!! In the case of Edinburgh, this consisted of three things:

1- Haggis: a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. This was surprisingly delicious! It ended up tasting like a spicy sausage and was served with mashed turnips and potatoes (“neeps and tatties”). I’ve learned from my Scottish co-worker that M&S sells a nice haggis in London, so I plan on buying more here!
2- Deep-Fried Mars Bar: um, the name kinda says it all. A mars bar is like a milkway bar. They dip it in some kind of batter and then deep-fry it. This was (unsurprisingly) AMAZING!!! It seems that the Scotts deep-fry everything. In the same shop that was selling the deep-fried mars bar, deep-fried haggis, hamburger patties, hot dogs and pizza was also being sold.
3- Irn-Bru: This is a soda produced in Scotland. It is of note that this soda outsells coke and pepsi COMBINED in Scotland- the only country in the world that can say this about one of its home products. It tasted like crème soda.

We spent the rest of the day stuffing ourselves full of local grub and tasting more whisky in bars around Edinburgh. The following morning we headed towards the English lakedistrict, taking a little detour to visit Stirling and its historic castle.

Major battles during the Wars of Scottish Independence took place at the Stirling Bridge in 1297 and at the nearby village of Bannockburn in 1314 involving Scottish freedom fighters William Wallace and Robert the Bruce respectively. Stirling is also home to the William Wallace National Monument. I really enjoyed Stirling. It was much more of a proper castle than Ballandoch and we were led on a wonderful tour that gave us a history of not only the castle itself, but also the fight for Scottish independence.

After Stirling, we headed onto the lakedistrict.

Scotland, Part 1: Inverness and Speyside

Bobby’s mom Kim and step-dad Ed came out to visit us last week. We decided that we didn’t want to do anything too travel-intensive, so we opted to stay in the UK for this trip. We wanted to start the adventure with a train ride to Inverness, Scotland, but, after learning that it takes 8 hours on a train to get to Inverness, decided to fly instead.

Inverness is known as the gateway to the Scottish Highlands. Most people begin their journeys here and go on to explore northern Scotland and the Isle of Sky. It’s also very popular because it’s right next to Loch Ness! We opted to drive south after Inverness, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to drive around Loch Ness and look for its most famous inhabitant: Nessie. The weather didn’t really cooperate with us, but Inverness and Loch Ness were beautiful all the same.

Some pictures around Loch Ness

I found Nessie!

After Loch Ness, we decided to drive down to Edinburgh. We took a little detour along the way to visit Ballandoch Castle and the Speyside Whisky Trail.

As far as castles go, I didn’t find Ballandoch all that impressive. It was rather small and, well, just not very castle-y. It is still privately owned, which seemed awesome to me beforehand because the family still actually lives in the castle! However, once we were inside, the fact that it was still inhabited made it kind of creepy. There were family photographs everywhere and the furniture didn’t seem very historically accurate (because, really, who wants to actually sit on a 14th century sofa?). I felt like I was sneaking around someone’s house instead of exploring a castle- which I guess is exactly what I was doing.

To Ballandoch’s credit, however, it did have some very beautiful gardens!


After raiding the private home of a wealthy family for awhile, we continued on to the Speyside Whisky Trail. Ed wanted to visit Glenlivet, the only Scotch whisky distillery he’d every heard of, and that’s exactly where we ended up! We were led on a nice little free tour around the distillery by and elderly gentleman who obviously had no idea how much Ed, Kim and Bobby already knew about alcohol production. Bobby and I have visited quite a few breweries in our travels and Kim and Ed brew their own beer. I was excited because, while I find brewery tours HORRIBLY boring, this was a distillery, and maybe it was more exciting? Wrong. It turns out that whisky is made exactly the same way as beer (the first step to whisky is infact beer), you just distil it over and over until a lot of the water is gone. Or atleast I think that’s what the guy was saying, I don’t know, I zoned out due to too much standing and boredom.

However, whether it be brewery and distillery, you always put up with the tour because you know at the end there will be the magical prize of free booze. We were presented with 3 different “drams” of Glenlivet whisky at the end of the tour. A 12-year-old (the youngest they sell), an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old cask-strength (aka, not watered down at all). I grabbed my free glass, took a whiff, and realized in a moment of utter disappointment that there was no way I was ever going to be able to convince my body to swallow something that smelled like that. It turns out that Kim is also not a fan of whisky, so Ed and Bobby got to drink all of our free samples.


After Glenlivet, we headed south, leaving the highlands on our way to Edinburgh.

Tips from Part 1 of our trip:

1. Inverness is totally skipable. I guess you should go if you want to see Loch Ness and this is definitely the best jumping-off-point for the highlands, but as a city by itself, it doesn’t have much to offer.
2. If you’re going to try and do whisky distillery tours, don’t choose to do them on a Sunday. Most are either not open at all or close early.
3. I wouldn’t recommend Ballandoch castle- choose to visit a government owned castle or one held in trust instead. It’s the same price and you won’t feel like you’re invading someone’s privacy!

Norway

Monday 31 August was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so that combined with my awesome flex schedule gave us a 4 day holiday! I searched RyanAir’s website for the cheapest flights I could find to anywhere and booked us onto flights to Oslo, Norway for £10 (about $16.50 right now) each way! I really wanted to visit Norway, and wanted to do it before it got too cold, so this seemed like the perfect time.

We flew into Oslo late Thursday evening and, because everyone told me that Oslo itself is completely skippable, only spent the night there before catching a train early the next morning to Flam.

The train ride itself was spectacular and alone would have made the trip to Norway worth it. We took the Bergen Railway as far as Myrdal and then the Flam railway from Myrdal to Flam. It took nearly 4.5 hours, so I brought a book along, but never picked it up since I couldn’t stop looking out the window!!

The Flam Railway was simply amazing. You climb down mountains and around waterfalls. Bobby and I positioned ourselves on either side of the train so that we could take pictures in each direction the entire time and not miss anything!!


We spent only an hour or two in Flam before getting on a ferry and heading to Balestrand, which was recommended to us by a friend. I really loved Balestrand. Just a small Norwegian town situated at the junction of the Sognefjord and Esefjord, there wasn’t much to do other thank soak in the amazing scenery. We visit St. Olaf’s Church, built in the Stave Church Norwegian style, but I think that may have been the town’s soul attraction.

Luckily, while it was by no means sunny on Saturday, it wasn’t really raining either, so we decided to take a hike up the mountain. This was my favourite part of the entire trip. The hike took us nearly 5 hours, but the view was amazing!! The owner of our hotel let us borrow some walking sticks which proved essential as the first 1.5 hours of the hike were nearly completely vertical and the last 2 hours were very muddy and slippery (I have the bruises to prove it).

On Saturday evening, we caught the ferry from Balestrand onto Bergen.

View from the ferry

I don’t have much to say about Bergen. It was nice, much bigger than Balestrand but not as big as Oslo, but I found it much less beautiful than the smaller Norwegian towns we visited and kind of boring. It also rained all day Sunday. I mean, it POURED all day- so that may be affecting my opinion. We did have a wonderful dinner of reindeer and elk though, so that was enjoyable.

Bergen

On Monday, we caught an early train for the 7.5 hour journey back to Oslo to catch our flight back to London.

I really enjoyed Norway. We had miserable weather the entire time and I still liked it, so I think that says a lot about what a fantastic place it is.

If you’re thinking of travelling to Norway, some things to consider:

1. It’s expensive. I mean REALLY expensive. I live in London, one of the priciest cities in the world, and I thought it was expensive. So, just keep that in mind when you’re budgeting for your trip.
2. I think Oslo and Bergen are both totally skippable. The train journey was spectacular and I would definitely recommend that, but I would only visit those cities again as a jumping-off point to explore the smaller towns and fjords of the area.
3. Retrospectively, I would have liked to have spent at least one entire day in Flam. We learned later that you can rent bikes and travel nearly the entire path of the Flam railway on them. I think this would have been so much fun (and given us a better view of the sights!)
4. If I were to go back, which I definitely hope to do one day, I’d go earlier in the summer. I hear that it rains less then and that the weather can actually be quite warm. I think swimming in the fjords would be fantastic.