Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

To Oban

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

We drove yesterday to the port town of Oban, along highways and windy narrow roads. KLS was a bit hair-raised, but with many stops we made it in time for lunch.

Oban is a popular tourist destination, and departure port for the many Hebrides islands. It was sunny and warm yesterday and the visitors were out in droves.

In addition to the bevy of souvenir shops down near the water, we also climbed to the overlook above the town to visit McCaigs Tower, a fanciful construction financed about 100 years ago by a wealthy man to honour his family.

Our B&B is out in the country on a quiet single-lane road, surrounded by sheep and cows. It’s incredible quiet and peaceful here.

But I’m not sure the sheep enjoy the visitors ๐Ÿ™‚

Big trip coming up today: on many boats and coaches. We’re going island-hopping…

Weโ€™re Here

Sunday, June 3rd, 2018

It’s so easy now to travel. A few clicks on websites, a drive to the airport and next thing you’re on the plane. The whole trip from our door to our Glasgow hotel was about 14 hours and couldn’t have been easier.

The hotel itself is pretty wild, and first impressions were that it seemed we were stepping into the set of 2001!

The room is small (cozy?) and comes with an iPad that wirelessly controls lights, the blinds, the TV, AC, everything. The lights in particular are extremely adjustable:

Also the room comes with blackout curtains because of the long days. It was light when we went to bed and when we woke up!

We didn’t do much other than the explore the shopping district yesterday, which was busy and loaded with people. The weather was warm and bright, with rain only coming in early in the evening.

Today (it’s Sunday morning) we’re planning to go full-on tourist and visit some attractions. And that will start with a bacon sandwich…

Insert Haggis Joke In The Comments!

Thursday, May 31st, 2018

Tomorrow we’re going to Scotland!

We’re going to be focusing on the west and north of the country: the highlands and islands and more remote regions. We’re looking forward to rocky coasts, beautiful scenery and lots of rain ๐Ÿ™‚

Eventually we’ll end up in Orkney, which will be the northernmost latitude we’ve ever visited and will have over 20 hours of sunlight!

Needless to say I’ll blog as I can, although given some of our hotels have already told us they have no cell service this may not be daily! As usual though you can expect to follow our exploits here…

…and in your mailboxes ๐Ÿ™‚

Raw

Sunday, May 27th, 2018

We went to WWE Raw last Monday. We had great seats and a lot of fun. Here are the five best photos I took.

Seeing Kurt Angle was a treat. The crowd roared his familiar “You suck!” chant ๐Ÿ™‚

This was our view! Directly above the referees head, on the opposite side of the stadium, was the main camera. We were probably on TV (the show was a live broadcast) but can’t check until it’s available online in a month.

A photo I took from the opposite side high up in the stadium. KLS is visible if you know where to look.

I’m believing this is a dad and his child.

Every cheering on the ‘final boss’ ๐Ÿ™‚

The Great Easter Chocolate Battle 2

Sunday, April 1st, 2018

Another year, another Easter, another face-off in Chocolate Easter products. This year: rabbits!

Three to be specific, all rabbits, all milk chocolate, all about the same size and identical price ($3.99). I’ve eaten one a weekend for the last three weeks… let’s see which was best?

The first was Lindt, who as far as I can recall pioneered this type of Easter treat. These familiar little rabbits have been available for years now, and I’ve eaten my share in years prior.

The taste was of course sublime: exquisitely creamy and moorish. This was the thinnest of the three (which is a plus) and almost impossible to not gobble down in one go. Maybe it was unwise to start with Lindt, for the taste would be difficult to beat…

Ghiradelli was next. The packaging is obviously much cuter than Lindt – more a character and less an animal – but their budget obviously didn’t run to a real ribbon.

The chocolate though… well it was bad. Sickly sweet, and possessing the sort of vaguely-coffee taste I associate with dark chocolate, I couldn’t stomach more than a few pieces. KLS was equally unimpressed, and unfortunately some of this guy ended up in the garbage. Easily worse than Lindt!

Lastly came Godiva. The packaging as you can see is impressive, and the feel of the foil is soft and delightful too. This guy was just nice to hold, and I was optimistic about what I’d taste inside.

Opening it was a treat too: the foil splits into two halves rather than a single sheet. But the taste… the taste… it’s awful. One bite was all I could manage before being repulsed. I was reminded of dollar-store fake-chocolate, and while KLS is still bubbling away at it I expect a good amount of this bunny will be trashed as well ๐Ÿ™

So it was in the end no contest. Lindt effortlessly won the Easter chocolate rabbit contest. But was it better than the otherworldly Cadbury rabbit I bought last year? Alas I never found that product this year, so we’ll never know…

Oh, and Happy Easter to everyone! ๐Ÿ™‚