So Friday was my last day at work in Edinburgh and my last day for a while. I will now start the travelling that I was going to do last year (before I got distracted by Scotland). My last day at work was bittersweet. I'm excited to start travelling full time and I'm excited to go home for a bit and catch up with friends and family but I'm also sad to leave Scotland. I've really enjoyed my time here and I feel like I've gotten a lot of out the experience. I've also, strangely enough, enjoyed working here. The work was same old, same old but the people were fantastic and I will hopefully keep in touch with them for a long time.
Travel wise, my plans have changed a bit since last summer. Instead of heading to South America, I'm headed to Japan and Southeast Asia first. I've got a list of places I'd like to see in Vietnam and Laos (and Thailand if their whole military coup thing chills out) and there's a wildlife sanctuary that I'd like to volunteer at in Cambodia. I just have to start booking things. After Asia, I'd then like to go to South America but we'll see how things go. I'm not entirely sure how long of a leave I'll be taking from work (because I've decided to not quit and take an extended leave of absence instead... in hopes that when I come back, I can do more secondment experiences). I'd like to take until at least Christmas and then see how things are going.
But before all of that, I'm going home for about a month and am really looking forward to it. I've missed my family and friends way more than I thought I would (turns out, I do have a soul after all!) and am happy to be able to spend some time with them before taking off again.
So one last Scottish road trip (to Isle of Skye!) and then it's back to Canada.
Monday, 30 June 2014
Dunbar
I went to Dunbar, which is about 30 minutes southeast of Edinburgh on a train. It's a little coastal town with some pretty scenery (and some seaside golf courses). I went walking along the rocky beach on one side of town (where I almost got hit by a golf ball twice) and then walked along the sea cliffs on the other side of town. It made for a nice day out.
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| Dunbar |
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| Rock Formations |
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| Sea cliffs by harbour |
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| Sea Cliffs |
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Rosslyn Chapel and Roslin Glen
I went to Rosslyn Chapel, of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code fame, located in the town of Roslin. It was smaller than I was expecting but is really intricately decorated, which is quite impressive for the time that it was constructed.
After spending some time at the chapel, I took a walk along through part of the Roslin Country Park. I came across the ruins of an old mill and it was unexpectedly so beautiful it looked fake.
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| Rosslyn Chapel |
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| Rosslyn Chapel |
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| Intricate detail outside |
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| Intricate detail inside (you weren't allowed to take photos inside so I bought a postcard of the interior and took a photo of that) |
Cramond Island
A co-worker told me about Cramond Island, which is a small island just off Edinburgh that is accessible by foot for two hours either side of low tide. So, after carefully checking tide times, I decided to go check it out.
There's a paved walkway out to the island that runs beside big concrete pillars left over from the war (to prevent submarines passing between the island and the shore), but really, you could just walk on the sand if you wanted (unless you were cutting it close with the tide).
The island was alright - there are some old buildings from World War II and some pretty wild flowers. I was pretty disappointed with the volume of smashed beer bottles. I get it - it's a great secluded place for parties, camping and all sorts of mischief, but it would be really nice if people cleaned up after themselves.
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| Cramond Island |
There's a paved walkway out to the island that runs beside big concrete pillars left over from the war (to prevent submarines passing between the island and the shore), but really, you could just walk on the sand if you wanted (unless you were cutting it close with the tide).
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| Cramond Island |
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| Submarine Defences |
The island was alright - there are some old buildings from World War II and some pretty wild flowers. I was pretty disappointed with the volume of smashed beer bottles. I get it - it's a great secluded place for parties, camping and all sorts of mischief, but it would be really nice if people cleaned up after themselves.
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| Cramond Island |
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| Cramond Island |
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| Bird! |
Wednesday, 11 June 2014
Easy as Changing a Light Bulb
Daylight hours here are now a bit ridiculous. It doesn't get dark until after 10:30 pm and then it's light again around 4:30 am. It's a huge difference to December when the sun would rise after I got to work and set before I left.
The extra daylight came in handy this week when the light bulb in my room burnt out. It burnt out Monday night (shorting the fuse as it went) and we had no spare bulbs in the flat so Tuesday after work I stopped to get a new bulb. When I got to the light bulb section, I realized that I should have done a bit of research first. Besides having all the different shapes, wattages and eco ratings, they also had different fittings - not just the screwy-inny ones, like Canada, but also a bayonet fitting (with sort of sideways prong thingys). I had no idea which one I needed so I went back to my flat to take out the old light bulb to see what fitting it had. I tried to unscrew the bulb and it didn't work (although I did manage to unscrew the whole sitting on my light fixture, which made for an interesting time), so I deduced that it must be a bayonet fitting. This led to another problem in that I had no idea how to take out a bayonet fitting light bulb. I was reduced to turning on my computer and sheepishly Googling how to change a light bulb. I finally got the old light bulb out, noted that it was 60W and indeed a bayonet fitting, and then headed out to a nearby store. They didn't have a great light bulb selection and had no 60W bayonet light bulbs so I decided to wait until Wednesday and go back to the first store. This is where having a lot of daylight hours really came in handy. I do have a bedside lamp so I wasn't completely in the dark but it was nice to have daylight as well.
Wednesday I went back to the first store and they didn't have any 60W bulbs either (is 60W just not done in the UK? And if not, how did one end up in the room in the first place?!) but they did have 70W bulbs so I got one of those and proudly installed it in my light fixture. I turned on the light to admire my handy work, which is when I noticed the tag on the light fixture that said 60W maximum in dire "punishable by death" red font. After encouraging the light fixture to go forth and procreate, I headed back out to the store.
So two days and four trips to the store later, I am typing this under the light of my brand new 55W light bulb... which is supplemented by the bright daylight streaming in my window....
The extra daylight came in handy this week when the light bulb in my room burnt out. It burnt out Monday night (shorting the fuse as it went) and we had no spare bulbs in the flat so Tuesday after work I stopped to get a new bulb. When I got to the light bulb section, I realized that I should have done a bit of research first. Besides having all the different shapes, wattages and eco ratings, they also had different fittings - not just the screwy-inny ones, like Canada, but also a bayonet fitting (with sort of sideways prong thingys). I had no idea which one I needed so I went back to my flat to take out the old light bulb to see what fitting it had. I tried to unscrew the bulb and it didn't work (although I did manage to unscrew the whole sitting on my light fixture, which made for an interesting time), so I deduced that it must be a bayonet fitting. This led to another problem in that I had no idea how to take out a bayonet fitting light bulb. I was reduced to turning on my computer and sheepishly Googling how to change a light bulb. I finally got the old light bulb out, noted that it was 60W and indeed a bayonet fitting, and then headed out to a nearby store. They didn't have a great light bulb selection and had no 60W bayonet light bulbs so I decided to wait until Wednesday and go back to the first store. This is where having a lot of daylight hours really came in handy. I do have a bedside lamp so I wasn't completely in the dark but it was nice to have daylight as well.
Wednesday I went back to the first store and they didn't have any 60W bulbs either (is 60W just not done in the UK? And if not, how did one end up in the room in the first place?!) but they did have 70W bulbs so I got one of those and proudly installed it in my light fixture. I turned on the light to admire my handy work, which is when I noticed the tag on the light fixture that said 60W maximum in dire "punishable by death" red font. After encouraging the light fixture to go forth and procreate, I headed back out to the store.
So two days and four trips to the store later, I am typing this under the light of my brand new 55W light bulb... which is supplemented by the bright daylight streaming in my window....
Saturday, 7 June 2014
Manchester
After 3 straight weekends in Edinburgh, I was starting to get antsy so thought of going to Oslo for the weekend but then it started to feel like an awful lot of effort so I went with the logical next destination: Manchester. I'd been to Manchester Airport area before, on my way to Wales, but hadn't actually visited the city. I forgot my camera so excuse the cell phone camera quality photos.
The first thing I noticed about Manchester were the red brick buildings - I haven't seen many of those recently (mainly grey/yellow stone buildings) so the change of colour was nice. I also discovered that the main downtown area of Manchester is compact enough to be easily walkable, which is always nice, but they also have free shuttle buses that go to main tourist sites (3 routes running every 10-20 minutes). I thought that was a really nice touch.
I went to the Manchester Art Gallery, which was a refreshing change from most art galleries as the works of art were a bit mixed up all together. Instead of having all old paintings in one room and more contemporary works in another, they just stuck everything together like this:
The first thing I noticed about Manchester were the red brick buildings - I haven't seen many of those recently (mainly grey/yellow stone buildings) so the change of colour was nice. I also discovered that the main downtown area of Manchester is compact enough to be easily walkable, which is always nice, but they also have free shuttle buses that go to main tourist sites (3 routes running every 10-20 minutes). I thought that was a really nice touch.
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| Albert Square |
I went to the Manchester Art Gallery, which was a refreshing change from most art galleries as the works of art were a bit mixed up all together. Instead of having all old paintings in one room and more contemporary works in another, they just stuck everything together like this:
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| Manchester Art Gallery |
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| "Big Booby #2"... not sure if there's a #1 somewhere |
I also went to the People's History Museum, the John Rylands Library, the Manchester Cathedral and the National Football Museum (where I learned that my dad's favourite team, the Wolverhampton Wanderers, were actually a great team once... I'm sure they'll get back there one day... just like I'm sure the Maple Leafs will eventually win another Stanley Cup. You know, one of those "maybe not in my lifetime but it's bound to happen at some point" things).
On Sunday, everything I had planned to see was closed (so maybe not great planning on my part) but I stumbled across the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art. It's a small gallery showcasing Chinese contemporary art (I know, you'd never guess it from the gallery name). They had a neat exhibit about a Dutch design firm that created a mobile design service for Beijing Design Week to create "on the spot" logos for local small businesses. They gave the owners a survey to answer some brief questions about their businesses and then created a new logo for them right then and there. You can see some of the logos and read more about it here: http://www.lava.nl/newsitems/view/130/English
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