Waving from Holland

Halloween in Holland?

October 31st, 2012

We had to make special arrangements with the neighbors on Schutterstaat to recreate Halloween for the boys, and it went off without a hitch. When neighbors saw the boys parading the street in their Scottish knight costumes, they summoned them through the window to meet them at the door for candy. We adorned our home with festive, home made Halloween decorations and the dinner's menu was all things pumpkin - a jack-o-lantern pizza, pumpkin smoothies, and pumpkin muffins.

I laugh every time I look at this picture

hahaha, and this one

At the last second
I threw on a cat costume

Dinner!

London! Day Three

October 29th, 2012

During my final day of sightseeing London, I ambled through several museums (most of them are free in this expensive city!), revisited the house of Parliament during the daylight, and took the tube to the district of Chelsea, to...ya know, take as many pictures of my name as possible, of course. By nightfall, I had to get back to Ryan's to get my stuff, then begin my journey back to Holland. I took several trains east to Harwich's Port, an hour and half outside of London, and boarded a gigantic ship (cruise ship-sized) that would sail to the Hoek van Holland overnight. I was ecstatic to have my own 'cabin' on board, adding to the list of modes of transportation I have slept on while traveling (cars, trains, planes, and now boat). Instead of my passport being stamped with a picture of an airplane, it was a boat! We set sail at 23:15 from England, and arrived on Holland's shores at 07:45. From there it was just another 2 hours before I was at the steps of Schutterstraat 33.

"Chelsea Harbor"

My cabin! Complete with two comfy beds,
flatscreen tv, and my own complete bathroom!

London! Day Two

October 28th, 2012

Day two started off with the lovely ceremony of draining my blisters, and the accidental deletion of my pictures from my memory card - memories of Scotland and a day in London down the drain. I was advised not to take any more pictures until I was able to recover my lost ones. What? No more pictures while in London?! So the first thing that I did was hunt down a camera store and buy a new memory card. I spent the day sightseeing and searching for Shakespeare's Globe. Seeing the Globe Theater, albeit it's not the original one (burnt down and later demolished in the 1600s), was the one thing that I hope to see in London. Unfortunately, their season is over, due to the nature of the outdoor space, but I was able to take a tour! The theater was reconstructed to be as academically close to the original one as possible, but there aren't any blue prints from the 1599 building. It was thrilling, nonetheless.

Let the pictures of my day fill in some details...

Holiday decorations up!

A bar where Alex once worked

Piccadilly Circus

London Tower

St. Paul's Cathedral

My Pilgrimage Site

In the 1600s, when fire codes weren't a

deterrent, 3,000 people could fill the audience!

All the world's a stage

Taken from the Millennium foot Bridge

London! Day One

October 26-29, 2012

From Edinburgh, I bid farewell to the Horner-Devines at the airport, and caught a flight to London, where I stayed with friends and fully embraced being a tourist. I basically walked around the city for three days straight, in shoes apparently not meant for walking, and hit almost all of the major sights in the city. After the first day, my feet were sore, covered with blisters and bleeding from cuts, rendering me to a limping tourist the entire time. So I made sure to use the tube (underground light rail) to my full advantage. The more that I travel and use other city's advanced transportation, it really puts Seattle's Department of Transportation to shame. Shame. Seattle's public transportation is appalling unpredictable, inconvenient, and downright embarrassing. I often end up walking to my destination if it's within 2 miles because it's faster than waiting for the bus to arrive. Anywhere else it seems offers an efficient rail system that comes every 2 minutes and is seen as a practical way to get around. Is Seattle just too young of a city to have advanced its transportation system? Could it be Seattle's lack of science and technology, or progressive thinkers?

Portobello Market

The first day I took the tube to Notting Hill and strolled through the bustling absurdness of Portobello Road - one of the most famous street markets in the world and on a Saturday, the streets are crowded for two miles. I didn't know any of this upon my arrival on a Saturday afternoon, and soon found myself disgruntled and trying to hurry through the endless wall of people (I hate crowds, so I become a bit of a wet blanket at fun amusements like festivals, special events, Disneyland...). To add to my crotchety demeanor I ended up walking for nearly in an hour in the wrong direction, thus creating blisters one and two. Eventually, I made it down through Hyde Park and met Ryan at Harrod's, Europe's largest department store (I didn't know this little fact either before agreeing to meet Ryan there). This store fills of 5 acres of land, over one million square feet, and is comprised of 330 departments! It too was over crowded, and I felt completely out of place and overwhelmed. But it was fascinating. It felt like I was in a casino or huge cruise ship that offered everything, as long as it was luxurious. I think that someone was even singing opera from a balcony, over looking the golden escalators.

Harrod's Food Hall, where I walked
out with 1/2 of a pound of baklava

Green Park

From there we wondered through Green Park, stopping at Buckingham Palace. Because Ryan was on a very important phone call for 20 or so minutes, when we stopped at the palace and Ryan whispered to me, "I'll stay right here and you can have a look around," I had no idea that we were actually at Buckingham Palace. I kind of indiscriminately snapped pictures of monuments, fancy gates, flags - things that looked like they were of some importance. It wasn't until I got a little closer to the palace when I read a sign about the changing of the guards, and began to recognize the face of the palace. "Wait a second, is this where Will and Kate kissed on the balcony after getting married?!" It was a bit underwhelming, but fun to have seen.

Continuing on our walk, we made it to Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abby, and the houses of Parliament Covent Gardens, and by the time Ryan was pointing out to me Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives and works, I was feeling crippled by my aching feet, needing to pee, and the freezing cold. It was dark and raining, and I was starving. When Christie was able to meet up with us, she made haste to find a place to eat dinner. Sushi and a bottle of wine helped mend my ailments :) After a night cap at another trendy bar across town, I was ready for bed.

Notting Hill

I was already booked when Adidas
called me to do this photoshoot

Buckingham Palace

Another government building?
nope, Buckingham Palace

The Mall at Buckingham Palace

Big Ben poking its head out from the trees!

The London Eye

A Night at Loch Ness, A Day in Edinburgh

October 24-25th, 2012

We spent one night at a lodge in Inverness, Scotland, with a view of Loch Ness. No sightings of Nessie the Monster, on this trip, though. Unfortunately, all of my pictures from Loch Ness and the lodge were not recovered. At the lodge, they served a traditional Scottish breakfast that included black pudding (congealed blood sausage) and haggis, but only Alex was brave enough to order it. Our server was from Romania, and struck up a conversation with me as we were leaving. Without knowing where I was from, he told me that it was his dream to one day own a cottage in either Alaska or Montana and spend the rest of his days fishing. When I then told him that I was raised in Montana, and would be returning their later this month, he sat down in astonishment. He raised his hands and summoned me with all ten fingers, "Tell me more," in a thick Romanian accent. To him, Alaska and Montana must be a slice of heaven.

We spent the next night back at Sally and Roy's farm, dining on fish and chips, and the next morning set off for a day in Edinburgh before catching our flights out of Scotland. Edinburgh's ancient buildings and Gothic churches rubs shoulders with its modern architecture, sharing the same cobbled streets and views of the Edinburgh Castle. I enjoyed walking around, doing some light shopping (the boys got kilts!), and even riding a double decker bus around, but it was uncomfortably cold. It was so cold that I gave myself a stomach ache from clenching my body, and eventually had to duck into a shop and buy a pair of gloves. But it was a sunny, beautiful day, and I hope that one day I'm lucky enough to return to Scotland and it's capital city.