Barecelona then Portugal

I took an overnight train to Barcelona, getting there the morning of May 2. It was a first class bunk, just a bit roomy then the 2nd class ones really (in case you're wondering, the rail pass that I won is a 1st class ticket).

I know I said I was going to Bilbao, but I discovered that Spain is much bigger than I thought. My apologies to Spain, I should know better to assume everything is close since I'm forever telling people that Toronto is no where near the "east coast of Canada". So I stayed in Barcelona for a couple of nights. It won't rank as my favourite city in the world, since it's very packed and grubby, but it does have a lot of neat old winding streets. And palm trees, and warm weather.

I wandered around La Rambla where human statues in bizarre costumes perform - a Edward Scissorhands look-a-like snapped his scissors at me when I gave him a few coins. I went to the Market de Bourqueta for fresh fruit.

I spent an inordinate amount of time booking a ticket on a train to Lisbon, my next stop. I won't go into that, but lets just say that they could organize the train ticketing system better, and open more than 1/4 of the ticket windows.

I went to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral under construction for over a century. It's unusual in design with natural influences, like columns that ressemble bones and trees, stair cases that are single helixes, and bunches of fruit on tops of the towers. I tried to find a park designed by the same guy, Gaudi, but with no luck. The park was supposed to have been part of a town but Gaudi never finished that either. He seemed to have trouble actualizing his ideas, or completing them. I can identify with that.

I went up to Park Montjuic and it was there that looking down on the city that I felt really disturbed. It's such a heaping of buildings, most of which aren't all that pretty. It felt stiffling looking at it. It's funny, on the street the buildings don't look too bad with their terraced windows and plant pots, but from a far it looked terrible. So I'm off mixed feelings on Barcelona.

I left there yesterday afternoon, first on a train to Madrid where I had to ride in 2nd class (gracious me!). It was actually quite comfortable, with a Lindsay Lohan film (can't remember the name - she's really lucky, then she loses her luck via kissing to a previously unlucky guy and has to get it back) that was all in Spanish so I couldn't really understand it and it was probably better that way.

Got into Lisbon this morning and had to ride from south of city to north of city to change trains. The entire city seems to be concrete apartment buildings in pale stone colours, with graffiti everywhere. It didn't seem pleasant, and after having enough of grubbiness of big cities, I was glad of my choice to go down south to Lagos, in the Algrave region. I don't know if I'll go to Lisbon to spend time at all, maybe just an afternoon before getting my train back to Madrid.

Things I like about Paris

Since I was hard on France in my last post, here we go.

1. Rollerbladers are not treated as though they are evil. You see all sorts of people skating in groups, playing pickup games of hockey in parks, and in general not being shunned by the world. There's lots more skaters than in Canada as well. The municipal government even mentions "rollers" on their signs about scenic river routes, as well as pedestrians and cyclists (Charlottetown Boardwalk could learn something therre).

2. Free public toilets. Important when travelling.

3. Streets that are named after someone have info on the sign about the person - it's a nice touch.

4. Fresh bread at any time of day. Unlike Scotland where it seems to sell out at noon, and that's any bread.

And in general it is a nice city as far as cities go. It's very grand, in that you can tell from the buildings, the gold paint on the fences, the sculptures of winged horses and sphinxes and what-have-you, that this is a city that has been rich for a long time and isn't afraid to show it off.

May 1 seemed to be a holiday, so all of the tourist things I had planned failed due to closures save Notre Dame cathedral. It was huge, very dark inside, quite imposing. Stained glass windows were pretty but I always have trouble figuring out what they're about due to the ornateness and the fact that I don't speak medieval religious symbology.

Afterward I wondered, discovering that everything was closed, so I made my way to the Champ de Mars, the park on which sits the Eifel Tower, and sat watching Parisian families play football and hang out.

Unlike in the UK, where people seem to obey the signs that say "No ball games" on any stretch of grass, in Paris they just play ball right by the sign. The rules seem to exist to be broken. In Notre Dame, there were signs saying not to take pictures but everyone was. One guy was setting up a huge tripod!

And a final neat thing about Paris is that I was able to speak French all day and my accent even improved over the day. So then I went to Spain where it's not of much use. Another post...

Paris photos

Parks in Paris often consist of pebbly dirt like the one below, on which brave, masochistic Parisians run in the hot sun. Parks that let you sit on the grass, like the Champ de Mars (home of the Eifel Tower) fill up quickly on sunny days. The dust coats your shoes, so that my black shoes looked grey, and I had to empty little stones out of them frequently.

People sitting outside the closed Louvre. A common occurrence, it would seem.

A bridge in the typical grandeur of Paris, with some of the restaurant boats that makes trips along the river Seine.

Some old photos plus an update on travelling

Here's a few photos that I managed to upload. First of all, the mountain alongside the Coylet and you can see a clear line through the trees which is the forestry road that I used to walk on. And here's just some photos of the loch reflecting that I took the other day when it was nice and sunny.

Anyway, back to what I'm up to now. I managed to sleep a bit in the airport last night but was still quite tired this morning on my flight. When I got to Beauvais airport the simplest thing to do seemed to me to go into Paris and find out information about where I wanted to go, Normandy, from there, as more than likely any trains would connect through Paris anyway. Now, I'm really tired and frustrated as I write this (and that's with having had a nap), so it may be complaining.

Finding information proved more difficult than I ever imagined. I recalled a main tourist office that was quite helpful being on Avenue des Champs-Elysees, and my Lonely Planet guide claimed it was there as well, but it must have just disappeared. So after spending an hour or two dragging myself along to find that and not finding it, I got on the metro to find the only other tourist office I knew of, near the Louvre. Bear in mind that I was looking at every tourist map of Paris that was posted on the street and although they showed me where museums and monuments were, none indicated tourist offices.

So I got to the tourist office to find that it contained about 10 different pamphlets about Paris and when I enquired about getting information on other parts of France the woman at the desk basically laughed at me. She gave me a number that she said might help, but she couldn't even tell me if there were other tourist offices in the city that catered to other regions. Now at one point I walked by Italy's national tourist office so I don't see why France couldn't have one. Anyway, I grabbed a booklet on accomodation and a map of the city.

I think the Paris authorities want you to tell them years in advance before you come here. For example, in my map of the city, under the heading of "internet cafes", I was directed to a website where I could find a list. All well and good if I had gotten this pamphlet before I came over here, while I still knew where I could use a computer.

Then, in the hostels section of my accomodation guide, I was informed that all reservations were to be made in writing, as well as any cancellations. Again, kind of hard for me to do that now that I'm in the city.

Also, I wonder why the tourist officials and transportation officials seems to be annoyed when you ask them to provide you with information, when they are sitting under a sign that says they will give you information. Sort of the wrong career choice if that's not your thing.

So I went to the appropriate train station to see if I could just get to Normandy myself and maybe find out accomodation info as well. Well, the lines were horrendous and the prospect of arriving in a small town well into the evening without a room seemed too much for me in my tired state. I hopped on the metro again to go to a hostel, choosing it solely because it was easy to get to by metro, checked in, and slept.

After getting up and showering I decided that I'm getting out of this country at the moment, so I went and hunted up and overnight train to Barcelona. I'm hoping to get to Bilbao once there, but will see how things go. So I'm spending tomorrow here until around 9:30pm.

On a lighter note: motor scooters scare me, because people drive them on the sidewalks here and even use crosswalks with them, then switch to the streets when it suits them. There's a lot of them and they just like to cut through people. They're not as bad as I remember in Rome though.

Secondly, it now seems strange for vehicles to be driving on the right side of the road again, and to be on a bus that goes through a roundabout anti-clockwise. Incidentally, the French seem to be as fond of roundabouts on their highways as the British. And then there's the roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe, where about 20 roads converge into one.

That's my complaining done, hopefully Spain goes better.

Glasgow photos

Glasgow's filled with grand old buildings (largely Georgian architecture, if you know what that means) that have modern shops in the ground floors. This one is a home decorating shop if I recall correctly. When walking down the streets, it's easy to not notice the buildings themselves because at street level they consist of the usual plate-glass windows displaying clothing and shoes and the like.

The interior of the Kelvingrove Museum. This picture does not properly convey the sheer size of the place. That's a pipe organ in the back that is played daily.

In Glasgow about to set off...

So my time at the Coylet has come to an end and I headed for Glasgow Friday evening, driven to the ferry courtesy of Fraser before getting the train on the other side. I left some things that I don't want to travel with over the summer (like winter clothes) in a small backpack there, so I'll be back not only for a visit but to collect my things.

Well, I'm killing time in Glasgow today before I had to Preswick airport (south west of the city by a fair bit) at 11pm. That's the last train I can catch if I'm going to be there in time for my 6am flight to France. The things one does for a plane ticket that costs under £20.

In anticipation of travelling abroad, I have changed my phone number to a network that will work outside the UK, namely Vodafone, and will be using that now as my permanent number. If for some reason you need that number, let me know by comment or e-mail. I won't be using my phone for other than emergencies abroad because roaming is expensive, although I can probably get away with the occasional text, but no one that I know outside of people I've met abroad uses texting anyway.

There's an election coming up in Scotland next week, for the devolved Scottish parliment at Holyrood. Julie showed me her postal ballot instructions when she received them, and it's a complicated voting procedure. Because they have proportional representation for Scottish parliment, there's two votes - one for the constituency representative, and then one for so many regional seats that are given out according to proportion of vote received. There's also a list of something like 20 parties running for those seats, some of whom seem to be a party of one, and some with very specific agendas: the indoor smoking party (Scotland passed a law last year prohibiting smoking in public places that are more than 50% closed on their perimeters. Basically, you can't smoke in anything approximating indoors unless it's your own home. Even separately-ventillated smoking rooms are not permitted.), the UK-independence party (the lets-get-out-of-the-EU and keep all the foreign workers like the Polish from coming in, as far as I understand their policies). There's several socialist-to-communist parties, many of whom were out loudly spreading their messages on the streets of central Glasgow yesterday. There's also several Christian parties involving titles like "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship".

The main race is coming down to the Scottish National Party (SNP), the pro-independence party, and Labour, the current ruling party. It seems that SNP may do quite well not because of support for independence but because people are sick of Labour. It's looking like a minority government for SNP though, so they'll need to form a coalition, probably with the Liberal Democrats as the Conservatives won't really comply.

I went to the Post Office yesterday in an attempt to find a postcode for a community, and discovered that since they have computerized their directory they cannot find a post code unless I have the full street address. If I had that I don't think I would need the post code. I was hoping to find a directory like Canada Post has, where you look up the community and it tells you that the post code on this side of such-and-such a street is this for so many numbers, etc. Then I could probably have figured out an approximate one.

Then I bought some Euros as the Post Office doesn't charge commission. I was then offered travel insurance by the teller, and then subsequently informed that they also offer home and auto insurance, which I declined saying that I didn't have those things to insure. I thought Canada Post had really branched out when they started selling teddy bears and Harry Potter collectible coins, but Royal Mail has got them beat. They seem to offer a lot of other services as well, although they never have more than two teller windows open even when the building is equipped for 10.

An interesting thought (perhaps): Royal Mail has postmen (posties) to deliver the post; Canada Post has mailmen (no nickname!) to deliver the mail.

I've been hiking around the city a fair bit here since I haven't figured out the bus system and the subway hasn't been of much use because it's a big circle that misses most of the locations I've been trying to go to, so walking to the stations and back would save little time. I took the subway on a previous visit to go to the Kelvingrove Museum and the Museum of Transport (both great museums and free!). I was shocked to find how small the carriages are - and I mean in height. I practically had to duck to get through the door. Inside the upholstry is that of a 1970's living room, I believe, which reminded me much of the LRT in Edmonton. I'm not sure if the decorators thought that those patterns in harvest gold and autumn orange or whatever were esthetically pleasing or if they just figured that the pattern would conceal filth quite well.

Back to time at the Coylet: I got to go out in one of the boats that the hotel hires last week, namely the powan, named for a fish in the loch (the other is our non-motor boat called the char). The trip commenced with Chris driving and Julie and I sitting about admiring the view and the rain. Then when Chris tired of driving he convinced me to do it, which was easy enough although hard on the left arm after awhile because you have to hold it almost behind your back to keep the throttle down. We cut the engine as we approached some swans and Chris and Julie rowed us in, as shown below:


Then I started the engine up again with instructions from Chris, and we motored around some more over to some sheep on the shore, and then back to the hotel. The rain had stopped after the first few minutes, at least for awhile, so I got some photos.

Here is the Coylet Inn and the mountain that it sits in front of. It never seemed so big when I was just living below it; the Coylet looks so small by comparison. I climbed the bit toward the right of the photo, where there's no trees to the right of the bright green bits.

This photo I actually took when I walked part way up the hill on the other side of the loch; here you see the caravan park on the left and the Coylet to it's immediate right.

I have more photos but will get them off my camera when facilities permit.

Driving lesson and the old Coylet

I forgot to mention in my last post something rather exciting (to me at least) that I did recently: I got a lesson on how to drive a manual transmission car!

Pretty much every car in the UK, and in Europe as far as I know, is a manual, or standard as we call them in Canada, so I haven't been able to drive anything. I've been asking people I work with to teach me ever since I've been here, but of course it's tricky because I don't have my insurance and over here you're not covered insurance-wise just to drive someone else's car on a one-time basis. But a week ago Thursday, Fraser took me down to a forestry road that's at Ardentinny beach and we drove around in circles on the gravel road. My biggest problem was not letting the clutch off slow enough when I was starting from a dead stop, but I managed alright and even though the car had a loose gearbox and I would sometimes end up in fourth instead of second gear, I could definitely hear something was wrong and correct myself. So now I feel I could rent a car and then with practice driving I'd be quite fine. I haven't driven on the road, so there'd be that driving on the left-hand side to get used to (it was weird enough sitting on the right-hand side of the car) but I'm sure that difference can be over come as well.

And now for something different.

There's some old photos of the Coylet hanging on the walls here that date from late 1800's I'd guess from the clothing and modes of transportation. I've taken photos of them with my camera, so of course the images aren't great, but I thought it would be neat to try to show them at least. I find it interesting firstly that there's no trees on the hills, and also that the place basically looks the same as it does now.

The road used to end at the Coylet and to go farther north you either had to go around a coastal road or take a ferry up Loch Eck to where there was a road. I don't know if this picture is of the ferry, or of ships that used to just sail up the loch from the river to the south (they used to do tours on the loch as well), but whatever this pier was roughly opposite the hotel, as I recognize the shape of the mountains in the background (again with no trees on them).

It's hard to see it here, but those wagons have about 20 to 30 people each loaded on them. Travelling in comfort.

It rarely occurs to me just how old the Coylet Inn is - it's late 17th century from what I know, which means that it's 300 to 350 years old. When the inn was built, the ancestors of most Canadians were not in Canada - in my case they were in Scotland, Ireland, and England, with the bulk of them not even speaking English at the time and probably not yet converted from Catholicism to Protestantism.

The thing is, I've spent six months living and working in a building that's older than anything in PEI, but it doesn't feel old. Sure the staircase is small and quite steep, and the roof slopes in quite a bit in the upstairs, but the place doesn't remind me every day just how old it is. I'm not really sure what it would take for me to feel that it's old.

The post with no name

To be unoriginal, time is flying by. Karen made up our rota (work schedule) for the next upcoming two weeks a few days ago and I now have 4 days of work left at the old Coylet. I'll probably be leaving here on April 27 and travelling to Glasgow. I'll spend the weekend in the city, doing some touristy things (I really like Glasgow as far as cities go) and preparing to head off on my trip. I've got a plane ticket booked to fly to Beauvais, an airport north of Paris, on April 30, and then on May 1 I can start using my train pass and I'll be heading at first for Normandy.

I think I mentioned going to see a ceilidh last time I wrote. Well, that didn't pan out because by the time we got down to the ceilidh, at 11:30pm, we were told it was over. Having been told that they often ran well into the early hours of the morning that was somewhat of a disappointment, but we quickly formulated a plan B. The previously mentioned Jez of the kayak drove us to Sandbank (where the American naval base used to be) to a pub called the Oakbank where live music was on of the rock and roll format as opposed to Celtic. The "we" being Julie, Pickle, Matt, and I, to be later joined by Fraser, and of course Jez our driver. The only other times I have been in the Oakbank were with the staff boys to play pool and that was on weeknights. It's the kind of pub that has a very local, frequent clientele, and on one night I had been there before several people had brought their large dogs with them, and the dogs proceded to wrestle all over the pub, knocking into chairs and table occasionally. I thought that was brillant. Anyway, I have digressed. The band at the Oakbank, regulars called Electric Soup, proved to be entertaining so the evening was not lost.

The rain has returned here, although there's also been some sunny days as well. Yesterday I walked to the other side of the loch, and part way up the mountain to get a view of my home for the last six months. The hotel looks very tiny when seen against the backdrop of the mountain behind it.

Today I was planning to go to Inverary to see the castle that has been closed for the season during much of my stay here. Alas, the one bus I needed to catch was 10 minutes early and so I saw it go by as I was sitting inside finishing my tea and toast. So I've had a rather uneventful day off, but in an hour Julie and I are heading into Dunoon to go see a fiddle concert.

Work has quieted down after the Easter holidays, but we did have a wedding last Saturday that was quite fun to work. It was actually a "civil union" as I believe they're termed - two women who have a holiday caravan in the same park that I'm living in. The two ladies, and their assorted guests were all great people who were a pleasure to serve, and to top it off since we had been closed for food all day we all pretty much got off work at 8pm once the cleaning up was done, except for poor Karen who had to mind the bar.

Have to head off soon, so will leave more for later. There will definitely be some updates before I go to Europe.

A Whirlwind of Activity

I've been up to lots of fun stuff lately. Last I wrote the weather was cold - well, it's warmed up some and been quite sunny during the days so that it's been almost hot. It cools down overnight but the daytime has been fabulous. This has made for excellent opportunities for outdoor activities.

Also, since schools are on Easter Holidays here now (two weeks), business has been picking up and that meant new staff. We've got a "new" second chef - Chris, from Kirn (near Dunoon) who worked here before but then left and has just come back from British Columbia. Then we got Julie from Edinburgh about two weeks ago, and she's living in the caravan with me and Margaret who arrived from Poland a few days ago. We've been going on hikes together when we have the time, and having bonfires on the loch shore a few nights and gone out into the wild nightlife of Dunoon a few times (it's wild in an anti-social behaviour sort-of-way). I've gotten out on the loch in a kayak that a regular customer, Jez, has loaned us (very kind of him) and that was great. I also took a very brief swim in the loch because I figured I should at least get in the water once before I left here. It lasted about 20 seconds because the water is very cold (like glacial). And then there's plans for going to a ceilidh at Uig Hall down the road tomorrow night, and it's pronounced "wig", not "you-ig" as we say it in PEI.

Scotland's like any other place in the world that has a winter, in that it feels very different once the winter starts to end. It's a whole other atmosphere when the sun is out, and it's not raining. Of course there will be rain again at some point. And I'll be packing my bags in a few weeks time, as my Eurail train pass that I won commences on the first of May, so I'll be off to the continent. I'm going to miss the place, but the hope is that I'll have fun elsewhere (I'm sounding all sentimental now ;) ).

Round and round the roundabout

Just to be clear, a roundabout is what I've been taught to call a rotary, which I guess is short for rotary junction. It's when several roads meet and instead of putting up stop signs or traffic lights, the traffic is made to flow in a circle with exits to the roads at various points. In Canada, rotaries are infrequent and used only for major roads like highways (with the exception of Sherwood Park, Alberta). In Scotland, the are frequent, and in Ireland it seems to me they are even more frequent.

Let me put it this way. In Dunoon, there is a street called John Street, on which lies my bank and the supermarket. John Street forms a T-intersection with Alexandra Parade, a street that runs along the waterfront. In any Canadian town of Dunoon's size, this intersection would have a stop sign on John Street. Or perhaps given that John Street is busy enough, there would be a three-way stop at the intersection. This is not the case. Instead, there is a little concrete circle, only about 3-4 feet in diameter, in the centre of the intersection. It is a roundabout, albeit a tiny one. There is another roundabout farther down Alexandra Parade by the ferry where the street merges with Argyll Street (the main drag) to form a street called Victoria Parade. And according to my map of Dunoon, there's another roundabout farther down that street. So Dunoon has three roundabouts in a town of about 9,000 people.

Roundabouts are even more frequent out on the highways, known as motorways in this country, and to my amusement, dual carriageways when it's a divided highway. I picture horse-drawn carriages zipping along at 70 mph. Another similar out-of-date term is "telegraph pole" for any pole, be it telephone or electrical. Anyway, from what I've seen of the motorways in Scotland and Ireland, instead of using a ramp-exit system with over/under-passes like is used on Canadian highways, roundabouts are used whenever roads meet. There are sometimes over/under-passes, but they are still part of a roundabout. These large roundabouts don't have little concrete circles in the middle obviously, instead they have raised banks of grass with plants and trees.

On a bus from Dublin to Kilkenny, near the town of Naas, my bus went through three roundabouts in succession. I'm not joking - through one roundabout, then a few hundred yards of straight road before another, and then repeat. I have no idea how much the bus' direction of travel was altered from its original course after all that whirling around - we could have been going back again for all I knew.

Betcha didn't know

I'm not entirely sure about all the sports betting laws in Canada, but what I do notice is different in Scotland is that you can walk into a bookies in the middle of town and bet on any number of sports. In fact, I never realized that "bookie" was short for "bookmaker" until I walked by a business labelled as such in Gourock.

There is one major chain of bookies called Ladbrokes - there's one in Dunoon, and there seems to be one every few blocks in cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh. They do not use the term "bookmakers" at all on their signs, and so when I first arrived in the country and saw these Ladbrokes all over the place I was perplexed by them. From their posters I gathered that they had something to do with money but the language was not that of banks and seemed to be aimed at men only. It wasn't until someone at work mentioned Ladbrokes, some many weeks later, that I discovered what they do and it all finally made sense.

Ladbrokes presents a very clean-cut sort of business - not the grotty, secretive image of a bookie that I've always held. An outlet in central Glasgow even had a fancy brick storefront and stained-glass windows with images of football players, race horses and other sports. Classy.
In Ireland the presence of bookies is even greater. In addition to Ladbrokes there is another chain, Paddy Power. Even the smallest of towns, consisting of a little more than on street with a few shops, would have at least one bookies.

The Sporting Life

So today I thought I'd write a bit about sports - or what I shall refer to from here on as "sport" because it's never pluralized in the UK, unless you were to say something like "Football and rugby are two sports that I play".

Sport is incredibly important to people in the UK, or at least to the men. I daresay it is more important than it is to men in Canada. The sport section of most newspapers is often as big as the entire remainder of the newspaper - news, business, arts and entertainment all combined (except on Saturdays and Sundays when those sections get expanded and the newspapers go section-crazy to deliever you a phone-book sized paper).

If one judges popularity of a sport based on the number of newspaper pages devoted to it, then football (soccer - apparently that name comes from some bizarre shortening of "association football") is the most popular sport by far. I haven't revealed anything startling as most people have probably heard something about the football obsession in the UK. Even knowing that, I found the extent of the obsession surprising when I came here. There's at least half-a-dozen leagues between England and Scotland that have to be reported on, in great detail, every day in the newspapers, and these teams are somehow entwined into various European leagues in ways that I can't figure out. People say that Canadians are obsessed with hockey, but the English, Scottish, and Irish make the Canadian obsession look like a passing interest. I'm not exaggerating - you should see how much written-word is devoted to every match that is played. What's funny is that all these countries are obsessed with a sport that they're not even very good at, as World Cup results will show.

After football, rugby probably gets the second-most number of sports pages, but it's a distant second. Then, depending on the season I guess, and whether it's a Scottish newspaper or English one, there can be articles on cricket (more in English papers), tennis, hockey (field hockey), horse racing, track events. There's actually articles on snooker (pronounced snooooh-ker) and darts which I consider to be games rather than sports. In my opinion, if the participants can actually smoke and drink during the activity then it's a game, not a sport.
Then on a general results page, you'll often find brief summaries of North American pro sports game scores, including the NHL under the heading "ice hockey". I find that remarkable, as it's an obscure sport over here and it's not like I've ever seen anything in a Canadian newspaper about a Scottish sport like shinty (something like violent field hockey).

Newspapers and Toilets

It seems to me that there is a plethora of choice in newspapers in this country. Ones from Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, other English cities, "national" newspapers, and then the little local ones. Perhaps this is the result of several nations being united as one, the United Kingdom. Maybe it's a result of there being 60 million people in the UK compared to Canada's 30 million. But then there's only 5 million people in Scotland and it has two newspapers claiming to be national ones - Edinburgh's The Scotsman and Glasgow's The Herald. Canada only has two newspapers that claim to be national - The Globe and Mail and The National Post - and they're both out of the same city.

Given that there are so many newspapers in Scotland, I'm inclined to believe that Scots (and you can extend this to the English as well) simply buy more newspapers than Canadians. That's not to say that Scots are more interested in the news, as there is, in addition to the "broadsheet" newspapers, an astonishing number of what I would term "trashy" newspapers. These papers boldly proclaim that they cost only 10 to 15p (broadsheets cost from 65p to £1). The "trashy" newspapers pretty much focus on a few news headlines done sensationally (murders are a favourite topic), then there's celebrity gossip and sport.

These papers also inevitibly have a page 3 girl, like any newspaper called The Sun in Canada does (and many are called Sun over here as well). The difference is that the page 3 girls over here are photographed topless, a sight that astonished my innocent Islander eyes when I first flipped through a copy of The Scottish Sun. I expected that from certain magazines, but not from anything claiming to be news that you could just buy at the supermarket. The Scottish Sun even ran a competition with a spread of topless photos of contestants for page 3. To my amusement, next to each girl's topless photo they printed a smaller photo of her wearing a bikini top, which seemed rather pointless in an after-the-fact sort of way. Then there's the Scottish Sport, a paper that doesn't limit itself to page 3 for toplessness. It also presents little sport news, and much more of the topless news.

The UK often gets a reputation for being a bit old-fashioned and stiff, but their newspapers make Canada look prudish. Another way that Canadians seem prudish compared to Scots is that we always ask where the "washroom" or "bathroom" is, instead of the "toilets" as is done over here. Signs are labelled with "toilets" on them, or just the singular form. You say "I'm going to the toilet" even in polite conversation, whereas I was trained from the time I was a child to say "I'm going to the bathroom" and it seems a little inproper to me to say the former.

I remember learning how to ask that in French class. All us nine-year-old kids were a bit taken aback at asking to go to the toilet as it seemed too direct on such a taboo subject. Canadians, I think, don't like to say that we're going to the toilet because that tells everyone exactly what we're going to do: use the toilet. By saying that we're going to the "bathroom" (even when there's no bath in it) we can pretend that we're going to do something else other than use the toilet, even though all parties involved in the conversation know otherwise. Scots, on the other hand, have no problem admitting that they're going to use the toilet.

Trailer Park Girl in The Return of Winter

Since a week-and-a-half ago I've been living in the hotel's caravan at the park just up the road, a caravan being a mobile home. The park is a holiday park so there's not really anyone else staying there in the other caravans other than on weekends. The reason for my move is that we have a new 2nd chef, Chris, who's worked at the Coylet more than a year ago, and he took Matt's room and Matt took my room. At the moment I have the caravan to myself, but by next weekend we have a new girl starting who'll be living with me, and then at the start of April there will be another girl. The school Easter holidays are in April this year and for about two weeks, so tourism picks up at that time and we need more workers.

In other news, it had seemed that winter had passed by here as there's daffodils popping up everywhere and buds on the trees. Then this weekend there was hailstorms, and snow on the hilltops. It's been chilly yesterday and today - above freezing since I can't see my breath but still cold enough feeling.

Watch out for the elderly!

Sign along the A815 into Dunoon.

Added Ireland photos - even more

So I've now updated "The updating continues..." (January 24) and "Loads to tell" (January 22) with photos from Ireland. There's a few sentence-long comments introducing the pictures that were added as well, but they're right by the photos. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Since I've been told by people before that they have used some of my photos as computer wallpaper, if you find you like a picture and that it's not as high a resolution as you would like (not sure what Blogger puts them up as) then I can try loading a size larger (I'm using medium) to see if that helps. Although if they've been used as wallpaper before then they should be alright. And I'm just being vain to suggest it, perhaps ;) But anyway, give me a shout if that's the case.

And now for some photos from the days I spent in the Connemarra region of Galway county. This was truly out in the boonies, where buses would go in to certain villages only on one day of the week and only leave on another day. The landscape reminded me of the Highlands, but then the stone is a different colour - sort of the same colour as the Burren.

This mountain is called "Diamond Hill"; I walked up to the top of it.

View from the top of the hill over the water.

View of some of the mountains that make up the chain known as the Twelve Bens

I saw a few of these (pictured below) out of bus windows, but in walking by this one I got to inspect it more closely. What is it? It's basically a roadside shrine. There's a statue of a saint in the middle, enclosed chamber, then a statue of the Virgin Mary on the left, and you may be able to make out 12 crosses going up the hillside in the back that have pictures on them of events leading up to Christ's crucifiction.

You'll notice that the sheep below has three stripes on him (or her): red, black, and green. The sheep in Scotland are often spray-painted as well, but usually with just one small bit of color. I'd never seen sheep with three colours like this one below, that was in a field with similarly-painted sheep along a road I travelled. It's a punk sheep!

"Walk" up the hill behind the Coylet

Two weeks ago I was taking a walk down the forest trail up the hill behind the hotel (I think the entire mountain is called Beinn Ruadh, which means "red mountain" - there's a lot of mountains called that over here, as well as Beinn Mor - "big mountain"). I was planning to go to Puck's Glen and hang around there for a bit as the weather was really nice - cool, but sunny. I never made it to Puck's Glen, for while walking along I got to looking up the mountain and thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to walk up it, as there were sections with no trees on them whatsoever, and it's that underbrushy growth stuff that makes it hard to get places. So on a whim, I started up the mountain in a section that didn't have thorny plants on it (there's a lot of thorny plants over here also).

I think I started up around 12:30pm. It was a good climb - the hill is steeper than you realize, or at least steeper than I am accustomed to being from PEI - and it tires you quickly going up like that. Within a few minutes of climbing I always find it hard to believe how high up I am.

So with several breaks along the way, by 2pm or so I was getting tired but thought that I was quite near the top. I paused for as long as I could as it was much colder up at that height that it was down in the forest at the bottom, and since I was sweaty I felt the cold quicker than I normally would. Also, having not planned to climb up a mountain I hadn't really dressed for cold weather, but it wasn't too bad.

Mountains being the deceptive things that they are, of course I was not nearly at the top, but almost at the top of a crest that, once I climbed over it, I could then see the seemingly vast rest of the mountain that I had to climb. I considered turning back a few times short of the top, but I made myself go on and felt that I was well rewarded by the views when I got up. By then I think it was getting on 3pm, so it was about 2.5 hours to get up. My legs didn't even feel tired for a few minutes while I was up there, owing to the view! So here's some pictures that I took.

This is the view over the hills toward the southeast where you can see where Loch Long (on the left) meets the Firth of Clyde (into back of photo and stretching to the right). The view of Gourock, where I take the ferry to to go to Glasgow by train, is just blocked by the hill on the right. If it looks as though you could quickly jaunt across those hills to the water, that's the deceptiveness of mountains again - I'm standing on a steep slope and the rest of them are quite steep as well.

This is Loch Eck, looking northwest. The Coylet is right on it's shores but not in view in this picture. You can see why we can't get television signals from this photo - we're smack dab in the middle of a very narrow glen that is primarily filled by loch.

Here you can see the Coylet Inn from above. Well, you probably can't actually see it very well, but you can probably see the caravan park that is the grouping of buildings in the middle. The hotel is just a small speck to the left of them separated by some trees along the road.

On my descent of the mountain (which took about 30-45 minutes compared to the ascent of 2.5 hours), I startled a bunch of sheep (I only "baaaa-ed" at them a few times!) and they watched me until I was out of their view, or at least until they were out of my view. There was quite a few sheep at the top of the mountain, with a fence to keep them to the upper regions. Seeing sheep over here always makes me feel a bit odd since I know that the farming of sheep is responsible for so many Scottish people having to leave to go to Canada in the 1700-1800's.
The sheep are standing in amongst some heather and grass, which became my friend when going down the hill as there were some sections that were really muddy (near streams) and I would have just kept sliding down if I didn't have handholds.

As you can see in this photo the sun is starting to set in the west (on the right), as it's getting on 4pm.

I've yet to put up my Ireland photos, but I'm working on that. The hotel phone line is now functioning again, and even the library seems to be liking Blogger now on occassions so we'll see how it goes.

Back in Scotland

Hi Everyone! I've been back in Scotland since the end of January but I haven't been able to get online since then because the hotel has been without a working phone line since January 31. Someone stole part of our phone line to get the copper, so we've been told, and for some reason it has taken almost two weeks and we still have no phone line. That's British Telecom's efficiency for you. All our calls have been diverted to our manager's mobile, so we can at least receive and make calls but it's still been a problem for business.

I still have some more updating to do on Ireland, and some pictures to put up, but it will have to wait unfortunately. I'll just "falsely" insert updates into their rightful chronology and slip photos in as well when I can and I'll let you know that I'm doing it.

The weather has been great lately. Other than some rain on this Thursday, Friday, and then a bunch of wind as well on Saturday, it's otherwise been clear and sunny. Last Monday I climbed the mountain behind the Coylet, I think it might be called Beinn Ruadh which just means "red mountain". There wasn't any path but there was also no trees in the way so it wasn't too bad - tiring, but enjoyable. The view was quite good and I managed to get some pictures which I'll throw up here later. Coming back down was also interesting as I got myself into some slippy patches around a stream and had to make use of the local fauna, mostly heather, to steady myself going down. But gravity being only in the one direction, going down the mountain went about 6 times faster than going up.

That's all for now - now I'll see if I can post this. If you can read it, either I was successful or I just e-mailed it to someone who could post it. That's the problem with these free library computers - they don't like Blogger.

The updating continues...

Ok, so I left off with me heading to Tralee last Saturday. I got in there in the evening, and learned from people staying at my hostel that there was a festival of Irish dancing called Shindig on for the weekend. A bunch of Irish people told me where a ceilidh was going on that night and I headed there with some German and French folks. There was a live band and some stepdancers at first, and then it moved into a hotel ballroom and people were doing set dancing, which is the same premise as square dancing and probably where American square dancing originated from. It was pretty cool to watch a whole room full of people tapping and swirling around in sync, and I got pulled through a few sets with the help of an Irish fellow from my hostel and managed to stay on my feet.

On Sunday I decided to go to one of the stepdancing workshops that was being offered with two of the people I had met the evening before, Caroline and Michael, who are German students working as teaching assistants in county Clare. Since I had missed the first day's workshop I had to do some catching up and so was a bit behind the other people in the class but I did achieve some competent-enough steps.

Caroline and Michael were then heading back up to Clare (Tralee is in Kerry county, by the way) and since the weather wasn't too good for going out to see the Dingle peninsula (rainy and windy) I decided to accept their invitation of a drive north and a free night or two of accomodation. We took a coastal route for the scenery and then a ferry from Tarbert to Killrush, and there went to Ennis, the largest town in Clare, where Caroline lives. I spent Sunday night at her place and the next day we poked around Ennis togther. I liked Ennis for what I saw of it - it's nothing special in terms of sightseeing towns, but it's a good size and was pleasant looking and full of friendly, helpful people.

Monday afternoon I took the bus westward and Michael, who lives in Lisdoonvarna, picked me up and we drove out to the Cliffs of Moher. We went to the spot that locals tend to go to, as opposed to the viewing point designated for tourists, and so our trip out to view the cliffs involved scaling several fences labelling with signs telling us not to trespass. It was a really good day to view the cliffs (pictures of everything will follow when I get back to Scotland) as it was sunny, however it was quite cold due to the wind at the shore, but you can't go to the shore and not expect wind.

The cliffs themselves...

It's still really me that's posting. Here's a "vanity" photo to show it, and that I'm very cold.

An old tower that was at the clifftop - this is an example of the towers that I mentioned that are everywhere in Ireland - in towns, in fields, and on the coast.
Monday evening I spent at Michael's place, having supper, using the internet (that was my last post) and having a great discussion about the English and German language. I had a great time hanging out with Michael and Caroline and I'm glad I met them and hope to run into them again in the future.

From Lisdoonvarna I took the bus northward toward Ballyvaughan which is smack-dab in the middle of the Burren, a rocky limestone area. The bus took the coast road which meant another good drive full of views (as have all my bus rides over here been). It was also on another narrow, winding road, on which drivers really seem to depend on their brakes more than I would if I were driving. I don't know if it's just Ireland or if it's my age or something but I find I start to feel slightly ill if I do not look out the window at where the bus is travelling when it's driving over winding roads like that. I used to be able to read in cars but can't do that anymore.

I got into Ballyvaughan around 10ish, and walked south of town a few kilometres to take in the scenery and get to Aillwee Cave, a limestone cave open for touring. And so I finally saw in person the subjects of my grade 6 science project - limestone stalactites and stalagmites and their ilk.

The Burren means something like "rocky land", so aptly named it is:

I had to catch the bus to Galway at 2:25pm (buses are infrequent around here and depend on what day of the week it is as well) so it was back to town after a bit and off to Galway, where I am now. I just spent the evening chilling out watching some TV (I don't get that too often given where I work), getting acquainted with a soap/comedy from Manchester called Shameless. I've spent this morning checking out the town and will get back to that shortly.

I'm doing this photo large just so you can see the details better - this is a typical roadside hedge. Check out all those plants - every one of them has some sort of thorn on it!

Loads to tell

Well, well, what have I been up to? I shall give the whirlwind version up to a point and I will update again with pictures when I get them off my camera - I will probably go back over old posts and add them in.

I spent 3 nights in Dublin. Last Tuesday I went to see the Book of Kells as I mentioned and then I went to the Guiness Storehouse and learned about the making of the beer and its history. There were many interesting things in the exhibit, in particular I found tasting roasted barley on its own neat as you see taste how it influenced the beer. I also enjoyed an exhibit on cask making - coopers were impressive tradesmen. There was also an exhibit on old Guiness advertising with videos of TV ads through the years, many of which I found quite funny. The ads from the 1950's were the best - back when the motto was "Guiness is good for you" because doctors at the time were actually prescribing it to people. One ad consisted of two cartoon ostriches tangoing to a tune that had a repetition of that motto, and then some man came in at the to dance with the female ostrich while the male ostrich swiped his Guiness I believe.

Wednesday I walked around the city and then met up with Kelly, a girl I met in Edinburgh who is from Nova Scotia but living in Dublin. We had lunch in the Temple Bar area and walked around the shops. Later in the afternoon I did some more exploring of my own, checking out the architecture in some interesting areas - a lot of it is Georgian, which is the straight rectangular style I mentioned in my post about Trinity College. The buildings in Dublin I would describe as discontinuous - there is no one consistent style along most streets and it can actually vary from one part of a building to another. Many cities will have a certain "look" to them, but Dublin doesn't have one, other than not having one.

Thursday morning I took the bus to Kilkenny, the capital town of county Kilkenny. I checked out the town which still has a lot of its medieval layout as it was spared by Cromwell's army due to some switching of allegiances of the local Duke of Ormond, the Butler family whose castle is located in the town above the river Nore. I got a good crash course in Irish history by taking the castle tour as the Duke was a pretty important guy in Anglo-Irish history as they like to call it here.

Two castle pictures

View from down the river, where you can see the vantage point the castle had...

The sign on the lawn, which is a normal European thing. I can never understand having grass you can't sit or walk on, especially in a park.
That evening I went out to a local pub with some people from my hostel to hear some traditional Irish music from a local band who were quite energetic. That evening also resulted in me having to fish my passport out of a toilet (fortunately recently cleaned as I could see the cleaner in the water) and I may leave the story at just that for the moment to keep you wondering. I will say that I fished it out quick enough that only the corners really managed to get wet so it is alright.

So then where am I? Friday. I did some laundry (exciting! Clean clothes) and then took a bus back to Dublin so that I could go to a birthday party at Kelly's. The bus ride ended up being very long because of traffic backed up all along the highway. When I got to Dublin I checked my e-mail to learn that the party had been cancelled, and so I did a quick check of bus times and saw that I could catch a bus to Cashel at 6pm. I saw this at 5:40pm. So I ran from Parnell Street to the Busaras (Main Bus Station) and got there in time for 6pm to find that the bus was late anyway. Losing faith in Bus Eireann, I took the bus which also was slowed some due to traffic - roadwork being done at night, apparently. I got into Cashel (in county Tipperary, by the way) at 9:30pm, not having booked a room at all and counting on the hostel there still being open and having vacancies. Both were the case, although the woman seemed a bit put off at my arrival at first but then seemed to warm to me. She did have a lot of instructions about my room, and kept emphasizing to me that it was ensuite (i.e. has its own bathroom) as if that was a really big deal. A lot of hostels are ensuite now so I wasn't too impressed, especially when I found out that the ensuite shower did not have hot water. I got a really good night's sleep, which I neede after all my bus travelling, so I was content when I woke up in the morning anyway.

In the morning I headed up the hill to the Rock of Cashel - a one-time Norman fortress given over to the church in the 1100's. When I first saw pictures of the fortress (also known as St. Patrtick's Fortress) there was something that really drew me to it and I was keen to see it. I wasn't disappointed, even though the cathedral and the chapel there are in ruins. Somehow the fact that it was ruins made me enjoy it more - the cathedral is mostly just missing it's roof, but that meant that it was open to the sky and the sunlight poured in, highlighting the architectural features like the arched ceiling. There also wasn't the usual assortment of interior decorations to distract from the building's shape itself. When I was first in the ruins it was quite sunny - cool, but clear - but then a storm blew up quickly and there was a really fierce wind and rain and perhaps hail - I had to run inside. But all-in-all I really enjoyed my visit to the fortress, and then it was added to by a short walk down the hill out of town to vist the ruins of an old monastery - the Hore Monastery, in much worse shape (and a favourite drinking spot for local teens judging by the empties there).

Like a rock...

"Inside" the cathedral - call these my artful photos it you'll be so generous.

Surprisingly (to me) there was a cemetery at the top of the Rock around the cathedral, and people are still being buried there. One rough ol' walk for the family members who were leaving flowers on the graves.

Just a photo of the path I walked on to get to the ruined abbey (in the middle in the distance)

That ended my stay in Cashel, and I got on a Bus Eireann bus (that came late once again) that took me to Cahir, where I could connect to Limerick, where I could then connect to Tralee (in county Kerry) where I wanted to stay the night in order to get down to the Dingle peninsula. On my stopover in Cahir waiting for the bus I dashed up to the castle there and spent the forty minutes learning more about Irish history (I'm filling in the blanks) and checking out the castle. It was really cool because it's still in very good shape. I could climb up the narrow stairs in the towers and look out over the walls where the soldiers would have once kept guard. It would be a great castle to take a kid to.

This is Cahir's main street as viewed from the castle - I include it just because it's a very typical looking small town in Ireland.

The gate at the castle, and I think that's a drop of water on my lens. No, two. Well, it had just started pouring and I had to catch a bus.

I left the castle just in time to see my bus for Limerick pulling up early, of all things! My faith in Bus Eireann was restored as I took it to Limerick and then caught another on-time bus to Tralee. These two trips were not over highways but over narrow, winding roads through the country-side. So bumpy that I couldn't write, but great scenery anyway. Rolling hills, not many trees but some thickly wrapped in vines. Thick, low hedgerows and stone fences. Old ruined towers sticking up in the middle of fields. All the grass is still green. The trees have no leaves, but the vines on them do.

"Furry" trees as I call them...

Try climbing over that sucker without a scratch - all the plants wound in Ireland...

And from there I got into Tralee on Saturday night, with the intention of going to Dingle. None of that happened, but I'm having a good time and will fill in the rest later.

In Dublin - Trinity College and Book of Kells

I arrived in Dublin last night on my first Ryanair flight ever, on which the overhead announcement boldly proclaimed (with a trumpet sound) was another of it's on-time flights. I paid £22 return for my flight so I was just happy to get here. The sign as we were boarding the plane read: "Ryanair - the low fares irline". So low fares they haven't even bothered to replace the "a".

I spent yesterday poking around Dunoon before getting on the ferry to Gourock and then the train to Paisley. I got off there and strolled around some to kill some time, as I had left the Coylet pretty early in the day due to the fact that it was cold since all the heating had been turned off and I was also just keen to get going. Paisley looks like a lot of the other towns along the Clyde, just bigger. I have some pictures I'll download when I get the chance.

Then I spent many boring hours at Preswick airport which didn't even have a TV to watch.

Anyway, this morning I went over to Trinity College. The college made largely of grey stone buildings that seem very straight and rectangular, like a lot of other buildings in this part of Dublin. It's also behind a huge wall like many other things in Dublin. Once again as when I strolled through the University of Glasgow, I could tell when I was drawing near to the university simply by the clothing and bags on the numerous young people, and by the occassional professor who sticks out from the crowd with his odd manner of dress and greying hair, often wearing a bicycle helmet and trouser clips and carrying a briefcase of course.

The Book of Kells exhibit was very interesting - a history of the Irish Church, the making of the book and other similar manuscripts, and information on how books were made at the time (very tedious) and the symbology used. The detail in the images is so great that I have trouble making it all out so I can't imagine trying to draw or write that small and so regular.

The library following the Book of Kells exhibit was also amazing to me and surprising since I didn't really know it was part of it. It looks just like every old library you see in pictures or in movies but never actually get to see in person (until now). Ladders that slide along the shelves, all old hand-bound books, two levels, statues of old guys. I was impressed.

The stormy Hogmanay

A belated happy New Year to everyone. I haven't gotten to post lately largely because I've been working extra hours over the holidays. From Boxing Day up until January 3, which I had off, I worked every day, and then I'm working today and tomorrow to take care of some stalkers that are booked in (we're otherwise closed) and then I will have Wednesday and Thursday off. The hotel's then closing for two weeks starting January 15 and that day I will be flying to Dublin to tour around Ireland for a couple of weeks.

Things are slowing down at the hotel again but it was quite busy over the holidays. Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) we were full for meals and had other people in the bar. There were winds of around 80mph and rain that night, which caused the parties in Edinburgh and Glasgow to be cancelled as well as other parts of the UK as well.

The weather did not foil Hogmanay at the Coylet though. Just as we started serving food to our first diners the power went off at about 8pm, which meant that many things would not function of course. All the food is cooked on gas appliances so that was alright, but we had to rig up some lights in the kitchen so that the staff could see. Victor cooked with a headband flashlight for a while until some people with camper vans ran an extension cord from their camper into the kitchen and hooked up some trouble lights to it. All the tables in the dining room have candles on them at all times anyway so they were alright, and we had placed candles throughout the rest of the building as well in anticipation of the power cut since our lights had been flickering earlier in the day. Poor Fraser had to wash all dishes by hand and we had to keep track of all the food orders and bills by hand, but everything went right ahead with just some minor delays. All the food was cooked to the usual standard and people were quite happy and enjoying themselves. We had planned a games theme for the evening with table-top games on the restaurant tables and that worked well with the lights being off as people had something to entertain themselves with. The electricity came back on just before the last table got their food, at about 10pm. Some people actually requested that we turn the lights back off as they prefered the atmosphere in the dark.

Also on Hogmanay the wind blew off the chimney pot and cowl for the bar fireplace. The cowal is a piece of shaped metal that had been installed recently to prevent the wind from blowing the smoke back down, but it unfortunately acted as a sail in the high winds. Oddly enough, now that the chimney has no chimney pot it hasn't been blowing back too often at all on really windy days.

We had a stretch of a few really rainy, stormy days after New Year and now it's back to the occassional really rainy day and other days of just some rain and some clear periods. I was out for a walk last Wednesday through the forest and saw quite a few trees down, many of them being quite healthy trees and not the usual old ones that come down in the wind. Power crews were out cutting down trees near the lines, and at the time our lights were still flickering.

As I mentioned I'm flying to Dublin next Monday. I'm going on Ryanair on a flight that cost £0.01 each way before you add on airport fees and the fee I opted to pay to check a bag (£7.00) since the carry-on bag size is quite small. So my return flight from Preswick airport to Dublin is $50 which ain't too shabby, and then I just have to pay a few pounds to get to Paisley to take the train directly to the airport. I just learned today that if you show the ticket agents in Paisely your flight confirmation that your train ride from there to the airport is free, so that's pretty sweet. Haven't decided exactly where I'm going to go in Ireland but I've been getting suggestions from people and I'll just take it as it goes.

Consecutive dry days!

It had to happen eventually - I had two days off in which it didn't rain. Monday this week I woke up to see a clear day as the sun was rising. I had been planning to go across the water to Greenock for shopping but I postponed that trip in favour of a day of walking. I was bouncing around like a dog who knows it's going for a walk as I got ready. I went up a trail behind the Loch Eck caravan park to get onto the forest road - a set of tire tracks running roughly parallel to the road below but up on the mountain. I walked it all the way up to the Whistlefield Inn, and stopped in there for a drink and some potato chips. I've been hearing about the Whistlefield all the time since it's a neighbouring hotel but I'd only seen it from the outside so I was curious to go in. I hung around there a bit and talked to some of the staff and then headed back to the Coylet. On my way back I met a fast-walking elderly local man who kept the conversation going so well that I missed my turn off and had to double back to find the trail back down to the road. It was a very good day of walking - it was incredibly sunny and just a bit chilly.

Here's Loch Eck perfectly reflecting the mountain and the mists when I set out for my walk.
One of the many streams running down the mountain-side along the forest road.

Tuesday I took the ferry across the Clyde to Gourock and walked around there a bit before hopping on the trail to Greenock - along the rail line to Glasgow. Greenock was a big port town at one time and a major shipbuilding area. Lots of stuff was imported from the Americas - it has a Jamaica Street just like Glasgow does, probably oweing to some sugar importing going on. It was also a major export town of Scottish emmigrants heading overseas - a lot of them last set foot in Scotland in Greenock. And Greenock's final claim to fame is that it's the birthplace of James Watt, for whom the unit of power is named. They're very proud of him - there's a college named after Watt in Greenock, and a building to mark his birthplace with a statue of him on it, and a restaurant/bar named for him even. There's even a collection of some of his equipment in the small town museum - I saw his balance and what appeared to be a set of drill bits.

I got myself a pair of hiking sneakers in Greenock to replace my worn out sneakers that I've been wearing. I was also thinking of getting myself some new dress shoes but didn't see any that caught my eye and so figured I'd wait a while since I still had the cheap shoes that I've been wearing for work. Then the next day at work, Sod's Law (mocked by fate, similar to what we call Murphy's Law at home) came into effect and my left dress shoe broke at the ball of my foot when I put it on for work. So I've managed two evening shifts on a squeaking, improperly supported shoe and came into town today to get some shoes. I managed to get some very decent shoes so I'm alright now.

I'm glad Christmas is coming, not only for the day off and the gifts and food and all, but also because once it comes I will no longer have to listen to the Christmas CDs we play in the restaurant and the bar, as well as what the radio plays. Other than the music it doesn't feel very Christmas-y to me, even with the decorations and all, simply because everything is so green around here and it's so warm.

It hasn't been raining much at all this week - miracle of miracles! The weather forecast I read for Christmas Day (in The Scotsman) called for it to be clear and a "bracing" 5 to 7 degrees Celcius. I wouldn't describe those temperatures as bracing, but I've checked with some Scots and they wouldn't either so I don't know what The Scotsman was thinking.

And now for something completely different and slightly amusing to you perhaps. Just to show you the kind of joking that goes on around here, and to show how talented our chef Victor is at not only cooking but artistic stuff as well, here is our kitchen porter, Fraser, dressed up as a space-man by Victor. Fraser had to bear this costume because it often seems that he is on another planet than Earth.
Anyway, happy Christmas to everyone!

Buses, plus-fours, and food

Just in at the Dunoon library again, with a post of assorted thoughts.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the public transport buses around here are also used as the school buses. There's a bus that goes into town and gets there for 8:30am that is a school bus, but anyone else can take it as well. Then there's a bus that leaves downtown Dunoon at 3:20pm and stops at Dunoon Grammer School (the secondary school - ages 11 and up) and waits around while all the school kids get on. I generally try to avoid taking that one as I feel weird sitting in amongst all the teenaged, loud, kids. So if I'm in town on a school day and need to go back around that time I catch the 3:50pm bus. It also picks up some school-kids but not so many. However, when one driver in particular is on, the bus always makes a stop at a newsagent in Sandbank so that the kids can get off and buy snacks. I knew I was living in a small, unrushed place when the public bus makes an extra stop for kids to buy treats.

The hotel has some more hunters staying once again. Deer hunting, pheasant hunting, and fishing bring out a lot of our guests. Most come from "down South"; i.e. England. Now, if you are to picture the stereotypical image that most Canadians have of the outdoor sporting Englishman, I think it would probably be the slender man in a wooly sweater, perhaps a tweed coat, but most certainly he would be wearing short pants that I've been calling breeches (from fencing terminology) and long socks. Think Prince Phillip or another prince of choice out in the woods with a gun. Well, believe it or not (and I had trouble believing it), people other than royality still do dress like that to go hunting or fishing. The trousers are called "plus-fours" so I'm told (because they extend about 4 inches below the knee as I've just read online), and they often have little tassle-like things on the hems. I've yet to see anyone under age 40 wear them, or anyone Scottish, but I have seen women wearing them on a few occasions and loads of men. The posh-er the accent, the more likely the person is to wear plus-fours in my experience.

One of the hunters this morning thought I was from Quebec because he said that he could hear French in my accent. I told him that English was my native language as it was of all the people I grew up around but that didn't seem to sway him. A hotel owner up the road did tell me that she could hear similarities between my accent and that of a Quebecer that works for her but she didn't go so far as to say that I sounded French. It puzzles me as I speak French with an English accent so how can I speak English with a Quebec accent?

In my time working at the Coylet, I have been fed 5 meats that I had never consumed before. Those meats would be venison, pheasant, rabbit, duck, and pigeon (yes, you read that correctly - not the street ones, wild ones). The venison I don't find too different than beef - in fact, in effort to use up leftovers one day our chef made us meatballs and pasta in which the meat was venison and pheasant - our manager coined them "game balls". The pheasant I wouldn't really know from chicken if no one told me otherwise, and the pigeon is like a flakier almost nicer-than-chicken version of chicken. The rabbit I don't know if I'm super keen on - it's very strong flavoured, dark and chewy - I don't dislike it but it didn't capture my fancy. Duck, however, I really like.

Then, in addition to the meats, I've had black pudding once or twice, usually a leftover Stornoway black pudding that someone didn't eat at breakfast time. It's actually quite nice for being made of blood - you can certainly see the colour of it but it tastes alright. I couldn't eat a whole plateful of it but one slice, a few inches in diameter, is fine. I had haggis as well last week, which I've had before in PEI and liked then anyway.

Weather, ghosts, and sleepwalking

Another quick update while I have computer access - and I just put up a post from a few days ago that didn't make it the first time. I couldn't check if the post had worked last time either because according to the censoring software at the library my blog is blocked because of "Sex/Acts" content. I don't know what sort of word I used in one of my posts that qualified it for that - "Acts" could incorporate something violent I suppose so maybe when writing about something historic I talked about weapons or wars or something. It annoyed me anyway, and surprised me as I try to keep this blog as a family show.

Really bad weather in the west of Scotland yesterday - loads of rain and high winds. I read in a newspaper (bear in mind it was the Scottish Sun that costs 10 pence and it likes to use CAPITALS and italics just like that on select words and phrases for emphasis) that this is the rainiest fall/winter for at least 30 years and perhaps since records have been kept. Loch Eck has once again overflowed its bank just up the road a bit down by the caravan park and the wind this morning was blowing waves from the loch up on to the road. The loch water level has been going up and down regularly with all these rainy days we've head - the two rivers that connect to it are tidal so when they drain out the loch can then drain pretty quickly itself.

I believe a long time ago I said that I would write about the ghost stories at the Coylet so here I go. The most famous story is of what's called the Blue Boy. It's supposed to be the ghost of a young boy who died at the inn in the early part of the 1900's - from what I know he lived here because his family ran the inn, and he slept-walked one night out of his room and into the loch and drowned. The story gained some fame after Emma Thompson the actress made a film based on the story called The Blue Boy which was filmed here. The reason the Ghostfinders Scotland were at the Coylet some time ago was to do with that I believe.

The haunting from what I read entailed mostly places feeling cold and doors and objects moving on their own. The room that is supposed to be the haunted one is room 3 which is straight across the hall from my room. I've been told by people of their experiences with seeing people in the night or feeling cold but I've never experienced anything inexplicable while here. Matt, who claims to have had many experiences with ghosts over his lifetime, would tell me that I don't experience anything because I don't have an open mind about supernatural stuff, but if that prevents me from being scared by anything then I'm not going to worry over it. He also tells me that he can sense that there is no ghost at the Coylet any more, but he feels there is one just up the road before the caravan park where the staff caravan is. Again, I've never seen anything.

I did, however, start locking my bedroom door at night a few weeks after I started here because I had begun sleepwalking several times a night every night. I never left my room to my knowledge, but I didn't want to go wandering around the hotel spooking guests and then I heard about the kid drowning in the loch and I figured locking myself in was probably a good idea. I doubt that I would ever make it outside to the loch in fall temperatures without waking up as I usually wake up once I get out of my bed, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. I probably can't manage to turn the key to unlock my door while asleep but I certainly can if I needed to get out in an emergency like a fire so leaving it in the lock keeps me safer on all accounts. My sleepwalking seems to have settled back down to rare occasions now (probably since I got used to my surroundings) so I'm not too bothered about it now at all.

And as one guest who I told about my sleepwalking said, if anyone of the hotel guests does hear anything moving about and thinks it's a ghost it might just very well be me!

Long time passing...

I haven't updated in a while due to lack of computer access. This will probably have to be a short post as well because I'm at the library and the computers are in demand.

Been having some wicked weather lately - heavy rains and wind, with roads flooding alongside lochs. The hotel held a Christmas craft fair on Sunday and attendance was good considering the aforementioned flooding. We've also had problems with the smoke from the fireplaces blowing back down the chimney and into the hotel when the wind gusts the wrong way. On slightly windy days you have to walk around and wipe soot off of tables and chairs every ten to fifteen minutes, and on bad days, like one afternoon when I was working, the fireplace essentially explodes, covering every surface imaginable with a layer of soot and even setting off the fire alarm. We're waiting on getting the appropriate protective top for the chimney; I think they're called cowals.

The Christmas staff party was yesterday and overnight. We (there's now six of us full-time - out front there's Karen the manager, Matt, and me, and then in the kitchen the chef Victor, food-prep guy Pickle, and kitchen porter Fraser, and then one-part time woman out front, Teresa) all went up to Inverary which involves driving up to the top of Loch Fyne, a sea loch west of the Coylet, and then down the other side some distance. At the top of the loch the mountains are more Highland like because they're pretty much treeless, and the tops of them were all covered in snow since they're higher as well.

Inverary itself is the capital of Argyll, although it's much smaller than Dunoon. It's also the seat of clan Campbell of Argyll and the castle is in the area. When we got to town we started off by visiting Inverary Jail with the original buildings from the 1820's and 1840's. As part of the visit there was a history of torture and punishment in Scotland and Victor, who is Spanish and heard people complaining about the Inquisition before, said that the Scots were just as bad as the Spanish and I would agree.

We stayed at the George Hotel overnight, with food and accomodation all paid for by the hotel as our compensation for working over Christmas. It was a good time and then we all headed back today.

Business should be picking up now that we're into December so should be good workwise. We're getting two weeks off at the end of January and I'm trying to decide where I'd like to go for it. I think I've settled on Ireland but not absolutely sure yet.