More snow at Cairngorm

I went down to Cairngorm Lodge on Wednesday (a week ago) with the idea of learning to snowboard at the mountain on Thursday. There was a bunch of wet snow overnight, continuing in the morning with a good wind, so the hill was closed for the morning to clear roads. So I just went for a walk around in the snow, had a snowball fight with Jamie and the one hostel guest, Willa-Lee from B.C., and did some "sledging" (sledding) on a little hill with them as well. The Thursday night there was more snow, coating all the trees once again, so Friday morning found Jamie and Rob trying to clear out the car park of snow in preparation for their guests arriving that evening.


The rest are just photos I took wandering around on Thursday morning.

Loch Morlich, and you can see a hint of Cairngorm Mountain through the white sky.
Loch water was choppy due to the wind.

Glenmore is a largely Scots Pine forest.

I took a bunch of other photos (it's mostly trees, then some snowball fight and shovelling) and they can be found, as always, in my Picasaweb photos.

A few Invernesian photos

The other week I took a walk north through Inverness and up the hill called Craig Phadraig. I took these photos looking out over the Firth (as you can see, the trees at the top were getting in my way):

Wandering back toward the hostel, I took these two from the castle site along the river. The hill with trees in the middle is Craig Phadraig.

This is the opposite side of the river from the town centre, and from where I stay.

Blackcurrant and Squash

A common fruit used for flavouring over here (that I can't recall seeing at home) is blackcurrant. You see it in drinks and in candy. Where in Canada we'd have a purpley-red coloured candy that would be called "grape" flavour in the mix with strawberry, orange, lemon/lime, etc., in the UK you wouldn't have a grape candy but a "blackcurrant" one (and it'd be called a "sweet" instead of a candy).

The taste of blackcurrant is something like cranberry without the tang, but more full tasting, like a bit of grape juice was thrown in as well. It's a sweet, reddish-berry tasting flavour, but it's a distinct flavour of it's own, so hard to compare.

The drink Ribena is blackcurrant flavoured and readily available, sold in tetra packs and plastic bottles in fridges at convenience stores ("newsagents"). My first encounter with blackcurrant was through drinks, as a "squash" flavour. To make sugary, fruit-flavoured drinks over here, you buy a concentrated liquid, known as "squash" or "cordial" and then mix one part of the concentrate with four to five parts of water and the resulting drink is also called squash or cordial. The resultant drinks are much like what we get in Canada from using powdered drink crystals to produce things like Kool-Aid.

Squash as a drink on its own is popular with young kids, but bars also use squash/cordial concentrate to add to alchoholic drinks. For example, "lager and lime" is popular with some, that is lager beer with a dash of lime cordial on the top to cut down on the bitterness of the beer. Some people drink Guiness with a dash of blackcurrant, also to cut down on the bitterness. The three standards of squash/cordial - orange, blackcurrant, and lime - also get used to add flavour to mixed alcoholic drinks.

Children's songs

In the UK, the kids' song "The Hokey Pokey" is known as "The Hokey Cokey", and has some different variations on the lyrics. The Wikipedia article outlines the differences world-wide, so it's a good reference to check out.

The main difference between the version over here and the one that I grew up with is that limbs are put in and out more than once, and more quickly. So, a Hokey Pokey verse would go like:

You put your right leg in,

You put your right leg out,

You put your right leg in

And you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around.

And that's what it's all about.

All at a pretty mellow pace.

The versions I've heard over here go:

You put your right leg in,

Your right leg out,

In, out, in, out

Shake it all about

You do the Hokey Cokey and you turn around

That's what it's all about.

That "in, out, in, out" bit makes you move faster, so if you're on one leg it would take better balance.

There's also a variation on the chorus in some parts of the UK as well that I've only seen on TV and you can read about in the Wikipedia article (see The Dance in the UK section). The article also mentions later a German parody of the song done by comedian Bill Bailey that's pretty funny (and links to a YouTube video) and it was in viewing this version and translating it back to English that I first realized that the song was different over here and then asked my friends about it.

Another kid's song that is sped up in its UK incarnation is the old "Head and shoulders, knees and toes" one. The words are the same for the first "verse", but done faster - at least twice as fast, if not three times. The last bit, which I know as "eyes, ears, mouth and nose" is changed slightly, I think there's maybe a chin mentioned instead of ears, but I'm not sure. Since the song involves bending to touch your knees and toes and is done faster, it is more exercise over here than the lazily-done Canadian one.

Culloden Battlefield

This is fairly verbatim from a letter that I wrote to my grandmother, so it'll be a slightly different style than my usual posts, but I'm too lazy to recompose it entirely. I didn't have my camera with me, so some pictures can be found at Undiscovered Scotland.

I had Wednesday off, so I went out to the Culloden Battlefield in the morning. The battle took place at Culloden Moor, which is a couple miles out of Culloden, which is east of Inverness by a few miles itself. I took a bus out that left Inverness at 9am and got out there at 9:20am, leaving me some time to wander around the battlefield before going into the musuem which is in a new building (with a new exhibition) that opened up in the last month.

It was really windy, but I think the moor is probably one of those places that are always somewhat windy. The only trees around the battlefield were on the side opposite where the wind was coming from, so there was nothing to block it. The ground is uneven and boggy; there's clumps of grass on the bumps of land, and heather and some other short green plant mixed in, with the occasional gorse bush. The holes between the bumps of land were filled with water and often concealed from sight by plants. I've encountered this sort of bogginess elsewhere in the Highlands; the hills behind Kyleakin were like that. The only place I've ever experienced walking on ground like that was back home where there was boggy ground that had once been plowed and then lots of bushes and grasses grew over it. There the holes were in regular intervals; on the moor it was like someone had plowed it in an eratic fashion, but it's just the natural state of it.

There's a path around the battlefield these days, flags to mark the Hanoverian and Jacobite lines, and stones to mark the places where different clans and military divisions lined up. The path was flooded in one section, which is when I started cutting across the moorland and experienced the joy of sinking into concealed holes. Even watching my footing carefully, trying to step from tuft of grass to tuft of grass, I would still occasionally fall through spongey layers of plants into wet ground. It was slow going, and I can't imagine trying to charge across to fight a battle. When I was in the museum later, it made mention of the difficulty the Jacobites had in implementing their "Highland charge" due to the poor ground, and that the clansmen were slowed down. I'm amazed that loads of them didn't go down with twisted or broken ankles trying to run across that.

At 10am I headed into the exhibition, which started at events leading up to the 1745 uprising, then battles throughout 1745-1745 and then the Culloden battle itself in April 1746. I actually found a mistake in the first bit of the exhibition - it was a world map showing wars that Britain was involved in during 1745, and one was the siege on the fortress of Louisbourg. In addition to Louisbourg being mispelled as "Louisberg", the map indicated Louisbourg as being somewhere around Truro, at the head of the Minas Basin, instead of being on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton (the map also showed Cape Breton as two islands because the Bras D'or Lakes were made too big). I pointed this out to the woman at the desk, and she grabbed the in-costume historical interpreter on his way by who asked me to explain the mistake and made a note of it.

The exhibit was pretty good, having the usual articfacts in cases and posters on walls, but also some audio-visual stuff like film recreations and audio recordings of actors reading from letters and diaries of the period. What I appreciated most was an animation projected on to a large table that showed the battle from overhead, showing troop movements with individual people represented and a voice-over explaining the tactical decisions made. I've always had trouble imagining battles just from written descriptions and static diagrams, so that was really helpful.

The same historical interpreter I'd spoken to earlier did a presentation on weapons later on, and as one of the weapons he had was a replica basket-hilted broadsword, I asked him afterward if I could hold it just to feel the weight and balance of it (here's an image for you). It surprised me by how light the sword was - it's shorter than my fencing sabre would be, the blade is much wider of course (a couple inches), but the balance of it was so good I didn't find it hard to hold, even though it's heavier than what I'm used to holding (but not too much heavier than an epee I'd say).

I was told by the historian that many of the broadswords that had been found from the 18th century have basket guards that are quite small, implying that the men of the time had smaller hands than the average man today - it's thought that the Highland men were short and stocky. Since we always hear that people are taller nowadays than years ago, that seems sensible.

Is that a sabre in your rucksack...?

This post isn't going to have a lot of continuity to it.

I was down to Edinburgh on the weekend to do a Level 1 Sabre Coaching course. The weather was pretty wild, with high winds and rain from Inverness down to Edinburgh. I took the bus, a 3.5 hour trip during which I was in a state between wakefulness and sleep for much of it and couldn't wait to get off the super-heated bus at the end of it. When I came back Sunday night, I heard that the rail line had been closed due to flooding in some parts, so if I had taken the train I would have ended up on a bus anyway.

The course was challenging for me, but I definitely learned some things about coaching fencing, in particular in giving individual lessons which is not something I've done before and lacked confidence in doing. I also learned that if you walk around with a large backpack with two sabre blades sticking out of the top of it (at least a foot in length) that you will attract a lot of curious/fearful/strange looks, but will never be asked what it is that you have in your backpack.

On a related note to that: last Tuesday when I was returning from fencing with the afore-mentioned two sabres in my hand, I boarded the bus to find that the supervising bus driver (she was training the driver) was eyeing me quite closely. I thought to myself that she was not going to allow me on, and that I was going to have to argue through the whole deal about sabres being sports equipment and no more dangerous than a hockey stick or a cricket bat. As it turned out, she used to fence way-back-when in school and had always been looking for a fencing club to join. So I gave her the coach's contact information and I answered her fencing questions for most of the ride back to Inverness.

I've had some visits with friends as well in the last week or so. Jamie was up to Inverness from Cairngorm Lodge (where he's working with Rob now) on his birthday (the 16) at my invitation, and we went out to celebrate. Then Rob and Tina were here the middle of last week due to interviews and courses being held at our hostel, so I got to hang out with them some as well. I tried to meet up with some buddies in Edinburgh, but their work schedules didn't mesh with my course schedule, so it'll have to be another time.

I also learned last week that various levels of management have read my blog, since it pops up on Google if you search "Inverness Youth Hostel" and "blog" (usually when looking for reviews of the place - hey, we're great!). So the readership is growing!

Taxi's in Inverness have the most easy-to-remember phone numbers that I've ever seen. One is 222 555. Another is 222 900. And, for the immensely drunk, all you have to do is go to a payphone and mash the 2 key until it starts ringing, and you'll get the company who's number is 222 222.

Pedestrian crossings in Inverness make people wait for a minimum of what seems like 5 minutes before crossing. The closer you get to the city centre, the longer the wait. Traffic seems to flow twice in each direction before the pedestrians get to cross. Which is why no one waits for the lights in the city - I certainly don't, and I've basically given up on pushing the button in order to get the little green man (the walk symbol - the don't walk symbol is a red, stationary man) to eventually come up.

I see a lot of BBC news these days since we often have the reception TV at the hostel set to that channel. A regular feature of the news programming is a segment when they look at the day's newspapers to see what the headlines and pictures on the front pages are. Now, I don't know about you, but I find this extremely odd. Here we have the medium of television, in which moving pictures (they call them videos, I believe) and sound are available to convey information. And what do the news anchors do with that medium? Let's all take a look at some typeface and still-pictures printed on poor quality paper. Also, they've become journalists once-removed. They're reporting on what other journalists have already reported on. Strange.

Money

I've been planning to write about the money over here for quite some time now, as it's different in more ways than you'd think. So let's get cracking.

The basics, you probably already know. The currency in all of the UK is the pound sterling (£). It's divided into 100 pence (p). For coinage, there's 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, 1£, and 2£ coins. See picture here. Just like in Canada, you get different pictures on the coins on occasion, although this doesn't occur with the frequency that quarters get done over back home (i.e. every year). Mostly, I see different versions of the pound coin - ones with a coat of arms, with 3 lions, with a thistle, with a dragon, with a rose and cross.

The 1p coin is called a penny, and collectively with the 2p coins they're referred to as "coppers". All the other coins are called by their value: i.e. "a 20p". I know some people that refer to the silver coins - 5p, 10p, 20p, and 50p - as shrapnel, but I would not say that's universal.

It's not the coinage that's quite different over here, but the banknotes, or what we would call "bills" in Canada. Firstly: they're different sizes. The £10 note is about the size of a Canadian bill of any denomination; I compared when I was home and found the £10 is a bit shorter and a touch wider. However, the £5 note is smaller than the £10, and the £20 note is bigger than both, so that the edges of it always stuck out of my old, Canadian wallet and got bent. I've only seen £50 notes on occasion, but they're bigger still. So I figure if I ever get my hands on a £100 note, I'll have to fold it two times just to get it into my wallet.

If you just went to England, you probably wouldn't find anything other than the sizes out of the ordinary - you'd have the coins, and then notes issued by the Bank of England for £5, £10, and £20, etc. If you went to Wales, it'd just be the same. However, it's a different ball game when you go to Scotland or Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, there are three banks that issue banknotes, so for every denomination, there are three different notes. Now, these banks aren't like the Bank of England (or the Bank of Canada) - the Scottish banks are actual banks, as in you could go to a branch and open up an account with them. For example, my bank over here is the Royal Bank of Scotland, and it's one of the banks that prints notes. The other banks are Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank.

So in day-to-day life in Scotland, it's common to come across 4 different versions of banknotes. Here's some pictures I took of my own money (you can find pictures of all the UK possibilities on this site, where they want to sell you signed notes):

£20 notes: Clydesdale on top left (Robert the Bruce pictured), Bank of Scotland on top right (Walter Scott pictured on all their notes), Royal Bank of Scotland on bottom left (Lord Lay, First Governor on all their notes), Bank of England on bottom right (with the ol' Queen).Reverse side of the notes above.
£10 pound notes ("tenners"): same bank order as above. That's Mary Slessor on the Clydesdale note; I'm guessing she has something to do with the African missionary work shown on the reverse.

Reverse side of the above notes - that's Charles Darwin on the back of the English note.

£5 notes ("fivers"): I commonly only see these two versions, and when I took these pictures ages ago I actually thought that they were the only two. But there are fivers made by Bank of Scotland - I've only seen the "new" ones (more about that in a minute). Robert Burns is on the Clydesdale note. Reverse of the fivers. That mouse is in reference to Burns' poem to a mouse.

There's also one pound notes in Scotland, but I haven't seen any of them since I worked at the Coylet Inn, where customers would have them and I'd get them in my change when shopping once in a while.

Also, there's now new Bank of Scotland notes that are much more colourful then before (looking more like the new Canadian notes, so I assume the added colour is for security reasons).

As I mentioned, Northern Ireland has different notes as well - I've occasionally seen banknotes from Ulster Bank and Northern Bank when I get customers who've been there recently. Wales doesn't have its own notes any more since the last bank that issued them there folded. And English provincial banks used to issue their own notes up until the 1800's, I've gathered.

It gets more complicated. I hear frequently of how businesses in England won't accept Scottish banknotes, either because they don't think it's legal tender in England or because they're not confident they can spot counterfeit since they don't see the money often (then there's the theory that they do it as just another way to oppress the Scots).

The Wikipedia article on banknotes states that Scottish notes aren't legal tender even in Scotland, because they are promissory notes (this is based on a very strict economic/accounting definition of legal tender that I won't pretend to entirely understand, not the common usage definition of legal tender). Indeed, all the Scottish notes bear some statement that the bank "promises to pay the bearer on demand X pounds sterling". However, the banknotes are as good in England as they are in Scotland in terms of legality; the Scottish banks have to back up their banknotes with that actual amount of currency to the Bank of England.

Anyway, there's a lot of information out there on it and I'm not going to regurgitate it all, so I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to research more if desired.

The Old New Year

On Saturday, Inverness marked the "Old New Year" (an t-Seann Bhliadhn’ Ùr in Gaelic) - that is, the date that was January 1st until the adoption of the Georgian calendar system. By the time Scotland adopted the calendar (in 1751 according to my internet research), the calendars were 11 days apart. The Highland Scots, stubborn lot that they can be, kept their celebrations to the old calendar (11 days late) for several centuries more.

Since 2007 was the Year of Highland Culture in Scotland, in keeping with Highland tradition they started the year on January 12, 2007, and had its finale on January 12, 2008. So the city put on a few events for that, including a big fireworks display from the Kessock Bridge, accompanied by music. It was a pretty good little fireworks show, although it was so cold that the smoke hung in the air, partially obscuring later fireworks but also being lit up by them.

There was a shinty match scheduled earlier in the day which I wanted to see, but when I went down to the park there didn't seem to be any match on, and I heard tell that it might have been cancelled on account of the freezing conditions (frozen ground makes a hard surface to play on). So I've yet to see a shinty match, but I'll be keeping my eyes open for one.

Photos around Inverness

There are now photos up on my post about Cairngorm.

I've had pure maple syrup for the second time in my life. David my manager saw me eating pancakes (termed "Scottish crumpets" by the supermarket - I bought them pre-cooked) with Golden Syrup (pretty much tastes like corn syrup), and offered me some maple syrup that his friend in Waterloo, ON had sent him. I guess he has a large jug. So I finished off my crumpet packet with maple syrup instead of Golden.

Below is the view from my room at the hostel. That's a school being constructed in the foreground, but the interesting bit is in the back. That's the Moray Firth and Fort George is the point of land, I believe. I can also see a bit of the Black Isle through the trees (to the left of this picture but not shown). My camera's zoom isn't good enough to avoid the building though.

I've taken a walk along the Caledonian Canal a few times; it's about 1 km north of the River Ness. I walked out to where the canal joins up to the sea at the Beauly Firth (which then becomes the Moray Firth once it flows past Inverness and under the Kessock Bridge, to the best of my understanding). From there I took this picture - that's some mountain covered in snow, in behind the hills of the Black Isle.

I commented last year on the "furry" trees in Ireland; well they exist in Scotland as well and here's an example:

Finally, a swan in action on the canal. Doesn't look quite so graceful when it's wiggling its arse in the air.

Fencing!

Well, I finally got out to the fencing club last night - it had been not meeting over the holidays. The club's in Culloden, and handily-enough there's a bus that goes straight by there, and even better one that comes back.

There was probably about 20 people there, of whom 6 to 7 were adults, so good numbers. I fenced all three weapons in the one night, and had good fun, won some bouts and lost some as well. Today I'm sporting some good épée bruises for not parrying well enough (on my upper right arm). I've requested to have Tuesday evenings off from work each week, so I'll be able to keep it up. It'll be something to liven up the mid-week (I got excited about going yesterday, was doing my dog-waiting-to-go-for-a-walk bouncing around at times).

Just sitting at work now, eating a Cadbury Dairy Milk with Caramel bar. I had thought that it would be like a Cadbury Cara-milk bar, but it's not as good - there's less caramel. It seems the secret is confined to Cadbury's North American operations. Or it's been stolen by Galaxy's Caramel bar - they're good and caramely.

Hogmanay and Down to Cairngorm Park

It's January 7th already! Time's flying by - I've been in Inverness over a month already, and it's already a week into 2008. I've had to write '09 on the backs of SYHA membership cards that I've sold in the last week (they last a year), and that's even weirder.

I last updated here on the 30th, so since then has been Hogmanay. I took some German fellows who were staying at the hostel out that night (they'd been very nice to me by feeding me several times in the course of the week before that) for a few hours. They took some photos on their camera phone that are on their blog - it's written in German, but you can see the photos, including a scary one of me at the start. "Sylvester" is German for New Year's Eve - never knew that the cat was named for that.

On my days off this week I went and worked at another hostel. Rob, of Uig and Aberdeen fame, is managing Cairngorm Lodge, and has been the only full-time staff member there since just before New Year's (he had a part-time cleaner). So that he could have a day off to go about his own business, I went down to fill in for him for a day-and-a-half.

Le hostel Cairngorm Lodge (Loch Morlich):

The hostel from another angle:
I took the train south to Aviemore Wednesday evening, just a 30-minute trip. Then, owing to there being no buses after 5pm, I took a taxi the 7 miles to Glenmore, where the youth hostel is. It's in a nice location, and looks like a huge house - apparently it was an old shooting lodge before its youth hostel days. There's a conservatory off of the dining hall that lets you see the mountains (when the clouds aren't blocking them), and I liked sitting in it to look at the surroundings. The hostel has 78 beds, and attracts the outdoor types for hiking, climbing, and skiing, given its proximity to Cairn Gorm mountain. It was reasonably busy with groups of climbers while I was there. It's also right near Loch Morlich, and in the midst of a forest park of Scotch pine.

I hung out with Rob on Wednesday night and got orientated to the hostel. Starting 7am Thursday morning I was on duty since Rob was away. It had snowed overnight, so there was several inches of wet snow on the ground - the first time that I've walked through snow in this country. I spent a lot of time on the phone listening to messages about the road to Cairngorm Mountain being shut due to the plow needing to clear the road (a feat that took hours). Due to white out conditions later in the day the mountain was evacuated. Sections of the A9 highway through the region were also closed down due to the weather in the evening, causing a delay in the arrival of some of my guests. It was quite gusty around the hostel, and with the temperature going up the car park was getting a big slippy so I had to due some salt spreading and path clearing.

The slippy lane:Snowman made by one of the guests (English fellow):
The weather cleared up Friday, and was a few degrees above freezing by midday, but in the morning the car park was like a skating rink. Some guests were worried about driving up the lane, complaining that it was really slippery. To me, it didn't seem too bad - hard to walk on, but in a car you have better traction what with tire treads and weighing a lot more. I think a lot of it had to due with cars not having all-season tires as standard over, plus people aren't accustomed to driving on snow and ice.

I could really see how quickly the weather in the moutains can change - I watched masses of clouds move across the hills, obscuring them from my view (and annoying me as I wanted to take some pictures). Then within 15 minutes the hill-tops were cloud free and the sun was beating down on them. Rob was back around 2pm Friday, so after that I just rested, went for a bit of a walk, hung out and played pool, cards, and watched TV. It was a lot of work for a couple of days, but I had fun overall - just being in a different place, cleaning a different layout added enough of an element of interest to keep me going. The guests were all quite good, although some of the climbers had that clique-ishness about them where they were only interersted in talking shop to people who hiked, and one girl just walked away from me when I told her that I didn't get to go hiking often because I was generally busy with work.

I'll probably head down to the region again so I can do some walks in the forest and the hills, especially since it's so close. There's also reindeer nearby which would be neat to see in real life, since I've been looking at them on my money all my life without knowing it - I only realized while looking it up the other day that caribou is just a word for wild reindeer. I always thought that it was elk and caribou that were the same, but there you go. I suppose if I'm going to make a point of viewing things from Canadian coins, then in addition to a reindeer, I still need to see the Bluenose, a loon, and a polar bear (I've seen the maple leaves and a beaver). Oh, and the Queen.

Busy!

The last two nights at the hostel, we went from having around 30 people staying per night to having 90-plus guests each night. The place is quite different when there's so many around. Just in terms of living here it's busier, with the kitchen being full of people and the television rooms being used whereas previously I could have one to myself if I wanted.

In terms of work, it's meant that I haven't had to resort to books to keep me busy - on my evening shifts I was busy with checking people in, providing tourist information, etc. In the mornings there was plenty to keep me busy with checking people out, booking them in for another night's stay, cleaning, laundry, and then once reception opened again at 2pm the phones just kept ringing. It made the time pass quickly though.

It's quieter now again - the groups we had in left this morning, so we're down to 40 to 50 people, so there's some work to be done. Still, I've had a taste of what this place would be like in busy season. It'd be a madhouse, as we were only half-full the past two nights.

UK Christmas Charts

An interesting phenomenon of the UK at Christmas time is the chart for Christmas music singles. Not all the songs are Christmas themed; many are just released right before Christmas in hopes that people will buy them as stocking stuffer gifts, so there's regular pop songs, novelty songs, and Christmas songs done by pop artists (so not traditional generally).

Many of the chart-topping singles become Christmas classics of sorts over here, thus there's Christmas staples of the UK that I had never heard until I came over here. Examples of that include:
- "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl
- "Stop the Cavalry" by Jona Lewie
- "Driving Home For Christmas" by Chris Rea
- "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade
- "Last Christmas" by Wham!
- "Stay Another Day" by East 17
(if you actually want to hear these songs, I'd suggest searching them on YouTube, which I can't do from the computer I'm currently on)

Actually, as far as Christmas songs go, The Pogues one isn't bad as it's sort of an anti-carol. The next three aren't too bad, and then the Wham! song and the East 17 song are terrible pop songs that are unfortunately very catchy (they're running through my head alternately as I type this).
Then there's the normal songs that make it to the top of the Christmas charts as well, many ones you would have heard of (check the list out below if you're curious); recently it's been X-Factor winners (a reality show like Pop Idol/Canadian Idol which the infamous Simon Cowell is now on). There's also one-hit wonders and novelty songs, which have included singles from South Park, The Teletubbies, and Bob The Builder (with "Can We Fix It? the theme song).

You can check out the number one's and number two's on Wikipedia if you're truly curious.

And of course, as you can gamble on many things quite legally over here (see my old post here), bookmakers take bets on which songs will reach the top of the charts.

Only in Scotland...

I took this photo back in the summer but never got around to putting it up. This is the sign of the big public library near the downtown.
Note that there is a bar in the library. That's right - it's on the main floor, near where all the computers that I was going in to use were located.

I've seen people queue up to get a 500ml can of beer at the ferry canteen for a 15-minute trip - can't go without afterall.

Aberdeen

I went over to Aberdeen Wednesday evening. I'd promised Jamie that I'd worked with in Kyleakin that I'd come visit him at some point (and I had a book to return to him anyway), and there were people who worked at the Aberdeen hostel that I'd met before that I figured I could visit with as well. Also, I'd never been to Aberdeen or even that region of the country before, so it was worth a little visit.

Pictures are up now below, but you can still have a look at the Undiscovered Scotland page on the city if you'd like.

I arrived after dark, so the grey granite buildings all looked shiny in the light of the street lamps and Christmas lights. The youth hostel there is in a rich-looking area of big old houses that seem to be mostly office buildings now. I walked by the office of Petro-Canada in one such house, and puzzled over why it would have an office in Aberdeen for a few moments until I recalled that Aberdeen is the centre of the oil business in Scotland, and I guess Petro-Canada's getting some oil from here.

I met up with Jamie at his place of work, the Prince of Wales bar, and we went to a few places around town, having chips and cheese from a chippy where the salt and vinegar was applied from a spray bottle (a fact that I found novel but the employees there did not seem to share that sentiment) and leaving a 10 cent Canadian Tire bill at a bar called The Moorings where they had world money posted on the wall (I'd brought Jamie some Canadian Tire money since he'd thought it cool when I'd mentioned it). I could tell that there's a few universities in town just by the type of young people that I spied out and about in unusual clothing and hairstlyes that only city students can pull off, as you would get mocked in a small place like PEI (or Kyleakin or Dunoon for that matter).

I wandered around downtown Thursday morning. It's a busy place given that it's the thrid largest city in the country, and of course people were Christmas shopping. The architecture I would describe as nice, solid buildings - there's a few exceptional ones, but most aren't ones that jump out at me as being spectacular, but they also don't make me cringe, and I appreciate that in a city. Most of the buildings conform well with my senses of symmetry and proportion. I've heard lots of complaints about how grey Aberdeen can be - the buildings and the sky both - and that it can feel gloomy for that. I didn't mind it; I found the colours that were there stood out more because of the uniform, grey backdrop, but I didn't spend weeks there so I couldn't say how it would be after a long time.

Marishal College (owned by University of Aberdeen now) - this is just a section of it that would fit in a picture; it's the second-largest white-granite building in the world, I was told.

More average-looking granite buildings.
There was snow along the banks of the river, or perhaps very white ice that was accumulating from the floes on the water, as I was told that it hadn't snowed in the city. In fact, it was warmer in Aberdeen than in Inverness, contrary to my manager's warning as I headed there.

Cemetery at St. Nicholas Kirk in the town centre. The horizontal stones have inscriptions on them as well, and I'm guessing the caskets are encased in the stone above ground. Just a different way of burying than I'm used to.
I met up with Jamie again for lunch that day, and then hung out with some of the youth hostel staff in the evening: Rob that I know from Skye, Tina and Gareth who came to Kyleakin for a visit in October, and Sarah who I met just in Aberdeen.

I headed back to Inverness Friday afternoon on a very crowded train, so it was a pretty short visit but I imagine I'll end up visiting again and see some more of the city.

Frosty

The temperature here has been around zero and below everyday for almost a week. The ground is covered with an increasingly thick layer of frost. Even though it's only been around minus 3 degrees and it's dry without any wind, it feels bitterly cold. Maybe a few inches of snow on the ground would help take the bite out of the air, but I don't think there's any in the forecast.

I walked down the River Ness to the Ness Islands park on Sunday - some tiny islands reached by footbridge and connnected by footbridges as well. It's a nifty park - just trees and paths, but there's also benches made out of slabs of wood twisted into interesting shapes. I was the only person there without at least one dog.

I went wandering around town after dark last night to look at the Christmas lights. Apart from in the town centre where the city had put them up, there wasn't a lot of outdoor lights. Unless I happened to catch a glimpse of someone's Christmas tree through their window, there were no lights except for maybe two houses. It doesn't seem to be a big thing in town like it is at home.

Watching telly to pass the time

Well, I've now done 5 days as a "trainee" at the hostel, probably more than I needed seeing as things are only done slightly different here than at Kyleakin, but it got me hours and let the others keep their hours as well. Now I'm working the desk all alone like a big girl.

There's 186 beds in this hostel, making it about 2.5 times the size of Kyleakin. Right now, since it's December, we're certainly not filling those beds; typically we've had between a few people to 30-some per night. Last night we had seven people staying in the place, which made my afternoon-evening shift pretty uneventful. There's also a conference room that's rented out as well, so that's added to the business on a few days.

The hostel's conveniently just beyond the town centre, with a Morrisons supermarket just 5 minutes walk toward the centre and another 5 minutes takes you to the high street and the shopping centre. I can get to the library in under 15 minutes of walking.

The town is quite busy with shoppers, Christmas approaching and all. Also, Inverness is the only place with any extensive amount of shops in the north of Scotland, so for anyone from the northern Highlands or the islands, this is the closest place to do their shopping.

We get digital television at the hostel, and one of the stations (ITV2) airs "Due South". No wonder people often ask me about whether the Mounties really wear those red uniforms. That's the only Canadian-produced show I've seen on the air over here, but that doesn't surprise me. As for the American shows that air, they're pretty much all hour-long dramas about doctors, lawyers and police (that sums up most American dramas, actually) and none of the sitcoms unless you count The Simpsons.

I don't know what digital television costs, but it doesn't give you as many channels as a basic cable package would in Canada. It's certainly more than the usual five "terrestrial" channels (i.e. that you can pick up for "free" - you have to pay an annual license to have a television over here, so it's not really free).

The new job and such

Well, I'm back in Scotland, having arrived Monday afternoon. My flight out of Halifax was delayed, as I expected, having heard about delays being common with Zoom airline after my initial flight (delayed also). The delay ended up being less than they thought initially, so we got away 1.5 hours late, allowing me to spend more time in the customer-service-award-winning airport (according to all the banners hanging up by the Tim Hortons, Halifax is one of the best airports in the world).

The pilot and the flight attendants this time seemed to know where we were going - on my flight to Canada, we were told a couple of times that we were going to Toronto, not Halifax and Montreal, and then thereafter they all paused for a second or so before saying the destination name, as though they had to think about it.

My overall concensus on Zoom: they're cheap for a reason, because they have planes that need lots of repairs and they don't get good take-off slots or something. The result is many of their flights leave late. On a bright note, however, they have very friendly flight attendants, and they're the only airline ever to offer me free alcohol, even if it was just a little cup of wine with the meal.

Before I left Canada, I got an e-mail from the manager of the Inverness Youth Hostel, offering me the reception job that I had applied for there. So following a stay at Glasgow Youth Hostel Monday night (where I got a free stay on account of being staff and knowing the guy who was working at the desk at the time; thank you!), I headed up on the bus to Inverness Tuesday morning. I got reacquainted with good ol' misty Scottish rain on the trip, and even saw some snow on the ground just north of Perth in one of the glens.

I'm wondering around town today, doing things such as visiting the library where I'm writing this now. Tomorrow I start "job-shadowing" the guy I'll be replacing, I guess you could put it.

It gets cold here

Two things I forgot about PEI while I was away:
1. It's windy. Islands are generally windy, but PEI is especially windy. I mean, there was often a breeze on Skye, and the winds did pick up some fierce by times, but nothing like here. There's always at least a slight wind here, and more often than not it's strong enough. And it makes it cold. Which brings me to point number...
2. It gets cold here. Being away for last winter, I haven't really experienced cold weather since the end of the winter of 2004-2005. So sometime in April or May of 2005 - one-and-a-half years ago. Canada is a cold country, it just doesn't seem quite so bad once you get used to it, I guess.

Environment Canada is predicting the coldest winter for 15 years. I'll be in Scotland.

It snowed again, starting Friday night and all through Saturday. As always, the snow at least makes it feel less cold - sucks some of the moisture out of the air, or something, I'm not sure how it works exactly but it does. The roads got slippy, apparently (I wasn't out after Friday evening so heard second-hand) and the plows were out on the road. The snow was pretty wet when I took this picture:but after it all came down, the temperature dropped and the snow was cold enough that you could pick it up and make snowballs (I tossed a few at some trees when I went wandering around yesterday evening).

This morning this is what it looked like with all the snow down:

Wyatt and I took Ben sledding down the road to Henry's Pit, an old shale quarry of sorts in the front yard of a neighbour's former farm (named for the late Henry, who was never alive in my lifetime but his widow lived in the house until some years ago). I can't remember the last time I went sledding there, or at all - probably over 10 years ago. Since the cows haven't been out eating on the hills for a few years, there was weeds all over the place that weren't there back when we used to go there as kids, but we managed to make a track of sorts and sent Ben down on the GT. He wanted to use it, not the basic sled, since the GT has a steering wheel I imagine.
Ben told us quite a few times that it was fun, and he even enjoyed the "crashing" (hitting the weeds on occasion) although he had trouble describing what he did: "slid...snow" until I taught him how to say "I went sledding" ("I wen sweddin"). Wyatt wore himself out carrying Ben and the sled back up the hill; I carried the sled and made Ben walk up on his own, guiding him from behind by pushing on his back. The kid's got to get some exercise out of it, I figure (it builds character).

I'm heading back to the UK on a flight tonight from Halifax, so it was cool that I got to experience some snow before I went back.

Oodles and oodles of anchors

My family gets BBC World News on the satellite over here. I've watched it as much as everyday for a week staight, and I have never seen the same news anchor twice on that channel. The BBC seems to have a never-ending supply of new anchors. Ditto with their weather people. Where do they all come from? And where do they all go to after they finish their one shift at the BBC World News desk?