We are back home now for a minute before we move to California to make a new home for ourselves.
We hope you all enjoyed reading about our adventures.
We will be leaving this blog up for people to look at.
ENJOY!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Liverpool - Shelby
Our trip is ending tomorrow, and I'm going home to see my family and friends! It's been a wonderful trip, but I'm ready to go home and start my career and life in San Francisco.
I'll see you all soon!
Shelby
I'll see you all soon!
Shelby
Friday, August 14, 2009
August 14th- Anders
Written on August 11th
We arrived in Inverness Scotland on a cloudy wet day, it was cold for being summer (around 20 C) but a relief for me after a month of intense heat.
My father regained contact with a childhood school friend from Liverpool several years ago and they followed up their emails with visiting eachother. The man's name is Bernard (pronounced without the second "r" and with an english accent of course) and his wife Patricia, but she went by Pat. They are lovely people, proper, yet warmly personal.
In traveling with my parents we decided to visit Bernard and Pat and a great decision that was. Inverness is a town in NorthCentral Scotland and holds the Northern most airport in Scotland. Bernard met us at the airpot and drove us the 100 miles, about, North to Brora which lies on the East coast about 70 miles south from John O Groats which is the northern most town on the mainland of Scotland. Great Britian is one of the few countries in the world that drives on the left side of the ride and is also one of the few countries that measures road distances in miles and yards, i learned from my father that the French are the ones that developed the meter and in a vault with a securely controlled climate there lies the perfect meter bar, and a meter is some fraction of the distance around the world along the equator.
North Scotland is sparesly populated for a couple of reasons, one of which being "the Clearing of the Highlands" in which rich land owners decided that they could be even more rich if they stopped renting to the people who had been cultivating the land for generations and instead grazed sheep, and sheep are still a plenty on the landscape. Every drive consisted of sheep, every scene consisted of sheep, and almost every sound of the countryside involved one of the several words known by our friends in cloudy wool coats. Another particular of Scotland is that 90% of the land is owned by non-Scotts, most of them being English. Many Scotts are poorer people, but a beautiful land they do inhabit.
In not being heavily populated, six million in the whole of the country, Scotland is also not a very developed landscape leaving the land to retain its natural beauty, and it does with a greenery only known by undisturbed soil and much rainfall.
In driving to Dunrobin castel on our first full day in Scotland we stopped to visit the ruins of a 2000 year old home. It was a round, stone structure with the inner floor having a radius of about 3-4 yards, the roof and whatever was over 7ft above the ground floor is long gone and on the upper remaining stones of there lies 1-4 inches of soil covered by lush green grass indicating that this site has been in this abandoned, delapitated state for at least 500 years according to the natural rate of topsoil accumulation. Topsoil takes geographic timescales to rebuild naturally, brown dirt stuff can be made on the ground but the thing that is healthy topsoil either takes a long time or much effort to rebuild, in the USA 2/3 of the topsoil that existed 200 years ago has been lost to erosion mainly due to the agricultural practices of the American farmer, and in China 2/3 of the artificial Nitrogen (a petroleum product) that is put on croplands as fertilizer functions to just make up for the loss in productivity due to topsoil erosion from modern agriculture.
Standing on this grass is a view of the surrounding land and the North Sea, in the distance there lies two oil drilling platforms that took thousands of women and men to build and now only take 150 to operate and maintain, the local businesses did not forecast these changes well and was dealt a heavy blow when the workers sank away upon the completion of the platform. The land view is mostly of grass green as can be from rich untilled soil well saturated with consistent light rain and there is a wee bit of human strucutres like fences, and in the distance over the trees peaks out the Dunrobin castle. Two Lassie dogs were running around downhill from us parallel to the beach accompanied by a white horse with a rider on its back. The water in the sky was ample and visible creating many layers of clouds, some high in continuous grayish sheets, some lower and puffy like mashed potatoes and some reaching down trying to be fog, many were rain clouds but little rain was to fall on us, most of it being dumped out at sea and more inland where the hills push air up creating a meeting of cold and warm air, this percipitation generation process is quite fortunate for us humans as without it rain would be a more rare event on land.
After a good inspection of the ruins and the begining of a midge attack (midges are a small biting cousin of the mosquito) we continued on to the Castle of the local Duke, the family's name is Sutherland and references to them are found all over the burrough along with a prominent 100 foot tall monument on a hill that some locals want removed due to the first Dukes prominent role in "the Clearing of the Highlands," no troubles are found with the current Sutherlands, just the first Duke of Sutherland that is hundreds years now dead. The Dunrobin Castle was fully inhabited by the Sutherlands until 1963 when the 5th Duke died, now the Sutherlands visit ocassionally with the museum presenting 20 of the 189 rooms, the 20 that are presented are the more traditional rooms that include the old dining room, the drawing room, the men's room, the lady's room, the war room, the chilren's play room and other rooms that are furnished like during times gone by, included are furnishings that were added for the visit of Queen Elizabeth who liked N.Scotland so much that she had a lodge made for herself and started a trend for the wealthy English, which along with Kings and Queens gifting pieces of land to loyal Englishmen help expalin the historic foreign ownership of most of Scotland.
Among remarkable objects to see were the books behind glass cases which included titles like "Distinguished Men of Modern Times" and rare printings of classics like the books of Homer. Prenenst also were objects belonging to a Sutherland who became the Duchess of Argyl, which is now a popular brand/design of clothing.
Wandering through this Castle much was presented that could be desired by a person, but for all the Sutherland's riches, in the old days they still lacked many comforts considered basic to the modern working man in the industrialized world; like central heating, a refridgerator, modern medicine, a box that delivers images of sports, nature and news and much more could be listed. It is amazing that in this age of technology and abundance we still lead envious lives of often unsatiable appetites for stuff, we are all Kings and Queens now in physical wealth, as rich as the Royalty of the past.
We arrived in Inverness Scotland on a cloudy wet day, it was cold for being summer (around 20 C) but a relief for me after a month of intense heat.
My father regained contact with a childhood school friend from Liverpool several years ago and they followed up their emails with visiting eachother. The man's name is Bernard (pronounced without the second "r" and with an english accent of course) and his wife Patricia, but she went by Pat. They are lovely people, proper, yet warmly personal.
In traveling with my parents we decided to visit Bernard and Pat and a great decision that was. Inverness is a town in NorthCentral Scotland and holds the Northern most airport in Scotland. Bernard met us at the airpot and drove us the 100 miles, about, North to Brora which lies on the East coast about 70 miles south from John O Groats which is the northern most town on the mainland of Scotland. Great Britian is one of the few countries in the world that drives on the left side of the ride and is also one of the few countries that measures road distances in miles and yards, i learned from my father that the French are the ones that developed the meter and in a vault with a securely controlled climate there lies the perfect meter bar, and a meter is some fraction of the distance around the world along the equator.
North Scotland is sparesly populated for a couple of reasons, one of which being "the Clearing of the Highlands" in which rich land owners decided that they could be even more rich if they stopped renting to the people who had been cultivating the land for generations and instead grazed sheep, and sheep are still a plenty on the landscape. Every drive consisted of sheep, every scene consisted of sheep, and almost every sound of the countryside involved one of the several words known by our friends in cloudy wool coats. Another particular of Scotland is that 90% of the land is owned by non-Scotts, most of them being English. Many Scotts are poorer people, but a beautiful land they do inhabit.
In not being heavily populated, six million in the whole of the country, Scotland is also not a very developed landscape leaving the land to retain its natural beauty, and it does with a greenery only known by undisturbed soil and much rainfall.
In driving to Dunrobin castel on our first full day in Scotland we stopped to visit the ruins of a 2000 year old home. It was a round, stone structure with the inner floor having a radius of about 3-4 yards, the roof and whatever was over 7ft above the ground floor is long gone and on the upper remaining stones of there lies 1-4 inches of soil covered by lush green grass indicating that this site has been in this abandoned, delapitated state for at least 500 years according to the natural rate of topsoil accumulation. Topsoil takes geographic timescales to rebuild naturally, brown dirt stuff can be made on the ground but the thing that is healthy topsoil either takes a long time or much effort to rebuild, in the USA 2/3 of the topsoil that existed 200 years ago has been lost to erosion mainly due to the agricultural practices of the American farmer, and in China 2/3 of the artificial Nitrogen (a petroleum product) that is put on croplands as fertilizer functions to just make up for the loss in productivity due to topsoil erosion from modern agriculture.
Standing on this grass is a view of the surrounding land and the North Sea, in the distance there lies two oil drilling platforms that took thousands of women and men to build and now only take 150 to operate and maintain, the local businesses did not forecast these changes well and was dealt a heavy blow when the workers sank away upon the completion of the platform. The land view is mostly of grass green as can be from rich untilled soil well saturated with consistent light rain and there is a wee bit of human strucutres like fences, and in the distance over the trees peaks out the Dunrobin castle. Two Lassie dogs were running around downhill from us parallel to the beach accompanied by a white horse with a rider on its back. The water in the sky was ample and visible creating many layers of clouds, some high in continuous grayish sheets, some lower and puffy like mashed potatoes and some reaching down trying to be fog, many were rain clouds but little rain was to fall on us, most of it being dumped out at sea and more inland where the hills push air up creating a meeting of cold and warm air, this percipitation generation process is quite fortunate for us humans as without it rain would be a more rare event on land.
After a good inspection of the ruins and the begining of a midge attack (midges are a small biting cousin of the mosquito) we continued on to the Castle of the local Duke, the family's name is Sutherland and references to them are found all over the burrough along with a prominent 100 foot tall monument on a hill that some locals want removed due to the first Dukes prominent role in "the Clearing of the Highlands," no troubles are found with the current Sutherlands, just the first Duke of Sutherland that is hundreds years now dead. The Dunrobin Castle was fully inhabited by the Sutherlands until 1963 when the 5th Duke died, now the Sutherlands visit ocassionally with the museum presenting 20 of the 189 rooms, the 20 that are presented are the more traditional rooms that include the old dining room, the drawing room, the men's room, the lady's room, the war room, the chilren's play room and other rooms that are furnished like during times gone by, included are furnishings that were added for the visit of Queen Elizabeth who liked N.Scotland so much that she had a lodge made for herself and started a trend for the wealthy English, which along with Kings and Queens gifting pieces of land to loyal Englishmen help expalin the historic foreign ownership of most of Scotland.
Among remarkable objects to see were the books behind glass cases which included titles like "Distinguished Men of Modern Times" and rare printings of classics like the books of Homer. Prenenst also were objects belonging to a Sutherland who became the Duchess of Argyl, which is now a popular brand/design of clothing.
Wandering through this Castle much was presented that could be desired by a person, but for all the Sutherland's riches, in the old days they still lacked many comforts considered basic to the modern working man in the industrialized world; like central heating, a refridgerator, modern medicine, a box that delivers images of sports, nature and news and much more could be listed. It is amazing that in this age of technology and abundance we still lead envious lives of often unsatiable appetites for stuff, we are all Kings and Queens now in physical wealth, as rich as the Royalty of the past.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Another photo post - Shelby
Here are some additional images from Kathy's camera -
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The MASSIVE photo post - Shelby
So here they are, the long awaited and long requested photos. There are just some key shots from each place - I'll post more from Kathy's camera in the morning, she has most of the good shots from Sweden, Spain, and here...
Scotland
Spain
Amsterdam
Eric, our ride from Sweden. Or is that Conan O'Brien?
Crossing from Sweden to Denmark
Sweden
Italy
In Italy, it's legal to drink in the streets... and at 2 o'clock. They even open your beer for you in the store.
This was right before my skirt flew up and I flashed a car and a biker.
Croatia
Kids in a bar? Why not. The game ended when one of the boys through the 8 ball in the pocket.
Antalya, Turkey. Pebble beach and bathwater warmth
Turkish Tea
Istanbul
Scotland
Spain
Amsterdam
Eric, our ride from Sweden. Or is that Conan O'Brien?
Crossing from Sweden to Denmark
Sweden
Italy
In Italy, it's legal to drink in the streets... and at 2 o'clock. They even open your beer for you in the store.
This was right before my skirt flew up and I flashed a car and a biker.
Croatia
Kids in a bar? Why not. The game ended when one of the boys through the 8 ball in the pocket.
Antalya, Turkey. Pebble beach and bathwater warmth
Turkish Tea
Istanbul
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Barcelona, Spain - Shelby
Hello everyone!
We´ve had really spotty internet - very expensive in Amsterdam, really slow in Sweden, and now here in Barcelona we have a handy internet cafe close to our hotel! Having a wonderful time exploring the city and I would love to come back when I have more time - there are amazing buildings/sculptures by Gaudi, great food, and a beautiful Gothic quarter with narrow streets and slanted buildings.
In the respect of my limited time I´m going to repost some emails I sent to my parents, so family, you can disregard the following, or of course re-enjoy! haha.
Aug 5
Greetings from Holland! I'm having a wonderful time, and sorry I haven't been on the internet at all because it's pretty pricey and not very accessible, so I decided to send an email to all of you at once. :)
We got in safe to Amsterdam, and were blessed with a new Swedish friend''s offer to drive us all the way here from Sweden (he was at the vacation home on Oland too!). He happened to be driving to Brussels with an empty car, and didn´t mind if we tagged along. He even works for Ikea - how swedish! :)
We embarked last Thursday - first Dish and I caught a ride off the island and a little south with some other friends of the family, and from their we took a train to the south west of sweden to a small city and met up with Eric, who we had met a day before on Oland. We stayed at his parents and his house there for the night, and left at 8 the next morning - we drove a little through sweden, then took a train to Denmark, and drove through Denmark, through Germany, and into Holland where he dropped us off at a train station around 10:15, and luckily we were able to catch the last train to the city, which caught at 10:22! It was about an hour ride away from Amsterdam.
The train left us off in the heart of the city, and luckily Anders had some sort of idea where our hostel was since he had been here before, but unbeknownst to us we happened to arrive during the city's Gay Pride Festival, which lasted all weekend long! It was awesome, but Dish has to reassure me that our entire time here wouldn't be as crazy and full of people - (and also we were scrambling around gay parades and dance parties in the street, with our huge turtle shell backpacks in the heart of the red light district at midnight on a Friday!), it was all a pretty funny scene. The festival culminated on Saturday with a parade of decorated float boats though the canals of the city - it was amazing! Dancing and singing drag queens everywhere!! Since sunday, though, the city has quieted down a lot and I've been able to see the city how it is at normal capacity -we've spent most of our time walking around thinking we're going in the right direction, only to realize we're back somewhere else (the city is shaped like a giant clamshells, and unlike at home where our streets are a grid system, if you take a wrong turn here you often end up back where you started, a bit perplexed). In these meanderings we''ve accidentally come across prostitutes in their windows, which makes me jump like a little kid everytime (I can only compare it to when you walk by a store and see a mannequin in the store window you never expect it to move but could imagine if it could, but here she comes to life and catcalls you, and that catches me off guard!). Overall it's been really fun, and today we're heading to Spain to meet back up with Kathy and Roy. our flight is at 6, so we're going to go now to buy our train tickets and spend or last few hours in the city.
p.s. Thank you for all the birthday wishes - they mean a lot! I had a great relaxing birthday in Oland, and the culminating experience was when 80 Swedes sang Happy Birthday to me in their own way. They were standing around me and gave a loud group cheers and shot at the end!
Aug 7
Found an internet cafe in Valencia, Spain. We got into Benidorm two days ago, and spent one full day there yesterday - it is a pretty crazy town that is pretty much a bunch of british people who moved down to spain and built some fish and chip stands and sleazy karaoke bars, but there was a beautiful white sand beach (the mediteranean) and we smam in it for hours. We took a 1.5 hour bus ride this morning to Valencia, which is a really cool old Spanish city, it´s a lot more historical and architectually beautiful. We´re only here for one night though, as it´s our half way stop to Barcelona. I was going to tell you how hot it was here (35.C), but it sounds like you could dwarf that number by comparison!! Hopefully there will be some rain this week for you, I can only imagine how hot it must get working out in that all day.
Love you so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon! Within the month! :)
XXXOOO
Shelby
We´ve had really spotty internet - very expensive in Amsterdam, really slow in Sweden, and now here in Barcelona we have a handy internet cafe close to our hotel! Having a wonderful time exploring the city and I would love to come back when I have more time - there are amazing buildings/sculptures by Gaudi, great food, and a beautiful Gothic quarter with narrow streets and slanted buildings.
In the respect of my limited time I´m going to repost some emails I sent to my parents, so family, you can disregard the following, or of course re-enjoy! haha.
Aug 5
Greetings from Holland! I'm having a wonderful time, and sorry I haven't been on the internet at all because it's pretty pricey and not very accessible, so I decided to send an email to all of you at once. :)
We got in safe to Amsterdam, and were blessed with a new Swedish friend''s offer to drive us all the way here from Sweden (he was at the vacation home on Oland too!). He happened to be driving to Brussels with an empty car, and didn´t mind if we tagged along. He even works for Ikea - how swedish! :)
We embarked last Thursday - first Dish and I caught a ride off the island and a little south with some other friends of the family, and from their we took a train to the south west of sweden to a small city and met up with Eric, who we had met a day before on Oland. We stayed at his parents and his house there for the night, and left at 8 the next morning - we drove a little through sweden, then took a train to Denmark, and drove through Denmark, through Germany, and into Holland where he dropped us off at a train station around 10:15, and luckily we were able to catch the last train to the city, which caught at 10:22! It was about an hour ride away from Amsterdam.
The train left us off in the heart of the city, and luckily Anders had some sort of idea where our hostel was since he had been here before, but unbeknownst to us we happened to arrive during the city's Gay Pride Festival, which lasted all weekend long! It was awesome, but Dish has to reassure me that our entire time here wouldn't be as crazy and full of people - (and also we were scrambling around gay parades and dance parties in the street, with our huge turtle shell backpacks in the heart of the red light district at midnight on a Friday!), it was all a pretty funny scene. The festival culminated on Saturday with a parade of decorated float boats though the canals of the city - it was amazing! Dancing and singing drag queens everywhere!! Since sunday, though, the city has quieted down a lot and I've been able to see the city how it is at normal capacity -we've spent most of our time walking around thinking we're going in the right direction, only to realize we're back somewhere else (the city is shaped like a giant clamshells, and unlike at home where our streets are a grid system, if you take a wrong turn here you often end up back where you started, a bit perplexed). In these meanderings we''ve accidentally come across prostitutes in their windows, which makes me jump like a little kid everytime (I can only compare it to when you walk by a store and see a mannequin in the store window you never expect it to move but could imagine if it could, but here she comes to life and catcalls you, and that catches me off guard!). Overall it's been really fun, and today we're heading to Spain to meet back up with Kathy and Roy. our flight is at 6, so we're going to go now to buy our train tickets and spend or last few hours in the city.
p.s. Thank you for all the birthday wishes - they mean a lot! I had a great relaxing birthday in Oland, and the culminating experience was when 80 Swedes sang Happy Birthday to me in their own way. They were standing around me and gave a loud group cheers and shot at the end!
Aug 7
Found an internet cafe in Valencia, Spain. We got into Benidorm two days ago, and spent one full day there yesterday - it is a pretty crazy town that is pretty much a bunch of british people who moved down to spain and built some fish and chip stands and sleazy karaoke bars, but there was a beautiful white sand beach (the mediteranean) and we smam in it for hours. We took a 1.5 hour bus ride this morning to Valencia, which is a really cool old Spanish city, it´s a lot more historical and architectually beautiful. We´re only here for one night though, as it´s our half way stop to Barcelona. I was going to tell you how hot it was here (35.C), but it sounds like you could dwarf that number by comparison!! Hopefully there will be some rain this week for you, I can only imagine how hot it must get working out in that all day.
Love you so much, and I look forward to seeing you soon! Within the month! :)
XXXOOO
Shelby
August 9th- Anders
wow, it has been so long since i have had free internet with time to write so i have not posted any of my writings since july, i am in an internet cafe in barcelona right now, tomorrow to scotland where it is rainy and cold. i have been writing plenty though and have filled up two notebooks already.
in barcelona we have been walking around looking at gaudi (click here for info on gaudi) buildings and eating tapas.
2 days ago we were in Valencia for one night and went to the bohemian quarter for walking around and then dinner at a tapas bar.
before that was the english resort town of Benidorm and i will write about that later, very very very english with lots of high-rises and a beautiful beach.
in barcelona we have been walking around looking at gaudi (click here for info on gaudi) buildings and eating tapas.
2 days ago we were in Valencia for one night and went to the bohemian quarter for walking around and then dinner at a tapas bar.
before that was the english resort town of Benidorm and i will write about that later, very very very english with lots of high-rises and a beautiful beach.
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