SNOW!!!!
(to be continued...)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Manchester, England
I’m sitting in the Red Café (rings a bell, Manchester United fans?) sipping on the worst cup of hot chocolate and finishing up my over-priced pre-packed blueberry muffin. It’s an interesting contrast. At this same moment, Talib’s shuttling around like a 5-year old, taking in the sights and sounds of Old Trafford Stadium—home to his much loved soccer team, Manchester United. Seems like déjà vu all over, as I did the same thing just a few months ago—sitting out from the Camp Nou Experience in Barcelona, just so I could use the time to finish a newly purchased Banana Yoshimoto novel. I stand firm when I say that I will not go for a stadium tour, even if it was paid for. It just has no bearing on my life.
A bit of explaining is required to answer why I’m in Manchester on this awfully chilly Sunday, and not slogging away in my tiny hostel cubicle and churning out my essays. Today marks the end of a 5-day trip. It begun on Wednesday—a three hour public coach ride from Nottingham to Manchester, followed by a 5-hour connection from Manchester up North to Edinburgh, Scotland. I guess our trip started on a pretty miserable note because our bus (damn you, Megabus!) was late for a whole 2 hours, which resulted in our arrival in Edinburgh at approximately 2am. Then from Edinburgh, we moved farther up North to Inverness—the capital of the Highlands—and made a quick visit to the Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle. I must admit that I wasn’t much impressed with the scenery than I was with my first experience with snow. What started with a few pathetic ice flakes falling on our noses on Thursday became a full-fledged snowfall over the next couple of days. Kilian’s right—snow’s fun for awhile, then when the numb extremities kick in and you have to struggle to climb the mildest of slopes to avoid falling, you realize it ain’t that much fun after all. Mind you, the numbing process is anything but pain-free. I had to bear with a searing pain in my toes with each step I trudged upslope from the village centre of Dumnadrochit to the Urquhart Castle. It didn’t help that we were under the false impression that the walk would take no more than 20 minutes—the waitress at the café misunderstood us and thought we were driving up instead of walking on our stumpy feet.
That aside, I did try my first taste of haggis. If not for Wikipedia, I would have had absolutely no clue what I was in for—minced kidneys, liver and all other innards of sheep stuffed into a sheep’s intestine skin if I’m not wrong. Haggis tastes much better than it looks, but the texture’s pretty disturbing initially. A little sticky and gooey—clumping at the roof of your mouth and leaving a thin surface of the “sausage meat” on your tongue. It’s a great experience, but not enough for me to want to try it a second time. Did I mention that the Scottish accent always cracks me up? I’m a failure at mastering the accent though… Talib, on the other hand, does it naturally.
I really wonder how one can live in such a cold environment for their entire lives. Our tour guide in Edinburgh told us that it rains almost 270 days a year, and the temperature only gets colder hereon. It’s worse in Canada! Come on, how do you deal with only 1.5weeks of summer a year!!! I know for sure I’m not going to be retiring to one of these cold-climate countries. It’s sad when the only source of heat you have is the diminishing warmth of your hot chocolate.
A bit of explaining is required to answer why I’m in Manchester on this awfully chilly Sunday, and not slogging away in my tiny hostel cubicle and churning out my essays. Today marks the end of a 5-day trip. It begun on Wednesday—a three hour public coach ride from Nottingham to Manchester, followed by a 5-hour connection from Manchester up North to Edinburgh, Scotland. I guess our trip started on a pretty miserable note because our bus (damn you, Megabus!) was late for a whole 2 hours, which resulted in our arrival in Edinburgh at approximately 2am. Then from Edinburgh, we moved farther up North to Inverness—the capital of the Highlands—and made a quick visit to the Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle. I must admit that I wasn’t much impressed with the scenery than I was with my first experience with snow. What started with a few pathetic ice flakes falling on our noses on Thursday became a full-fledged snowfall over the next couple of days. Kilian’s right—snow’s fun for awhile, then when the numb extremities kick in and you have to struggle to climb the mildest of slopes to avoid falling, you realize it ain’t that much fun after all. Mind you, the numbing process is anything but pain-free. I had to bear with a searing pain in my toes with each step I trudged upslope from the village centre of Dumnadrochit to the Urquhart Castle. It didn’t help that we were under the false impression that the walk would take no more than 20 minutes—the waitress at the café misunderstood us and thought we were driving up instead of walking on our stumpy feet.
That aside, I did try my first taste of haggis. If not for Wikipedia, I would have had absolutely no clue what I was in for—minced kidneys, liver and all other innards of sheep stuffed into a sheep’s intestine skin if I’m not wrong. Haggis tastes much better than it looks, but the texture’s pretty disturbing initially. A little sticky and gooey—clumping at the roof of your mouth and leaving a thin surface of the “sausage meat” on your tongue. It’s a great experience, but not enough for me to want to try it a second time. Did I mention that the Scottish accent always cracks me up? I’m a failure at mastering the accent though… Talib, on the other hand, does it naturally.
I really wonder how one can live in such a cold environment for their entire lives. Our tour guide in Edinburgh told us that it rains almost 270 days a year, and the temperature only gets colder hereon. It’s worse in Canada! Come on, how do you deal with only 1.5weeks of summer a year!!! I know for sure I’m not going to be retiring to one of these cold-climate countries. It’s sad when the only source of heat you have is the diminishing warmth of your hot chocolate.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Yorkshire Dales National Park (Grassington), England
Talib's been dying to escape the city life, so we made an extremely spontaneous trip up to Yorkshire Dales National Park. It was supposed to be a 2pound return coach ticket to Leeds, but it ended up costing almost 15 pounds, with numerous transits between transports. But it was all worth it. We had the BEST English tea, with the BEST fruit scone (for some reason I pictured Ritz apple strudel back from Singapore... I must really miss home) and hand-cut chips! We love you, Cobblestones Cafe! Talib even got a jar of lemon cheese as a souvenir. He's totally in love with Grassington now--land of the sheep.
Hamster.
DIY butter & sugar toast--leftovers from brunch the day before. Poor students, we are.
Sheep photos.
The sheep photobombed.
One cool sheep. Bet he was responsible for all the sheep poo pellets around us. LOOK AT HIS BLUE BUTT!!! :D:D:D
Happily skipping through the meadows. At least I looked the part.
Super cold la.
Posing for the shot!
My suicidal boyfriend. Sigh. It gets difficult keeping him under control sometimes. Got to stock up on the treats.
Atop Linton Falls...
I take better photos.
We met two freshly retired British geologists... who invited us into their home to get closer pictures of the river. That's when they introduced us... to the most popular British igneous rock. That's what they said, quote quote.
Our self-proclaimed most popular blue christmas tree.
We are one with nature.
Talib doing what he does best.
I am Chewbacca.
Aww, such a pretty photo with a pretty bin!
The narrow streets and roads within the heart of the village. Each time two cars travelled towards each other, one would have to give way by reversing into the nearest possible grassy patch for the other to drive by. Pretty cute, the way some drivers had to reverse for pretty long distances for our public bus.
The quaint little shophouses which line the village of Grassington. There were vintage and antique stores, shops stocked with hiking gear, and cozy little cafes.
The home-made fruit scone, with butter and awesome, awesome berry jam. Love at first bite. XXX
Hand-cut chips. Not the frozen ones you get in a bag at Tesco mind you. These still had their potato skins left on them. The cafe also had a million sauces for us to choose from. We got garlic mayonnaise and ketchup at first. Eventually ran out of them, and got vinegar and more mayo. We're such gluttons.
My new best friend, Sconey.
Sconey and Talib.
Chewing the one-day-old bread I packed for the trip. Wholemeal with butter & sugar--tastes just like home.
The quaint little shophouses which line the village of Grassington. There were vintage and antique stores, shops stocked with hiking gear, and cozy little cafes.
The home-made fruit scone, with butter and awesome, awesome berry jam. Love at first bite. XXX
Hand-cut chips. Not the frozen ones you get in a bag at Tesco mind you. These still had their potato skins left on them. The cafe also had a million sauces for us to choose from. We got garlic mayonnaise and ketchup at first. Eventually ran out of them, and got vinegar and more mayo. We're such gluttons.
My new best friend, Sconey.
Sconey and Talib.
Chewing the one-day-old bread I packed for the trip. Wholemeal with butter & sugar--tastes just like home.
Leicester, England
We went to Leicester recently, just half an hour's train ride away, primarily to catch a Funeral for a Friend gig. We ended up paying 13pounds each (for a ticket) to get our heads bashed in, lips cut, singing FOR (and not along with) the singer because he lost his voice thanks to a sore throat. I bet he was smoking too much and was probably too drunk to remember the lyrics prior to the gig. How awfully awesome. My lip still hurts from the ulcer some punk left me, thanks to his bodysurfing stunt. Other than that, Leicester was interestingly filled with loads of Indians. Don't know if it's right to say that we felt "at home"... but it definitely felt cozier than your regular English cities. Place felt like a ghost town initially, when we arrived at the train station. Everything was either under construction, closed or just screamed "evacuate now. attacked by zombies!" So we ventured further towards the city centre and got a tight slap in our face. Leicester owns Nottingham big time. They have this mega shopping mall more than 3 storeys high, with a bunch of youths dancing to some new version of Para-para. Super funny I'll try to upload in a bit if I have the time.
Totally beats dance dance revolution, or para-para!!!
Tickets to the gig! So el cheapo, I know.
The half-hour train ride to Leicester. Cost us 8.70pounds return. Not too bad.
Zombieland.
It got better once we started venturing deeper into the city.
Some random church, like all the others in UK, and Europe.
The church within the compounds of Leicester Castle.
So we were posing in front of a random door, which looked kinda cool. Then Talib burst my bubble... what if the door led to... the church's toilet. -_-"
Talib was happilly, innocently jumping around the Castle Courtyard, before we found out later on that this was an execution ground earlier in the days. What irony. Oh well.
Anyone up for lamppost-dancing? Talib's failed "come-hither" look.
Some local museum documenting the lives of the people of Leicester.
We started a new tradition of getting hot drinks and desserts at a bar before catching any gig. This time we had tiny profiteroles drenched with belgian chocolate sauce, and warm mugs of mocha and cuppacino. All for the cheap!
Rise to Remain--some band which opened for Funeral for a Friend. So this punk tried to be funny, and rested one foot on some dude standing next to me, while balancing himself with his other foot on stage. The aftermath was him falling over, and body surfing with his guitar... not without kicking me in the head. Asshole!
Funeral for a Friend!
One of the band's crazy fans!
Totally beats dance dance revolution, or para-para!!!
Tickets to the gig! So el cheapo, I know.
The half-hour train ride to Leicester. Cost us 8.70pounds return. Not too bad.
Zombieland.
It got better once we started venturing deeper into the city.
Some random church, like all the others in UK, and Europe.
The church within the compounds of Leicester Castle.
So we were posing in front of a random door, which looked kinda cool. Then Talib burst my bubble... what if the door led to... the church's toilet. -_-"
Talib was happilly, innocently jumping around the Castle Courtyard, before we found out later on that this was an execution ground earlier in the days. What irony. Oh well.
Anyone up for lamppost-dancing? Talib's failed "come-hither" look.
Some local museum documenting the lives of the people of Leicester.
We started a new tradition of getting hot drinks and desserts at a bar before catching any gig. This time we had tiny profiteroles drenched with belgian chocolate sauce, and warm mugs of mocha and cuppacino. All for the cheap!
Rise to Remain--some band which opened for Funeral for a Friend. So this punk tried to be funny, and rested one foot on some dude standing next to me, while balancing himself with his other foot on stage. The aftermath was him falling over, and body surfing with his guitar... not without kicking me in the head. Asshole!
Funeral for a Friend!
One of the band's crazy fans!
Cardiff, Wales
All pumped up for the trip to Cardiff from London.
And then I fell asleep... it was a super long four hour bus ride!
Beef steak sandwich for 3 pounds. Also the same place we got the most kick-ass hot chocolate ever.
Go ahead, try pronouncing the street name. Hoity Toity.
Yup, I'm chubby alright.
Here begins our free tour of the Senned (Senate) Building.
Our guide kept going on and on about how it was essential for the Welsh to learn their language, and how important Welsh independence is... even sent his kids to a Welsh school. Turns out that he's a Liverpudlian--masquerading as a Welsh. Sheesh.
Cardiff Bay and the beautiful scenery. The sea breeze was crazy strong.
Talib on a photo-taking frenzy... it was only day 3 of being in the UK. He was taking pictures with everything and anything, I swear.
Talib with Maureen Flynn, from Australia (:
"Stop eating sandwich." -_-"
The Cardiff Bay cottages. Talib wants to buy one in the future. I'm definitely not going to come along.
I didn't know the Welsh had their own language... until naooooo.
We spent the whole day walking in the rain... as you can see from the spots on the photo. Hardcore, ten floor.
Talib claims I look like a koala. Seriously. I've refused to try on ear muffs since.
Magherita pizza for 2.50pounds. Cheapest deal in Cardiff, and yummiest in town :D
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