Ugh

Well, the bus I picked doesn't run while school is in vacation. And they're on vacation this week :-(
Spent an hour trying to get a hold of my host, Em. Just got a text through and hope she gets it.
We'll get there tonight... Somehow.

Julia

Inverness Castle

We went to see Inverness castle today. It is made of red sandstone and is right across the river from our hotel. It is very cool, but you can't go inside as they use it as the town hall. We have seen lots of birds in Inverness, but suprisingly few pigeons. Mostly we see seagulls and hooded crows. We also saw a bird that look kind of like a red winged blackbird, but without the stripes on its wings. And we saw a little songbird that was very cool but we don't know what it was. We are leaving for Ullapool in an hour, but we're getting to the bus station a little early to make sure we know wich bus we are supossed to take. I am very exited to see Ullapool.

Sydney

Loch Ness Tour

So, we're already planning our return to Inverness on Nov 1 and we must make a tour of Loch Ness. We found a horseback riding tour of the Scottish Highlands with views of Loch Ness - it sounds amazing!
http://www.borlum.co.uk/index.html
But we're torn because we want a local, historic tour as well so this might win out: http://www.visitlochness.com/things-to-do/jacobite-5-star-coach-and-boat-cruises-from-inverness.php

Thoughts?

Our room

Here are a few pictures.
The Winston Guest House where we're staying...



The key...
Yes, we're actually using a skeleton key for our room!

Location:Inverness, Scotland

We're here!!

We made it! We're tired but getting a second wind once we got out of the airport. Everyone is very friendly! Sydney picked out our room for the night and, I must say, it's awesome! We're right on the River Ness in the heart of the little city. It's a big, old, stone house that's been turned into a bed & breakfast. I'll take a picture when we head out to lunch.

Julia

Location:Inverness, Scotland

Charlotte Airport

Connection to London. Sydney wants to see some comments! She says she's VERY excited for all of this - except that I told her about airplane food and that didn't sound too appealing. She's trying to convince her brain that it will fall asleep when she wants it too.
We'll catch up with you when we land!

Julia

Location:Charlotte NC

Minneapolis Airport

At the airport and exchanged a little US money for British Pounds. Hanging out at the gate until we board. Just one little glitch as I never posted to this blog from my iPad. You'd think it would work but the electronics did not align completely. Found this nice little BlogPress app to help me out so I can actually post for the next three weeks. Let's see if it works...

Julia

Location:Minneapolis, MN

WWOOFing

So, Sydney and I are mostly packed up and we're headed out to Scotland tomorrow. I thought I'd explain WWOOFING a little bit for those of you that haven't heard about.  You can check it out here:  http://www.wwoof.org.uk/

We'll be working on an organic farm in the middle of the Leckmelm forest in Scotland.  The work is in exchange for room and board.  We'll work 5 days a week and get the weekends off to play.  The place we're staying is a small community of farms that work together and we'll be staying with one of the residents.  We'll be completely off grid with some renewable energy for power.  Hopefully this will be consistent so we can blog from the forest!  Our shelter will most likely be a yurt and we'll cook in an outdoor kitchen.  Laundry is done by hand and if we want hot water we'll need to fetch it by hand from the hillside and gather wood for the fire to heat it.  I was told this is not for the faint-hearted!

We'll keep up to date the best we can and Sydney may jump in to blog as well.  We'll be back home November 4th.  This is how we'll keep you all up to date so please understand if I don't attend to my email much while I'm gone.

More soon...

Julia

Getting Ready!

Getting ready for the Scotland trip.  Sydney and I have a few things to get before we go.  Sydney discovered that Loch Ness is just 7 miles from where we land in Inverness so she's intent on getting there.  She's studying up on the Loch Ness Monster in hopes that we get a sighting!  More soon...

Wow, has it been 5 years since the Asia trip?  I can't believe the blog is still alive.  (Though nothing goes away these days...  remember that!)  I'll start the conversation again with our Scotland trip in October.  Stay tuned!!!
Julia

Home

Made it home just fine.

China food update

All this food stuff has caught up with me. My stomach hasn't felt good the past few days. I think it was a salad I had on Wednesday. We're not supposed to eat any fresh greens, under-cooked eggs, or egg based sauces. (I've been eating Caesar salads whenever I can - I need fresh greens! I guess that was taking a chance.) Also we're not supposed to drink the water in many of the countries, especially China and Taiwan. (Both bacteria and pollution levels.) Now imagine how far you need to take that. You brush your teeth and rinse your toothbrush with bottled water. (We are creatures of habit so it can be hard to remember sometimes!) You need to wipe any water droplets off the outside of a water bottle because that won't be clean either. Always make sure you break the seal on the water bottle yourself because some places try to refill the bottle with tap water to save money. Also, salad is washed with tap water - and you know how hard it is to completely dry a leaf of lettuce before you serve it. Water droplets hide inside - so we are not supposed to eat any fresh greens. I've had salads but the one on Wednesday tasted just plain weird so I stopped. I think it caught up to me. It's just hard to sit in meetings when you don't feel 100%. I did get to eat an American burger this week. A friend from Connecticut that is living here took me out to dinner. The place was called "Malone's" and it looked like any sports bar in the US - complete with pool tables. The burger and fries were just like you'd get back home and the waitstaff spoke English. I was surprised at how much I felt myself relax once I stepped in. Good food, good company, western toilets! Just taking a break now. Meetings all day and then dinner and time to pack up.