THE LAST TWO WEEKENDS

The last two weekends were mostly spent home. On Saturday, two weeks ago, the weather was horrible. Foggy and cloudy. And it has been like that throughout most of the previous week. But I got tired of just sitting inside, so I decided to go out for a long walk. I've recently found a new walking path and now I go there every time I go for a walk. The path is on the other side of the town, starts close to the Forth rail bridge and then leads to Dalmeny house. The path goes through a forest and is mostly very close to the beach. The first time I went there, I went from my house. And it takes around 20 min just to get to the Forth rail bridge. From this point it then take additional 40 min of intansive, fast walk to reach the Dalmeny house. That's why I now drive myself to the bridge, park and start my walk there. 

Dalmeny house is a Gothic revival mansion and it's a home for Earl of Rosebery and his family. 

Dalmeny house

 

Forth Rail Bridge

The weather on Sunday was completely different than on Saturday. It was amazing. Felt like spring. Hardly any wind, mostly sunny and the temperatures were around 10°C. So really warm. And to make the day even better, I met with friends in Edinburgh. At first I only met with Ellen. We went for a walk around the Princes Street Gardens, just enjoying the warm temperatures. Then we headed across the North Bridge and went for lunch. The city centre was very busy. Lots of people on the street due to the nice weather and also because of rugby game. After lunch we met with Szidi, Hungarian girl, for coffee. I had a lovely Sunday. 

I was home whole last weekend. On Saturday I again went walking to Dalmeny house and this time it was sunny. But it was also very windy, which meant it was very cold. On each walk back home I picked up snowdrops and put them in a vase in my room. I saw snowdrops for the first time here on 1st of February, And was shocked to see them so early. But the surprise was lovely. Snowdrops are one of my favourite flowers :) On Sunday Desmond and Pamela went to Glasgow to watch football game, so I spent whole day babysitting. 

Dalmeny house

Golf course around the Dalmeny house

I love this house. It's huge but not too big. And it's very secluded. For some reason it reminds me of Adam's family's house (in a good way that is)

I will conclude this post with what Ellen told me. She was in Slovenia for few weeks last summer with her scouts group. For 10 days (I hope I rememered correctly) they were hiking/walking from Postojna to Kostanjevica pri Krki. Every evening they went to people's houses and asked if they can stay over for the night. I thought that people would mostly say no. I think Slovenian people can be a bit closed to others/foreigners, but Ellen gave me a pleasent surprise by telling me mostly everyone was okay with them staying for the night. She loved Slovenia! Said she's definitely going back as soon as possible. Oh and I shouldn't forget to mention that her host family has a Range Rover and she gets to drive it! Lucky girl :)

My next post will be about the week I spent with my sister. She's coming tonight!!! 

WEEKEND IN ABERDEEN

I'm going to start with post with one thing that I forgot to mention in London Part Three. And this thing is actually quite big. London doesn't have many litter bins! And that was the most annoying thing in the whole trip. I kept searching for litters all the time. A couple of times I had to carry my trash for 30 minutes before finding a litter finally. And I'm just not that kind of person who would throw trash on the floor. I don't like that. You would think there would be litters at the bus stops, but nope there weren't. It's clearly not the same as in Ljubljana. You can find litters everywhere you go in Slovenian capital. Thank God for that! 

But anyhow, this post is about my weekend in Aberdeen with friends. We went for a short trip only. From Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Our bus left Edinburgh Bus Station at 8:15, which meant I had to leave my town before 7 o'clock. And that meant I had to wake up at 6. It's been a while since I had to wake up that early. But it wasn't hard at all. The hard part was in trying to keep quiet as much as possible so I wouldn't wake up the family. And that's not an easy task when the wooden floor keeps squeaking. I arrived to the bus station a bit after 7 and I planned to get myself coffee from the coffee shop but it was closed. I cannot understand why coffee shop would be closed in the morning. Mostly people drink coffee in the morning, don't they? So I was really surprised to see that it was closed. And then out of (silly) principle I didn't go for coffee once it finally opened. Ellen (Swedish girl) and Claire (French girl) came to the station around 30 minutes before our departure. Our bus driver was amazing. He informed us of some basic things, like use the seat belt, take the trash out with us when we leave the bus etc. Then he always added something really funny that made everyone in the bus laugh hard. I laughed so hard, my belly was hurting! I didn't laugh so much in quite a while. He also said that in case of forgetting something that belonged to us, we can find the items on ebay :) I know it probably doesn't sound so funny, but it really was. The journey was 3 hours long and we only stopped three times. We chatted throughout most of the trip, but when we got close to our destination, we got quite sleepy due to too hot air in the bus. So we were quite happy when we got off the bus. The bus station in Aberdeen is in the same place as a huge mall. So we headed in, went through the mall and went for coffee. Then we waited few more minutes for Anna (German girl who went to Dublin with me), who came separately. She lives close to Perth so she just took a bus from there, instead of going to Edinburgh first. 

I need to point out that all the pictures below were either taken by Claire or Anna. They were nice enough to say yes when I asked them if I can put their pictures in my blog. Thank you Claire and Anna :)

From left to right - Anna, Ellen and Claire

Ellen, Claire and I

We went to Mark & Spencer's to grab something to eat. After our lunch we went to Aberdeen Maritime Museum. For those who don't know maritime museum is also called nautical museum and it specializes in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. In the museum you can find city's long relationship with the North Sea, ships, fishing and port history and most interesting for me were displays on the North Sea Oil industry. 

A nice picture that can be a wee bit creepy if you look closer

This suit weighs more than 350 kg on land, while in water it weighs only few kg

Ellen and I

A module of an oil rig - all this is under water

After visit at the museum we headed towards our hotel - Holiday Inn Express Aberdeen City Centre. Perfect location, very close to Union Street which is one of the busiest streets in the city and is right in the city centre. There are many shops down the street, many bars and restaurants and also nightclubs. We relaxed for a little while and made a plan for the rest of the day. We decided to go to Art Gallery then walk around the city and find a place to eat. There were some nice paintings in the gallary but some also not that nice. Maybe because I just don't get or understand the modern art. I can interpret the actual painting and what it tries to portrait, but some lightning installation or sleeping bag on the floor I will never understand. 

After the art gallery we started searching a place to eat. After long search we went to a fancy restaurant. Most of restaurants were fully booked, so that's why we ended up there. We all had pizzas for dinner. After dinner we headed back to our hotel, chatted for few hours, shared a bottle of wine, which was drank from tea cups. After 10 o'clock we went out in search for a nice bag. We never saw so many young people outside, dressed up nicely and sexy. Aberdeen is quite famous of having a very good nightlife. The women were all wearing very high heels and men where in suits. We ended up in a nice bar, ordered coctails and just chatted for few hours. We left when the bar closed. Then we went back to our hotel, stayed awake until 2 o'clock when we finally fell asleep. 

Our morning started a bit before 9 o'clock. Breakfast was included into the price and let me tell you, breakfast was really really good. So many different things to choose from and everything was delicious. I took scrambled eggs with bread, bowl of milk with cereal (cereal that I really like), a glass of orange juice and coffee. After breakfast we decided instead of taking a bus to Saint Machar's Cathedral, we will just walk there. The walk was around one hour long, but we didn't walk fast at all. Plus few times we had to check if we're on the right road. I like walking around the city. You can explore and see a lot more of the city than you would from a bus. Plus the weather was amazing. Sunny, very warm - around ten degrees and hardly any wind. We couldn't have asked for better weather. 

We first stopped for a while at the botanic garden. We sat on some benches and had our snack, then just sunbathed. It was so nice and warm, we had to take the opportunity and relax like that. 

Snowdrops :)

The benches were we sunbathed; Claire, Ellen and Anna

Saint Machar's Cathedral is one of the most beautiful cathedrals that I've seen in whole UK. And UK has many beautiful ones. According to legend, Saint Machar founded a site of worship in Old Aberdeen in about 580. The cathedral is famous by heraldic ceiling, featuring 48 coats of arms in three rows of sixteen.

Saint Machar's Cathedral

Cathedral and cemetery

Pipe organ

All 48 coats of arms

After the visit of cathedral we decided it would be best to go back to our hotel so we don't run out of time. We relaxed for a little while still in the room, then headed towards the bus station aka big shopping mall for lunch. We went to Nando's. I LOVE Nando's! Ellen made me try one of the more spicy sauces and my mouth was burning for a long time afterwards. It seems I'll just stay with my favourite sauce - lemon & herbs. It's quite spicy, but not too spicy. 

Anna's bus was due at 5 o'clock, Ellen and I went on a bus at 6 o'clock and Claire stayed in Aberdeen for one more night. I had a wonderful time with the girls! Hopefully we'll do something similar again soon :)

Now some random pictures: 

Claire

 

Saint Mary's Cathedral

Shopping mall

I took this picture! It's Anna by the way

The Old Town House

Me resting for a wee bit

Ellen

Us four at Nando's 

I didn't take sunglasses with me because the weather forecast said it's going to be cloudy whole weekend. And I'm not used to not wearing them when it's sunny. That's why I look sleepy in this picture :)

Ellen and I in the hotel elevator

Claire, Ellen and I - one of my favourite pictures :)