vaca update

Yesterday was my last shift at the bar/restaurant. I didn't feel too sad because I know I'll see everyone for a few more weeks at least. I know when I leave the building for the last time I'll have a hard time holding back the tears. But thats not what this post is about. I just realized that I haven't really posted about my two week vacation thats coming up. So here is a little preview of what we will be doing.

My oldest sister, Lacey, and her husband are leaving tonight and arriving tomorrow morning. They are renting a car and going straight to the highlands for a little romantic road-trip. They will be in Edinburgh either Friday night or Saturday morning. We'll have two days in the city to show them around. Lacey really wants to see where Amy and I work so we might fit in a quick game of bingo before heading over to Cameo for dinner and to do the pub quiz. *Side note* The pub quiz is so much fun! Every Sunday night there is a quiz with four rounds of 10 questions. There are usually 15-20 teams and the winner of each round gets some chocolate, with the overall prize being a £30 bar tab. If its not too busy the bar staff try and get a team in there too, which is why I always loved working Sunday nights.
Sunday night the plan is (for me anyways) to not go to sleep. Weird plan, right? But we have to catch a bus in the city at 3:15 Monday morning. That means we would have to get up at about 1:30 for all of us to start having showers and make sure our room is spic and span. *another side note* Amy and I have to have our room completely packed up and clean before we leave on Monday. We won't be back until September, so to save us having to pay rent for two more weeks we are going to technically be out of the room. Then its up to Neil whether or not he finds someone to take the room. We'll still be staying here for the two weeks after our trip, but we'll just be on the couch (or if no one is in the room yet I'm sure we'll sleep in our old beds).
So, since Lacey and Duane only have two days in the city, I figure they'll want to enjoy it and not go to bed at 7:30 in order to get a decent nights sleep. The bus ride to the airport (we have to go to Glasgow) will take about two hours and the flight to Paris is about an hour and a half. Not a lot of sleep but I'm hoping our excitment for being in France will make us forget about the lack of sleep.
Here is a quick summary of our trip:
Monday morning: fly to Paris, get rental car and drive to beaches of Normandy. We have Monday and Tuesday to do the beaches, Mont St. Michel and visit any cute French towns along the way.
Wednesday: Tour of the Palace of Versailles. Wednesday evening will be spent in Paris.
Thursday: Duane flies home in the morning. Us girls will spend the rest of the day touring Paris
Friday: Disneyland Paris!!!
Saturday: Last day in Paris
Sunday: We have an early train ride to London. We are taking the Eurostar train, which is the super fast train that goes through a tunnel under the English Channel. We'll have most of Sunday for London
Monday: London
Tuesday: day trip from London... maybe to Stonehenge and Bath.
Wednesday: Last day in London
Thursday: Lacey flies home, Amy and I fly to Edinburgh.

It's going to be an amazing, long, expensive trip! I've been so busy with work the past few weeks that I haven't really had time to think about the fact that in a few days I'm going to see so many amazing things... and my sister and BIL, who I haven't seen since February. I can't wait!

Not much time left now...

One week of work left.

Two weeks of holidays.

Two weeks back in Edinburgh to say goodbye.

And on September 17th I am moving back to Canada.

Crazy!

tattoo number two

A week ago today I got my second tattoo. Before Amy and I moved here we talked about getting a thistle tattoo as a lifelong souvenir of our year in Scotland. We looked online a lot trying to find a design that we liked but they were all too 'real' looking, and if you know what a thistle looks like you know they aren't really the most beautiful, girly weeds! I got my eyebrow pierced at a tattoo shop and while we were waiting we looked through some of the design books they had. We found a page with several different thistle designs, including the one I chose. It's pretty and girly and very... me. I love it!

The first two pictures were taken the day I got it done and the last was taken today.

Tales from Northern Ireland

Well, Amy and I got back from Northern Ireland on Saturday and I'm just now finding the time to sit down and tell you all about it! Work has been busy and I've been trying to spend as much time with friends as possible these last few weeks we're here. We were over there for four days and packed a lot in so this post may be a little picture heavy. Here we go...

We flew in to Belfast on Wednesday and were met at the airport by our flatmate Neil and one of his friends. They took us to Carrickfergus Castle but we didn't have time to go inside. To be honest, it didn't really look all that thrilling anyways. We did have fun taking some pictures with a good looking knight though.



After the castle we went back to Belfast to take a guided tour of the city. We saw some pretty amazing buildings, the dockyard where Titanic was built (so cool!) and a lot of murals on both the Protestant and Catholic sides of the city. It was pretty crazy to hear about all the unrest that went on in the city.





After the tour we went out for dinner and then headed to Tobermore, the small town that Neil is from. The next day we started off at the rope bridge I wrote about before. Amy and I were excited to go across but everyone else we were with were a little scared. We all managed to walk... or in some cases more like run... across to get some amazing views of the Irish coast.


We then headed over to Bushmills whiskey distillery, which, at 400 years, is one of the oldest in the world. We went on a tour of the distillery but unfortunately they were shut down for repairs that day so we didn't actually get to see any whiskey being made. At the end of the tour we were offered a free dram to try. The guide said there was one that tasted like chocolate and caramel, so I decided to go for that one. Lets just say it did NOT taste anything like chocolate OR caramel and I barely got one sip down. Whiskey is not my friend.

We then headed to Giants Causeway. The best words to describe it are: amazing, beauitful, weird and crazy. It's just so weird that all of the rocks are about the same size and shape. There are two different versions of why the rocks are there. The first has to do with lava many millions of years ago and the second is about the giant Finn McCool. I'll let you decide which one you believe.


After a delicious dinner and some fun and games at an indoor theme park, we headed back to Tobermore. The next day we went on a tour of Londonderry. It is another city that was really affected by the troubles between the Catholics and Protestents. Londonderry was a really pretty walled city. We went on a walking tour of the walls and got some history of the troubles that went on there. After a few hours we headed to a place called Musseden Temple. I don't know much about this place but it sure was beautiful. I'll let the pictures do the talking.



Amy and I had a ton of fun here snapping lots of pictures. It was definitely one of our favourite places on the trip. Overall we had a great time in Northern Ireland and packed a lot in to the four days we were there. Theres still lots of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that we want to see, though!