Tag Archives: Aberdeen

Monday, May 18 — Moving Day

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We woke at 6:00 AM. Too early? Well, for some reason it seemed rather easy to rise, perhaps because I knew we had a flight to catch.

We checked out and got our taxi easily, and then drove to the airport. I was surprised by the expense, but Dan said it was what he expected. The driver was quite nice and we understood most of what he said. There were times, though, when I was at a loss!

Getting into the airport there were a lot of people in lines. Many were school kids — we are guessing high school. They were all in matching sweatshirts with their names on the back. I wondered if they would all be on our flight. I also wondered how long it would take us to get through the line we saw since we did have to check our bags. Thankfully Dan asked at the help desk and we were told that our line was further up and there were only a few people in front of us. One of those in front had a very very red baseball cap on with someone’s name on the back of it.

For the first time on this trip we encountered a maga hat. Dan mentioned to the woman at the desk that it was the first time we had seen one and that we weren’t a part of that group. Her response? “I’m glad.” She was very friendly and clearly relieved that we weren’t maga folks. It just made me sad to see the hat. Even if one is maga it seems as if they should be savvy enough to avoid announcing it. Most countries aren’t too thrilled with the United States at the moment. Ah well.

We got through security in absolutely no time at all, and found a spot for coffee and a sweet roll. We had tons of time to wait. I’m always okay with that!

When we walked to the area where our plane was probably going to be (still not posted on the board), all those kids were there as well. I finally could see their sweatshirts and there was the name of an Aberdeenshire school, Westhill Academy, and “Valencia ‘26”. I didn’t manage to find anything else about it at the time, but I did see they weren’t going on our plane.

Finally it was time to board. This was one small plane. That group of kids probably wouldn’t have fit on to it!

We were in the second row and poor Dan’s knees were right against the seat in front — and then the young man sitting in front of him leaned his seat back. At least it was a very short flight!

I took a couple photos and Dan made a video for me since he had the window seat.

You can really see the bright yellow canola from the plane.

I pretty much spaced out and even snoozed a bit. We were on an Aer Lingus flight and even water would cost money, so never mind any drinks or food. Not that we needed them in any case.

And then we arrived.

Greetings, Ireland! Hello Dublin!

Our taxi driver was very chatty and gave us a lot of information abut the area. I could even understand most of what he said.

We arrived early to our hotel, so we dropped off our luggage and went on a walk in search of lunch. And not “not lunch” but real lunch which was fine by me since my earlier sweet roll was quite burnt. (Darn!)

We ended up in the Temple Bar area. Clearly tourist country. Our driver had told us it was a place to visit during the day even while drinks were more expensive than in other areas. He explained that there was live music and the extra cost was due to paying musicians. I’m okay with that! In the later hours it gets a bit wild and crazy (I’d already read about that as well, and one had to be careful about theft and all.)

We randomly chose a place and went upstairs (where we couldn’t hear the music at all) and ordered our meals. I had soup and Dan had fish ‘n chips. I neglected to take photos but no one really needs to see those — just use your imagination! Instead here’s a photo of Dan and his beer!

From there we did more walking in our typical random way. (The first shot is of the restaurant for lunch.)

We ended up in a shop with tons of gorgeous Aran wool sweaters as well as other wool items. Oh how tempted I was! I know it’s all about the tourists, but honestly the prices for such beautiful sweaters didn’t seem at all unreasonable and they were 100% wool. There was one long one that I drooled over. (Not literally, you’ll be relieved to read.) Still, I resisted. I wish I’d taken a photo of the green one I loved, and the men’s purple — a color I wished they’d had for women. I only took these two photos. One of the jackets and vests and the other of the fishermen’s sweaters. And who knows … maybe I’ll cave and return to buy something. They do say they are made in Ireland, and they are just so doggone beautiful.

From there we just ambled a bit.

I think we were both a bit weary from the early wake up. In addition the bag Dan was carrying was rather heavy (full of his photo gear, I think). Due to all of that we went back to the hotel to get our keys and luggage and up we went to our room. The room is spacious, and the bed is the first truly king size bed we’ve had, I think.

I looked outside our window as well.

A bit of snoozing may or may not have taken place. Just guess!

Eventually we decided to head out in the rain in search of a light bite. I did find one spot we passed rather humorous.

I had done a search on restaurants, and then pubs, but finally I realized the best way to search was to plug in FOOD. That way I’d see even more suggestions. We walked to the closest place but it was burgers and that didn’t grab us. Then we walked a bit further to a small pub but it was so crowded and we didn’t see that they served any food at all. Another place, just a short walk away, was nearly empty and looked okay, but Dan said the one he saw on my map that was only a block or so further down was rated higher so we went to check that out. And that was the spot! It was incredibly noisy, but it seemed more like a local place and we really wanted that. They had all of one food option: toasties. Well, that was something I wanted to try in any case, and it was the small bite kind of thing we were hoping for. PLUS the prices were much more reasonable. The place was full of, primarily, younger people — perhaps college aged. I’m certain we were the oldest people there the entire time! The video I shot doesn’t really show the crowd so much: many arrived just after we did, and some of the slightly older guys had left. (Older as in older than college aged, not nearly as old as us!) You might want to turn your sound way down!

Then it was time to make our (short) way back to our hotel. I did have to stop for this little guy, though:

I mean how very encouraging is that?!

We aren’t sure what’s up for tomorrow. Maybe the immigration museum. Maybe a Guinness tour. Maybe something else. So check in tomorrow to find out! I’m really hoping we get a day without rain, but I’m going to bet that won’t be the case. S’okay — we are having a great time no matter!

And now …

Oíche mhaith!

If what I just read is true, that is pronounced “ee-hah wah” … I don’t think I’ll be speaking Irish any time soon.

It means “goodnight”!

Saturday, May 16 — Moving Day

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It was a breakfast and packing morning. That all goes rather quickly, of course. First, in fact, we just spent a leisurely amount of time in our room.

This hotel is fine for what it is, but it’s a bit of a stretch to read that we are in a “luxury room”. The tub casing (if that’s what one calls the plastic siding) has cracks. The bathroom floor is in dire need of repair. The curtain is old and saggy. The lampshades have holes in them. The heater on the wall doesn’t work so they have a portable one in the room. The chairs in the lounges are rather old and the armchairs have rips in them. Some of the dining tables had two salt shakers and some had two for pepper. That one just made my laugh. In some ways it’s just rather charming in that “my this is an old place!” way, but I wonder how long they can last without really working on the place. Still, I love the location and the staff (all two of them that we’ve seen) are friendly. (The young woman, who has, I believe, an accent that would suggest she’s from England, said she arrived two weeks ago when they opened for the season. In other words, they don’t function year round.)

In any case, it was time to say goodbye. We have only one more stop in beautiful Scotland and it’s a place I visited back in the summer of 1974!

Breakfast occurred. As breakfast seems to do. Dan had more salmon and scrambled eggs and I opted for porridge. I do love oatmeal, but I think I like the word porridge even more. Yep. I’m silly that way.

After breakfast we pulled a few things out of the car so we could pack up, and then up to our room for showers and getting all things ready.

Then it was time to check out and head south.

I never wrote about “the wave”. Or I guess I should say “the waves”! When you are at a passing place, nearly always everybody acknowledges the other driver. Either it’s a wave, two fingers up like a peace sign, a thumbs up, or just one finger up on the steering wheel. Not the middle finger mind you! With cyclists and motorcycles, you get a head nod. It’s all so polite. Now, if you make a blunder and pull to the right instead of the left, you might get an angry person, signaling that you should go left, but that’s rare.

(Side note: I’m reading what I wrote above and instead of “blunder” I typed “blender”. Please know I rarely do a good job proof reading. I hate to think of how many silly typos I have. Just laugh at me and move on. That’s what I do.)

And signs … there’s of course the passing place, but we’ve also seen warning signs for sheep, cows, deer, red squirrels, and today a new one: OTTERS. Yep. Really. I should have taken a photo. There was also an “observe speed limit” sign today. Hmmm. Does that mean we could have ignored it up until that sign? I wonder.

When we left the Altnaharra Hotel we started out in the same road we were on yesterday when we returned. Goodbye dear hotel. You were a bit of a puzzlement in some ways, but I enjoyed our stay!

As we began the drive we encountered “not rain” again. but of course!

We stopped at a sign I had noticed yesterday so I snapped a couple photos.

This time, as well, we stopped at the church we drove by yesterday. First I shot the monument and then we entered the church. Dan opened the inner church door but shut it because he said someone was doing something inside. Right after that a woman poked her head out and said to come on in: her husband was photographing the church because it was soon to be sold. (You can see his work here.) We had a nice chat with them, and learned a bit more about the Free Church of Scotland. I still need to read up on it some more, but it sounded like a stricter sect from what they explained.

For the first time we saw some peat sitting out in a field.

This will be the last day we see these signs that appear so frequently. I thought they should be changed to “Patty’s Place” and Dan came up with a lot of other possibilities. Alas, I think they will stay as they are.

We’ve seen so many beautiful stone fences, but this one was a first for us.

The couple at the church told us we might see some red deer on our drive. And there they were.

In about an hour and a half we got to the village of Helmsdale. It seemed a good time to get lunch, since our dinner reservation was going to be rather late after our train ride. So yeah, it really was lunch rather than “not lunch”. And it was tasty! We ate at a place called “Thyme and Plaice”. Get it? Very yummy!

All along our drive the Scottish broom has been pretty amazing. We think of it as a weed in our area, but in Scotland I’m assuming it’s loved. Sometimes it’s on both sides of the road and you can’t see anything but road and broom and in those cases the car sometimes gets brighter from all that yellow. It covers some hills and is really lovely. But then we ran across fields of a most amazing yellow. I never managed to get a great close up of a field, but really it was just beautiful! I am pretty certain this is canola, also called rapeseed. I’ve read we might see more of it in another area we’ll see in a few weeks. We shall see.

And then we reached our first destination. Hello Inverness. Dan had to fill the car with petrol, and we returned it. Then Enterprise drove us to the train station (no charge … super!). We rearranged a few things in our luggage so we will have what things we will want at our disposal on the train, and entered the Ness & Thistle to kill over an hour of time. Easy. Order a pint, pull out the iPads, and get writing!

But before I go any further again I must say Dan did a stellar job of driving. He had suggested, on day one, that I eventually give it a go, but he didn’t bring that up again and I’m glad. I really prefer to drive on the RIGHT side of the road! (But he kept up his mantra, “Left is right and right is wrong!” For the most part that worked. Until today, when twice (at least) he attempted to get in the car on the passenger side. We figured he was just reverting, knowing he was done with the car soon!

So cheers to Dan!

Our train was due to leave at 17:20. It’s not a terrifically long ride — we should arrive at 19:36. I’m really hoping it is on time … I know we’ll be rather weary! Meanwhile we sat and waiting, very slowly nursing our drinks.

And then it was a bit after 17:00 so out we went to find carriage A. One never knows: will that be the closest car or the last one? We’ve been known to guess wrong and have to race to the far end of the track! As it turned out, it was the first coach, so easy-peasy. And there were very few in our first class car. Why first class? I guess it must have been cheap enough to warrant that. I believe the rest of our trains are “standard” and that’s just fine with us. But there we were, in row 7. I think maybe the car started out with about eight or nine people. Eventually it dwindled down to just three of us.

The ride was pleasant, even while we had to stop and wait for a late train before leaving one station. Not a worry for us since this train took us to our destination. (Later we heard that others, who were connecting to Glasgow, were going to be fine because they held that train for them.) I took just a few photos.

And then we arrived.

Hello Aberdeen!

You might wonder why we came here for all of two nights and only one full day. Well … I was here in August of 1974 for the International Youth Orchestra Festival (or whatever it was called) and I just wanted to revisit the spot. I wonder if I”ll recognize even one thing here. I was here on August 8, 1974, in fact. We woke up in the middle of the night to hear an announcement over the television. Hmmm … now what might that have been?!

We grabbed a taxi and got to the Chester Hotel. Wow!

This hotel is so very different than our last one. It’s a fabulous building or, rather, three or four buildings that are connected. The room is lovely. (But still you can see a bit of bathroom door damage … that seems to be a constant in hotels.) I’m even wondering if I somehow saw the wrong price on this place as it seems so much better than the other places we’ve stayed. If so — well — too late now!

And look at our sweet shortbread wrappers!

We ate dinner at the restaurant here at the hotel, since we got in rather late. It was delicious and too costly, but what is one to do at 8:30 in the evening? So whatever. Dan had roasted Cod and I had butter chicken. Yum!

Now it is late and we are tired. We haven’t planned a thing for tomorrow and I suspect we’ll just do some ambling. I’m not sure I’ll figure out where the youth orchestras all met up, and while I believe we stayed in dorms somewhere I’ve no clue where that might be. It was, after all, a long time ago.

For now goodnight!