Missie's lil boat adventure

This is the boat the Missie and I visited while at the Transport Museum.  Missie decided to try her hand at a few jobs to see what would suit her best should she ever get stuck on a boat...

Missy tried her hand at being the cook but decided it was too much hard work and too boring...

Then she tried deck scrubbing but again way too much hard work and she didn't want to get wet...

Missie figured that manning the sails would be fun, but she was wrong, way way too much hard work...

Being an apprentice was definitely not for Missie, cabins were too dark and there were four beds per tiny room...

Now this room is more suitable, being Capt. looks like something Missie might be able to handle...

Map reading was definitely fun...

Even found home so we were ready to set sail...

Missie even has the steering down :)

So after a fun afternoon of boat exploring we have learnt that Missie will be Capt. and I will be photographer for our trip home as we don't like the plane ride to get here and a boat must be better...

Glasgow via photos

The stairs I got to climb at The Lighthouse to get to the boring rooftop view

Some views from the bus tour around Glasgow, this is just a random building on the river that I liked.

A big crane for loading boats

Some random building that looked cool


hehe



Some photos from the transport museum, this was a sign in the old style replica pub there

 They also had a fake subway...

 So I went and relaxed.

 Missy helping drive the old school hearse, PS I want to go in one of these when I go :) 

 Some random old school car hehe

Glasgow University from the entrance 

Glasgow Cathedral

The gate to the Glasgow Necropolis

The gardens at the People's Palace

 A cool as seat outside at the People's Palace (and no that aint the Palace in the background that is just some cool as random building in Glasgow)

 The fountain outside the People's Palace

Mega Wicked Weekend

Gotta say this weekend was one of the best :) so thought would share with you all. 

On Friday night I went on a pub crawl in Leith (a suburb of Edinburgh) with a MeetUp group I'm part of. MeetUp is an app you can download and then join groups in your area with similar interests to you or things you wanna get into etc. This is how I found the kickboxing fitness group. The group I went out with on Friday night is a group for 20 and 30 year olds that wanna go out and do fun stuff, events include movie trips, walks, trips around Scotland, pub crawls etc. Met some really cool people on Friday and we went to some cool pubs. Very fun night. 

Saturday I went to kickboxing class in the morning then it was the social event to Portabello Beach (Edinburghs beach) for the afternoon. We went to the beach by bus then wandered down the promenade (both directions) then chilled on the beach, some played frisbee, I tested the water temperature. I didn't think it was too cold till I realised I had lost feeling in my feet and ankles lol. 

Then today I went on a road trip with Chris (a friend from the MeetUp group) to Keswick in The Lake District in England to go to the pencil museum. Yup there's one, it exists! Lol. The reason for the trip was to see the worlds biggest pencil, was a bit disappointed with it so there is no photo, but they did have some cool artwork made from pencils. We then wandered round the town and down to the lake, then back up to the gardens to play on the playground and look for the sensory garden - I have no idea what one of them is and still don't know as it seems to have disappeared or else it's just badly signed and we walked right past it more than once lol. Was a very good day, we even got rained on in good English summer weather fashion :)

Am glad I am a lady of leisure as I need a couple days off to rest now hehe. 

PS photos from Glasgow still coming, I just been a lil busy :) :) :)

Portabello Beach

 

Pencil Art

Lake at Keswick (don't know official name)

Another view (cos we walked around it for a bit)

Glasgow

So I made it to Glasgow, and just wanna say upfront that Edinburgh is way better :) so much prettier and def got a better vibe (to me atlst), so very glad I'm living there. 

Please note most my photos are on my camera so will do a photo post on Sunday or Monday some stage. 

Arrived in Glasgow around lunchtime yesterday and went for a wander and sightsee around the City Centre, George Square area and the Lighthouse. Lots of shops and old but not pretty buildings. The Lighthouse is a centre for architecture and design. Gotta admit thought it would be better than it was. It did have a roof terrace thing you could view the city from but the city wasn't all that spectacular from up high either. Went to The Butterfly and The Pig Tea Rooms for dinner, so amazing. For £12.95 I got a massive main, cake, toast and as much tea as I could drink. The food was so good too, am very tempted to go back there again tonight but know I should try somewhere new while I'm here. 

Today I went on the City Sightseeing Bus. It's a hop on hop off bus that takes you to the main areas and sights of the city. I got off at the transport museum, very cool place. Loved the way things were displayed and that you could play with some things :) they even had a boat (sailing ship) you could go on and explore, Missie tried her hand at most jobs and decided she liked being Capt most, not only cos you steered the ship but cos you got the best quarters. She wasn't a fan of scrubbing decks at all, and the sail raising was just too much effort as was cooking. She enjoyed the map reading to and was stoked when she found home on it :) 

Next stop I got off at was Glasgow Uni. Kinda made me wish I had studied at an old as uni but Vic Uni was awesome in its own way. It was graduation day today so there were lots of people in robes taking photos. Made me think I should really finish my diploma to say I have, yes Pravina that means you have to finish yours to :p

Then we went through the West End (the older more traditional part of Glasgow where shops have writing in Gaelic not English) on the way to Glasgow Cathedral. Not sure if I was just real tired by this stage or if I've just seen too many old churches now but this one didn't wow me at all. It was just a church. Too be honest prefer some of the NZ ones to this one. Then I wandered through the Glasgow Necropolis which is basically just a big cemetery where all the headstones were taller than me and some made me feel like an ant, they were massive. 

Then back on the bus, went through Merchant City on the way to Glasgow Green (a big park) and the Peoples Palace (museum) and the Winter Gardens. The Palace and the Gardens were ok, again not wowed by them but did find another purple bush/plant/flower/thing that I liked so it wasn't a waste :) and a cool seat, that was also worth it. 

Then I got back on the bus to get back into town and wandered around for a bit. Very tired now but off to find somewhere for dinner soon then will hopefully crash out tonight. Man it's hard work being a tourist lol

Here are a few photos I took yesterday :)

Cool graffiti art on way into train station

Cool graffiti art along riverside

Awesome toilet sign at The Lighthouse

Break time

Last nights dessert :)

A few lil things make a semi decent post

Or atlst I hope they will. 

I am still jobless but no longer homeless :) have officially moved into the flat with Jo and Ben, this means I'll be in Edinburgh for the next 6 months atlst, maybe longer depending on work when I find it. Gotta admit the job hunting is going slow based somewhat on my loving the not working life so much :) lol

I have joined a kickboxing fitness group, yup I'm still terribly balance challenged and have very weak punches but my kicks aren't to shabby :) is quite fun and am making some good friends through the class. The instructor is big on social events which is one of the reasons I decided to join the group. We are going to Portabello Beach on Saturday which should be fun. 

There was some other stuff I was gonna write but am wandering through The Meadows and my brain is too distracted to remember stuff so it has been forgotten :) hehe

If anyone wants my new addy please let me know :) 

Oh that's right the other thing is that I'm off to Glasgow for a couple nights tomorrow to check it out and see what's on there. Only an hour or so away by train so easy for day or weekend visits if I like it and wanna go back for a visit. The shopping is meant to be better so am looking forward to sussing it out and going back when I get a job if I like it. Lol had just left The Meadows when I remembered that :p

Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh

Yup Missy and I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens, mostly cos it was free and I figured that as someone who recently worked in Parks I should check it out and see if it was any good, plus I'd heard they were real good.

They are massive, and to sum up what I thought as I walked around it was basically, 'oh look tree tree tree, oh pretty tree, plant plant plant, boring plants, oh goodie lots of green blah blah blah'.  Did decide there are either not enough purple flowers in the world or they just don't have many there, this is very sad, purple is a cool colour so you would think there would be lots of plants that are purple.  Did find a couple of purple plants that I liked though so that was all good.  My fav part was definitely the Rock Garden, though to be honest I expected a garden of rocks, that would have been logical, instead it was an alpine garden with alpiney plants and stuff and signs about what grows at what altitudes.  I didn't read these signs of course, just like I didn't read any others that were there.  Am sure if you liked stuff like this you would have gotten more out of it that I did but I did have some awesome music playing so was happy just bopping along and chilling out :)

Saw a super cute duck and squirrel and didn't even need to use zoom on my camera for photos as they were just chilling out with us and let me and Missy walk right up to them to photos :) def made the visit to the gardens worth it :) hehe

Cute duck

Super Cute Squirrel

Cool seat

Me on cool seat :) hehe

Cool trees :) just a couple of the cool ones I saw :)

Rock Garden

Purple flowers I like :)

Cool thing I can't spell in the Chinese Garden

National Musuem of Scotland part 2

Yesterday I went to the Scottish history part of the National Musuem of Scotland (the part I was a bit too bored to look at properly last time hehe). It was pretty interesting, still don't care at all about geology (that's the rocks and forming of land and crap etc aye) totally just bypassed that section while bopping along to my iPod hehe :)

The old school stuff was the best I thought, gotta love seeing a actual guillotine that was used to behead ppl (or so they say), and a pike (holy cow was that more massive than I thought it would be), and a massive as two handed sword (pretty sure it was taller than me) and lots of other cool things. 

Also chilled out in a old school church, they had bits of one set up that you could walk around and check out. There were heaps of touch-screens that you could find out more information about the different things. It was really good  you could totally spend hours there (dad and bro I think you guys would), I spent a couple hours and I didn't even read most of the things just wandered past vaguely looking in the displays and stopping when saw something interesting. 

Went to the Botanical Gardens today, will post photos etc tomorrow for that one :)

From the church

Cool old school hearse, me wants to be taken in one of these I think :)

Seriously cool book stand

And just cos :)

National Museum of Scotland

Now this was a museum that I loved, there were lots of interactive parts to it and fun things for kids and big kids like me to do, thought of Dofus and Bro while doing most of them as well, you guys would like this place to :)

I had heaps of fun just wandering around, doing the interactive parts and reading the stuff on the interesting looking parts.  The only part I think they got wrong is that Aussie was in the country part with a section on its history and NZ was in the Pacific Island part with stuff about NZ with all the other Islands, and here I was thinking we were a country like Aussie :(

I am not sure which part I loved the most, it is probably between the music section (playing a massive xylophone and big drums has a certain appeal that results in a big kid grin hehe) or the trying to run faster than a Cheetah (turns out I can't but I can run faster than Hippo, Elephant, Black Mamba (though they don't run they slither), Roadrunner, Crocodile, Bandicoot and a Rat).  It is not very accurate how they test this running fast than but it was still fun (you cycle not run lol and so wrong cos apparently I can go 33.3km/h).  I also found out that I am not as heavy as a chimpanzee :( I am as heavy as a Giant Anteater though, I know who woulda guessed :p

I also discovered I find it creepy to see how a cockroach does, maybe it was just the thought of cockroaches themselves that creeped me out.  One creature I wish I didn't know about is the Giant Spider Crab, ewww to them, they have a leg span of nearly 4 meters, so wrong and hope I never meet one.

There was also an Extinction Wall of Honour which I found rather moving, there are so many animals on it and the years that they became extinct, some have been quite recent which kinda shocked me.

Turns out I am rather good at reintroducing wolves to the Highlands, there was a game where you got to add wolves back into the Highlands to control the deer population.  You get to pick how many wolves and where you want them and the game/challenge spans 10 years and there are a few things that crop up during the time that you have to say yay or nay to.  Haha I won all the challenges cept the Eco-something-or-other one cos I let the local duck hunters build a hut to shoot and watch from and I think I was meant to say no to them.  Oh well Uncle Frank would be happy and that is all that counts hehe.  I won the tree growing, the keeping deer under control and the citizens loving me and a couple other ones :) woot woot :)

By the time I got to the Scottish history side of the museum I was pretty bored so semi headed straight to the roof terrace.  I say semi headed as I stopped along the way to attempt to knock down a brick wall (but made of foam) with a catapult along the way, I did not succeed.  Then I found the Sports History area and I did a quiz on the Scottish sporting history from forever ago till now (like the 1900's forever ago) and I got 63%, damn straight I know my Scottish sporting history lol.

The roof terrace was real cool, you could see the whole city from up there.  Took some photos and most are all semi crocked, beginning to think that when I was told I see on an angle at one of the random 'experiment' things I did at uni for money that they might have been right lol.  The lift up there (dumb place cos you can walk to all the levels but the roof terrace) is the slowest lift in the history of all lifts I've been in, but it did mean I got quite a good chat in with a rather nice looking Scotsman within the space of one floor hehe.


Creepy Giant Spider Crab

SAL Bulldog - just randomly in-between floors hehe :)


Castle from the roof terrace


Castle taken the other day from George Street



Just some other cool, old buildings from roof terrace