Potpourri...

We're catching up on some items that probably would have deserved their own post over the last little while.  We've been busy with a little side project or two, plus a lot of work, both at the office and here at home.

Item number 1: our new car.  We were looking for something with four doors and little bit of room in the boot - we're expecting visitors, right?  Plus it had to be fuel efficient and easy to handle on these cramped roads.  And it had to be affordable, as we don't see much point in paying a lot for a c

ar if we're going to be moving on in three years.  So we abandoned my original idea of an Audi TT convertible roadster and settled on a Renault Scenic.  We had driven one as a rental and liked it quite a bit.  A co-worker of mine, soon to move on to Cairo, just happened to be selling hers.  So we closed the deal.  Attached is a picture of Fiona's new car ...

Item number 2: snow.  Last weekend we had a good old fashioned snow storm.  It starte

d Friday night and by Saturday morning a good foot of snow had accumulated.  It was the right kind of snow too, good for snowballs and snowmen.  In fact our neighbours soon started a snowman making competition, the Italians on one side and the Dutch on the other.  I think the Dutch snowman was superior, with a carved face and clothespin lips.  To be fair, I don't think Italians get too many opportunities to build snowmen as kids.  The next night it rained and all was gone.  It was cool while it was there, though.  Fiona managed some pics ...

Item number 3: today's activities.  In honour of St. Andrew's Day, Aberdeen hosted an International Market.  It was a beautiful day, what the locals call "sharp".  Nice and sunny but with a bite in the air that works on your ears.  The market was crowded but fun.  They had a few stalls from several European countries, although the German sausage guy apparently merited 2 stands.  The French guy was impressive with a 4 foot wide wok cooking something which I can only assume is what angels eat in heaven:  it listed the ingredients as cheese, potatos, bacon, cream and onion.  In order to resist temptations such as this, we had eaten just before the market, and weren't quite ready to take on an extra 14, 000 calories.  We had to stop at the Dutch stand, though.  They were selling poffertjes, little bite sized pancakes.  You could get them in the traditional sense, with butter and powdered sugar and non-traditionally, with heaps of melted Nutella.  We went traditional, of course, because we're traditional poffertjes kind of people.  We also picked up some chocolate sprinkles, hagelslag, for morning toast, and some gingernuts, pepernoten, in order to be prepared for Sinterklaas this week.  No pictures, though.

Steppin Out ...

Rik here ...

We went out tonight, to His Majesty's Theatre to see a production of the long running play The Woman in Black.  The theatre itself was a treat - opulent and decadent with gilded statuary and copious red velvet.  Yet it had comfortable seats, something Jones Hall in Houston couldn't boast.

We went with a group from work, which was nice.  Tickets were only 17 pounds 50, an amazing deal by North American theatre going standards.  

They play itself was a horror/thriller and I am hoping the small bones in my left hand recover sufficiently from Fiona's tight squeezes.  They played it quite well, with the foreboding sounds, good lighting and blood curdling screams.  Well worth the ticket.  I think we'll be seeing several more features in this particular theatre, as the Proclaimers are playing soon, as are several fairly interesting ballet productions.

We stopped at the Noose and Monkey afterward for a pint, as must be done after any social occasion - dinner, theatre, sports match, etc...  I'm starting to wonder if one needs to suggest that "we grab a quick pint" after grabbing a quick pint?

Anyhoo, it felt good to get out of the house and be active again.  We've been a little busy inside the house and work has been especially draining the last couple of weeks.  Tomorrow we're out again to celebrate American Thanksgiving with Fiona's American Women of Aberdeen group.  Never turn down turkey - my long standing motto.  Maybe I can wrap some up for turkey sandwiches on Friday.

Cheers,

Rik

Antiquing

I have joined a group here called the American Women of Aberdeen.  They have all sorts of activity groups... book club, mahjong, a discover Scotland group and lots more.  The discover Scotland group is the one that I went antiquing with.  We went to the Scottish Antiques and Arts Centre.  It was about 1 1/2 hour drive from Aberdeen. It was really fun, the system they have at the centre is pretty interesting, they have all these different stalls that belong to different people and they sell their wares for the sellers.

I wasn't sure I would like antiquing, but I really got into it, especially the furniture and the jewelry.  I found that I had a prett

y good eye for nice pieces that seemed to be priced well.  One such piece was a Edwardian games table that I thought was such an unusual table.  So after a bit of haggling (mainly done by my friend Vicki) I got 12% off and decided to buy it.

Here are a few pics of the antiques centre and of my purchase...

My wife is awesome

Rik here ...

I've been fighting through a cold I picked up on Saturday as we perused the shops on Union Street getting a head start on our Christmas shopping.  It's been compounded by stress at work and a late night on Monday (business related ... I was forced to go). 

Today I came home and the smell of chicken soup filled the flat.  Fiona had cooked up a batch from scratch.  It was wonderful and has put me on the road to recovery.  I'll call it a night early today, though, just to be sure.  What is it about the boiled carcass of a chicken and some winter vegetables that can do so much to cure a sickness?  Who knows?  I'm just glad it's chicken soup and not tomato soup that carries these restorative properties.

She's also been busy on the home front, going through the process of getting insurance quotes for our possible car purchase, a 2005 Renault Scenic.  Not a common car in North America.  We'll hopefully have a picture soon.  Send in your votes for which of us you would like to see posing on the hood.  Actually, come to think of it, I don't think either of us would fit on its small, steeply dipping hood (er, I mean bonnet).

Cheers,

Rik

New car maybe...

So we've finally cleared our bank hurdles and will be able to get a car soon.  Actually we are lucky that one of Rik's co-workers is trying to sell her car and it might be just what we are looking for. We'll keep you updated on that.

There has been a wintery feel in the air the last week or so and has rained quite a bit more which can be a little dreary.  Also, the fact that the sun goes down at 3:30 - 4 doesn't help.  It does feel like the Christmas season is upon us though.  They lit the Christmas lights in the city center last night and we have just bought a new Christmas tree and are starting our Christmas cards.

Hopefully I will have some new pictures for you sometime this week. Take Care!  

Interesting Tidbits...

So we were in the grocery store the other day and we were perusing the wine aisle... an interesting product caught my eye.  Wine in a glass, well a plastic one anyway... it was a package of two of those plastic wineglasses full with wine and covered with a sealed plastic top.  It was such a bizarre sight, good concept though for people who don't own glasses or cups of any kind?!?

Just below it was wine in a 2L plastic juice container.  I guess these are just variations on the wine in a box.

There is a bit of frustration when we go to the grocery store as things that we could easily find in the States and Canada are no where to be found or if they do have it it is in strange locations, to our minds anyway.

We went to see the latest James Bond (finally - Rik says) at the local theatre.  They have assigned seating and you can pick your seats when you buy tickets.  We also bought "premiere  seating" which bought us larger more comfortable seats on a balcony separate from the plebes. They also had a little table between us for our popcorn and drinks which were covered by the 3.50 voucher that was included in our ticket.  We did get forty mins of commercials and previews which got a little tiring, but we were comforted when they showed on the screen the actual certificate, signed by the appropriate committee members, giving the movie a rating of 12A.  Anyway, we both really enjoyed the movie.  Rik didn't think it was quite as good as Casino Royale but definitely better than your average Bond flick.

The average on the rainy day calendar has shot up the past few days as we've had some pretty strong storms blow through the area.  It takes some mighty wind gusts to rattle the inside of a three story granite house, but rattle it did!  The trees here must be used to it though, as some of the yellow and orange leaves have managed to hold on for another day.  Overall, though, we can't complain about the weather.  Aberdeen is ideally placed in a bit of a rain shadow, so it doesn't get the wet weather of southern and western Scotland.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November ...

Happy Guy Fawkes Day everyone!

As the fireworks explode around us, we are trying to wrap our head around the meaning of this festival.  Wikipedia and the movie "V for Vendetta" tell us that it is a celebration of the foiling of a Catholic conspiracy to blow up the Parliament buildings in 1605.  To celebrate, Guy is hung if effigy  and thrown into giant bonfires, and public fireworks displays are put on.

Here in Aberdeen the fireworks are on the beach.  Unfortunately it is rainy today.  The crowds don't seem to mind, downtown was pretty busy.

We're still working through the frustrations of moving.  Banking is proving to be the hardest thing to get a handle on.  Hopefully we can get it wrapped up soon.  We kind of need it to set off a chain of events ... get a car, pick up some extra furniture, clean up the rest of our our house and get you all the pictures you've been asking for.  

Fiona had her book club meeting today.  She powered through 800 pages in three days ... a true Brooymans!

I am still trying to comprehend the tragic fact that I haven't seen the new James Bond flick yet.  Tomorrow might be the lucky day.

Cheers,

Rik

Another Busy Weekend - Part Two

So today we were planning on going to Culloden Battlefield, near Inverness.  It is the site of the last hand to hand battle fought on British soil.  We were up early and ready to go but the site didn't open yet so we decided to take a walk in Inverness.

Inverness is situated at the tip of the Firth of Moray, attached to Loch Ness by the River Ness and with the snow capped Cairngorm Mountains in the background.  Needless to say it is a beautiful city.  There is a nice little walk that runs along the riverbank and over some small islands in the river.  It was a really nice morning to walk, cold enough to need a jacket but not so much that you felt uncomfortable.  At the end of our walk the church bells were ringing and groups of kilted men were gathering in front.  

We then headed to Culloden, it had a really impressive visitors center.  It was the most technologically savvy historical center that we have ever seen.  Touch screens, 360 degrees theatres, GPS driven tour of the battlefield.  Pretty cool stuff. And a good job as well staying neutral, splitting the center in half, one for the Jacobites and one for the Hanoverians.  We even saw a kilt dressing demonstration.  

Here are some more pictures, most from our walk in Inverness.  We have to say that anyone coming to Scotland has to put Inverness and area on their agenda.  And we didn't even get into the Whisky distillery tours.

Another Busy Weekend...

I decided that I wanted to go exploring again this weekend and thought that Inverness would be a good place to go.  So we packed up the rental car and drove there on Saturday.  We had booked a room at a really nice hotel just outside of the city.  Stopped off, checked in and headed to our next destination... Loch Ness!  

It is the perfect time of year to visit Loch Ness, the fall colours were absolutely gorgeous.  It is an impressive site, being that it took us about an hour and a half to drive around it.  We were a little disappointed in that we only saw the monster once - we were hoping to see a family of Nessies.  We actually skipped the Loch Ness Monster interpretive center and went to see another castle instead.  Urquhart Castle really drove home the fact that castles were pretty useless in protecting the inhabitants, as the video at the castle said " seizing the castle was the easy part, holding was more difficult". The castle, much like most of the castles here, passed hands many times and was destroyed and rebuilt many times.

The drive around the loch provided some breathtaking scenery, just when we thought we had found the most beautiful vista, over the next hill lay something even more fantastic.  

Here are a few of our pics.