Biking on the Left

Everyone looks for different things in new places. I find myself searching for 3 things most of the time: Science Museums, pick up soccer (football) games, and places to rent (hire) a bike. I've been to London, Oxford, Liverpool and Edinburgh and I've been able to find plenty of Science museums with differing levels of interactivity, and some amazing building architecture. I've been having trouble finding the other 2. In Oxford, I found Punting, which is basically pushing a special type of boat (called a punt) along a river with a very long wooden pole. Punting is hard. Pushing a boat with a pole, doesn't sound hard, but it is. You have to push the boat at the right angle so it goes straight, then us the pole as a rutter after you take it off the ground. Carla, my punting instructor said I picked it up quickly, but we still did quite a few "S's" down the Thames River. I managed to avoid falling in. It's a good thing I opted out of the bottle of wine, which typically comes with the price of renting a punt.

At the Boston Museum of Science, we have a model T rex with skin, and he's even dressed with a scarf for winter. In Oxford, they have real T rex bones.



Plenty of people in Oxford bike... and in fact there were bikes everywhere. I found a bike shop in town, but when I asked to hire a bike they said that they didn't do that. There was nowhere in London to hire a bike either. I was beginning to get frustrated.

I finally found a place that would hire me a bike in Liverpool. My cousin Derek has 15 bikes in his garage and offered me a bike for free. Can't beat that price. Derek and I have gone on a couple of bike rides around the Liverpool countryside. It was refreshing. There's something about biking in beautiful places that's quite peaceful.

Liverpool has recently won the award of European City of Culture, which to most locals means that the city has received money to do a bunch of construction. It also means that there are all sorts of cultural events taking place. Derek's wife, Julia and I went to a John Lennon tribute, then followed that with a trip to the Penny Lane Wine Bar. The Tall Ships race was beginning in Liverpool the weekend I arrived, so Derek and I went down to see the ships. They were quite pretty. The Princess was even in town for this event. There were so many people in town that they started herding us one way through the viewing area. When we tried going against traffic we were turned around. It was at this point that I decided to go to the museums instead of fight the crowds.
So I went to the World Museum and the Walker Art Gallery. At the art gallery, there was a Superlamb Banana, which happen to be appearing all over town for charity.
At the World museum I found a BIG piece of my favorite rock - Hematite, which is basically iron ore. It differs from rust by 1 oxygen molecule (per molecular unit). Anyway it's cool stuff and this is the biggest hunk of it I've ever seen.

Next I went up to Edinburgh for a couple of days. I got off the train in Edinburgh, and started to make my way towards the Hostel, and for the 2nd time in a brand new city, I encountered US culture before local culture. I ran into a street show being performed by Arizona Jones, a pretty cute guy from the US being Indiana circus style. He juggled flaming batons from 16 feet in the air, and extinguished a flaming bullwhip from up there for his grand finale.

I instantly fell in love with the city of Edinburgh because just beyond Indie's performance on my way to my Hostel, was a beautiful green wide open park called the Quartermile, with bike lanes a playing fields. This is the first place in the UK that I spotted some pick up soccer, so I dropped my stuff at the Hostel (which conveniently happened to be right next to the park), and went out to play. I joined a game with both men and women about my age playing. They all turned out to be Polish (with the exception of 1 person, I think). In the picture below we have (back row) Me, I foget her name, Anya, Johnathan, Bala (front row) Lucus, flat soccer ball, and another Anya. We had a bunch of other people join us too (including the guy playing the drums for money along the path in the park), but they left before this picture. Bala and I ended up having dinner together. He explained to me that even though the weather isn't as good in Scotland, the economy is much better. We also had interesting conversations about living life without a plan. I once had a plan for life, and I didn't stick to it, and that got me down, but then I realized that the life I have now IS a ton of fun, and it's the unexpected that's the most fun. That's kind of what I've aimed for on this trip. Diving into places without a plan and seeing what turns up. So far it's great! I highly recommend it.

I didn't have too much time in Scotland, so I decided to see as much of the country as possible in 1 day. Yup, I took a lap around Scotland. I went on a 370 mile bus tour, mostly because I really wanted to see if I could see the Loch Ness Monster. Apparently, this is what a lot of tourist do, so there are several companies selling such tour tickets. They were mostly booked by the time I got to Edinburgh, but I was lucky enough to get on a Scotline Tour (and got the student discount). The tour left Edinburgh at 8AM and went through the weeping Glen of Glencoe, where we met Hamish, the cow. We had breakfast with Hamish and some people got to feed Hamish. I definitely put this rest stop up there with the fishing stop on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
After visiting with Hamish, we went past Fort Williams, Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland (Ben mean mountain in Gaelic, and I think Nevis means steep, but I'm not sure. The driver was trying to teach us Gaelic, but not too much of it stuck with me.)

Here's a picture of me in the Scottish highlands standing next to "the worst bagpipe player in all of Scotland" according to my bus driver. The bus driver said that strangled cats make a more pleasant noise. I couldn't tell the difference.
We finally got to Loch Ness at about 2:30PM, and we stopped at some Urquhart Castle Ruins over looking over Loch Ness. Then I got on a boat to try and spot the monster... No luck of course, but the day was pristine and I got to hear all the monster stories. They even referred to the spot as a "real life X-file" and references to Scully and Mulder.
Did you know that Macdonald's serves high tea? This is the little town of Pitlochry, in Scotland. There are no national food chains here... That's so refreshing. I've hated MacDonalds almost all my life - mostly because when I was young and liked hamburgers they put those little chopped up onions on every burger that are impossible to remove, and if you ask for no onions it takes forever to get your burger. Now I'm older and don't like hamburgers all that much. I like high tea, so I might actually like this Macdonalds of Pitlochry. I'll try it if I come back someday.

We ended up getting back to Edinburgh at 8:30PM, a 12.5 hour tour. Most of the people on the bus were sleeping the majority of the way back, but we all had our shot at spotting the Loch Ness monster, so we were happy. Not as happy as we would have been had we actually seen it, but the tour guide pointed out a broken figure of Nessie at a gas station outside the city of Inverness and told us that we'd all now had our chance at spotting Nessie.