Category Archives: Notes from Abroad

A WHAT tide?

Yesterday I woke up early and had a lovely home-cooked breakfast consisting of orange juice, tea, fruit salad with yogurt, cereal, brown toast with butter and homemade jam, black pudding, sunny-side-up egg, bacon, mushrooms, and a boiled tomato. About halfway through a lovely Spanish couple joined me — both architects from Barcelona — and weContinue reading “A WHAT tide?”

WARNING! Something!

I pulled over to blog about this. So, warning signs. On the road. There are lots! It’s super helpful [mostly]! But. So you have the obvious ones: [exclamation point] [squiggly line] SLOW Curves ahead, cool, got it. [red sign with picture of a sheep] Cool, watch for sheep, thanks. You have the helpful ones withContinue reading “WARNING! Something!”

Left. Left. Left. Left.

When I told people with experience that I was going to rent a car (for the first time ever) in Scotland and drive a manual transmission around the country on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, I got some very nice advice, some of which is loosely paraphrased below: “Nah, you’ll be fine. But everyContinue reading “Left. Left. Left. Left.”

"Would you care for some beans on toast?"

Yesterday I left Edinburgh and took a six-hour train journey north, through Inverness to the tiny town of Golspie on the North Sea. Last summer I stayed in a little inn in a little seaside village in Scotland as well. That village (Stonehaven) had a population of 11,000. Golspie has a population of 1,650. So.Continue reading “"Would you care for some beans on toast?"”

Haggis, black pudding and Irn Bru

Edinburgh! Hurrah! Last night went to a great pub tucked away from the main street down some stone stairs on a Close (which seems to mean sort of a pedestrian-only alleyway into the warren of stone buildings) called Devil’s Advocate – great big stone cave-like space. I had a traditional Scottish cider, battered and friedContinue reading “Haggis, black pudding and Irn Bru”

Berlin und zee Germans

I think my experience of the German people (and I’m half German myself, so perhaps it makes sense) is best summed up by the following exchange, at 3am in Berlin after a night out in clubs: Me: “That was just lovely. All the people were sooo nice and friendly!” B: “‘Nice and friendly?’ You mean,Continue reading “Berlin und zee Germans”

Black Pudding, Brussels-Style

Day one! Mini-posts because we’re traveling as a couple for most of this holiday so I don’t have piles of mildly-lonely time to fill. It stresses me out to not have fully-crafted posts, but I’m going to try to relax about it. Here goes! Landed in Brussels and took the train in. Have only exploredContinue reading “Black Pudding, Brussels-Style”