by Jim Bellomo | May 23, 2019 | Uncategorized
My walking day
Kathleen’s walking day
Don’t you love trying to get back on schedule after you change a bunch of time zones. I do…NOT! Awake this morning at 1:00 am, laid in bed until 2:00 and then gave up and came in the living room (I love AirBnBs for this very reason…we have a living room) and posted and did some other stuff before noticing the sun was going to come up at 4:44. So I was dressed and out walking at 4:30. I love taking early morning golden light photos and I was thrilled to get some great ones. Walked a little over five miles all over Edinburgh’s new and old towns. And as you can see, by the end of the day, I had walked even further.
I want to take a moment here to brag about Kathleen and her walking yesterday. She did more than 7.3 miles and more than 16,688 steps. WOW! I walk miles and miles each week but this is really something for her. Those are our respective walking tallies for yesterday above. Hopefully we wore off some of the food we ate.
I have to admit to you faithful readers that I started this post last night at 9:00 pm or so when we came back from our food tour. Between the long day and the great food and drink, I fell asleep right at the end of the first paragraph. It’s now almost 7:00 am on Thursday and I have already climbed Arthur’s Seat (more about that tomorrow) and I am working on this before I go get breakfast.
After my early morning walk, we had planned to go down and tour Holyrood Palace. On both our previous trips we had skipped the Palace for some reason. But when I had walked there on my pre-dawn photowalk, I discovered the the Lord High Commissioner of some such was in residence until Sunday and that the Palace was closed to tours. Damn! Guess we will just have to come back to Edinburgh again.
So after a quick breakfast, we walked up the Royal Mile and grabbed our Saturday rail tickets at Waverly Station and did a quick “Rick Steve’s Wee Tour of New Town.” It’s a tour from his Edinburgh Highlights book. We could have skipped where we ended up going on the “Wee Tour” as we wound up walking much of the same route on the food tour later but we had a nice morning. Made it back to the Canonsgate area in time to grab lunch at the Tollbooth Tavern where we had eaten three years ago. Still great food and great beers. It ought to be for a place founded in 1820. You would think they would have their act together by now. ?
Then it was back to home for a short nap before our 5:00 pm food tour. We had booked this through a company called Eat Walk Tours and we met our guide Anastaziya (Scottish of Russian heritage) at our first restaurant at the base of the castle in the Grassmarket area. Anastaziya was AWESOME! It was her first tour (she had been on a bunch but this was her first one as a guide) and aside from having to check her notes from time to time, she was wonderful. Our tour was called the Old/New Town Tour and it did just that. Took us through the Old Town, around the Royal Mile and then over to Princes Street and the New Town. Along the way we stopped for five bites and three drinks and had a lot of splendid conversation. We were amazed that we were the only people on the tour, which I guess is a big benefit of booking on a weekday, so we got very special treatment.
The food and drink started with smoked salmon (farm-raised Atlantic, no further comment needed) and our next tastes included mash potatoes with some braised beef and blood sausage (good) that was accompanied by some outstanding raspberry gin and Prosecco (great). Then on to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society where we sampled a private label Scotch along with the haggis we had been expecting all day long, served with neeps and tatties. It was surprisingly good. Then on to what looked like from the outside to be a faux-Tudor cheesy, bar. Once inside it became a gorgeous and classy wine bar and quickly became my favorite stop of the day. The food included a plate of cheese, cured meats, carmelized onions accompanied by oatcakes and some wonderful bread. All that washed down with a super good Scottish lager. We finished at a very stylish place for dessert where we enjoyed an upscale version of a traditional Scottish desert—Cranachan. It’s raspberries, whipped cream and chocolate. Wonderful.
That’s our first full day and it was full. Weather was outstanding as it looks to be today. More tomorrow. Here’s some pics but there will be a lot more on my Flickr account linked at right. And just in case you didn’t realize it, you can click any individual picture in the collage and it becomes a slide show.
-
-
Our first bite, smoked salmon
-
-
Remains of my Haggis, nips and tatties
-
-
Our scotch
-
-
Part of my early morning walk
-
-
Third floor tasting room
-
-
Kathleen and I in front of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society
-
-
Looking up at the Castle
-
-
My last shot of a superb photography day
-
-
Gin and Processo
-
-
The Malt Whisky Society is a private club and very swanky
-
-
Part of my early morning walk
-
-
Kathleen ready to sample the scotch
-
-
In the Grassmarket section. Diagon Alley was patterned after this street
-
-
Part of my early morning walk
-
-
Part of my early morning walk
-
-
Part of my early morning walk
-
-
Kathleen and our guide Anastaziya
-
-
Wine bar cheese and meats
Eating good food is my favourite thing in the whole world. Nothing is more blissful. —Justine Larbalestier
by Jim Bellomo | May 21, 2019 | Uncategorized
-
-
My steak and ale pie
-
-
Don’t you love this key which is the original key for the front door.
-
-
Looking up the Royal Mile from in front of our AirBnB
-
-
Kathleen on the front porch.
-
-
Time for that gin and tonic
-
-
This is NOT a business class seat.
-
-
Kathleen in her REAL business class seat on our first flight
Well, we made it. I am writing this from the living room of our Edinburgh AirBnB. That’s Kathleen standing in front of it tonight and right now we are sitting in the living room, trying desperately to stay awake for one more hour.
We headed to the airport via Seattle Towncar who arrived at our place right on time. The traffic on 405 was horrible. Glad we left early. After an easy check in and a very long security experience (I made the mistake of wearing my knee brace under my jeans so I had to go into a tiny little room with two TSA guys, drop my pants and take off the brace. Fun!) we wound up in the British Airways Club World (business class) where we started the vacation the right way, with complimentary gin and tonics. We boarded the plane and had upper deck seats (kind of scary going up with a two carry-ons, my computer/camera bag and my a bad knee) and settled in. Nice food, nice drinks, a great scotch (a Glenlivet) and decent seats. We got about 6 hours of sleep between the two of us before we were awakened for breakfast an hour before landing at Heathrow.
Heathrow was a zoo as it always is. We forgot that even though we were going on to Edinburgh, we still had to show our passports and pass through security all over again. At least this time I had taken off my knee brace and didn’t have to drop my pants in front of two British airport people.
When we finally got on our flight to Edinburgh (had to move from C gates to A gates besides going through security) we were really upset because even though we still had Business class seats, we found that on short haul flights (Edinburgh was just a little over an hour) they just use a plane full of coach seats and block out the middle seat. So yes, you get a slightly nicer experience but NO EXTRA LEGROOM! All of a sudden my knee was facing a turn for the worst having to shove it into too small a space. Luckily for us, the flight was only about half full so the wonderful flight attendant said we could move up to the empty front row which let me stretch out my bad leg and it worked!
Made to Edinburgh about 20 minutes late due to having to “go around” on landing. I hate that. You never know what caused the “go around.” And getting that take off feeling when you are expecting that landing feeling is very disconcerting. Turned out it was just a tail wind that hit the plane just as they were to touch down and rather than take a shot at having a problem, we jetted out of there and came around again. Only a little scary.
Our driver showed up right on time, got us to our AirBnB right on time as well. Met the owners who were a very sweet couple. The AirBnB is cute, cozy and pretty much just perfect. You can see it on the AirBnB website by clicking here. The best part is the location. As we sit here trying to stay away, we are watching people walk by on the Royal Mile. Grabbed a quick dinner literally across the street—great local beer, steak and ale pie, homemade soup and Mac & Cheese…with pulled pork.
And that does it for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow. I captioned the pics and don’t forget to comment. TIME FOR BED!
Tired minds don’t plan well. Sleep first, plan later. —Walter Reisch
by Jim Bellomo | May 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
Didn’t think I would be back on here this soon but it’s 2:37 on the Pacific Coast, we are sitting in our living room with everything packed except laptops and iPads and in the garage ready for pick up by Seattle Towncar at 3:45. So why not write something I think. It will give me a chance to complain.
I walk a lot. Usually about 30+ miles a week. And I never get injured. Oh, maybe a pain in the toe or something equally trivial. But today. Today I am wearing a knee brace for the first time in my life. About three weeks ago I was just sitting and somehow my knee decided to hurt like hell when I stood up. It got better over the next couple of days but when went to the movies on Saturday, we sat in a row that was so small I had to keep my knees at an odd angle for the the entire film and that really did me in.
I can walk fine ( I walked 5.6 miles yesterday) but going up and down stairs or bending over to pick something up (like two 50 pound suitcases) was really painful. I told Kathleen we might have put the suitcases in my office and bring the clothes down to them. But she suggested I stop at a local drug store and grab a knee brace. Really helped. But not sure what it’s going to mean in Edinburgh. I really wanted to climb Arthur’s Seat. We shall see.
by Jim Bellomo | May 14, 2019 | Uncategorized
I have this thing about finishing things. As we head towards flying to Europe next Monday I am beyond frustrated today. Whenever I am working toward a trip I make my huge list of things that I need to get done before we can go. Then I work my butt off to get those things done, crossing them off one after the other. But this week has been beyond exasperating. Every time I try and get something completed and off my plate, either I can’t because of something outside my control or more things keep showing up. It is beyond frustrating. Did I mention that already?
Ever since I can remember I have been this way. I hate starting projects that I know I won’t be able to finish with things within my control or in the time frame I have given myself. I guess I am the opposite of a procrastinator. It’s one of the reasons I have gotten so much enjoyment out of owning and running my own business. I set the timeframe on every project and I am the only one responsible for getting it done. When a client sends me stuff day after day to add to something I am doing for them, I want to strangle that person. Just give me everything at once and let me finish! A great example is my e-mail inbox (I have five of them). I feel totally accomplished when I empty them. But I have a friend who brags that he has more than 4,000 e-mails in his inbox. That would kill me!
Right now I am doing my best to redesign the website for our agency. I did it originally (the one that is online now) in Adobe Muse. But Adobe is killing Muse in a two years (DAMN YOU ADOBE!) and it isn’t possible for our agency owner to make changes or additions to the site without me doing it, so I am moving it to WordPress. But not the WordPress you are reading this in, the WordPress(.org) that let’s you download the software and install it on your own server. The one you are reading this post on right now is WordPress.com. You have to pay for this WordPress every year and we are trying to avoid that. Besides, I have my own server, why would I want to pay again to use another one.
So I went out and bought myself what looked like a great WordPress theme to use. It came with a promise of supreme tech support and total ease of use but so far, that hasn’t not been the case. Finished it all up (at least I thought I did) last Tuesday and showed it to our owner and we both agreed there were some little tweaks that needed to be done. Six of them to be exact. I wrote the tech support people (turns out to be one guy…in India) with those six questions. All pretty straight forward and waited. I am still waiting. The tech support guy has sent back basically the same e-mail every day. He says “tell me what you want done and I will do it.” Well I don’t want him to do it, I want to know how to do it so I can do it again later on or in other places on the site. But no, he just wants to fix it for me. And it’s simple stuff like being able to make a text a link in his theme template (which I can’t get into without coding) or making some text bold (which isn’t working—what the hell!) So, another project I can’t finish. And I am not sure I will be able to finish it before I leave. And totally out of my control. Just some guy in tech support who obviously writes his own testimonials.
The only good part of my work life right now is that all my yearbook stuff is done. I mean DONE! That I can control. I can decide when a product or service I provide is finished. I can work forward and provide content through the day we return from the trip.
But on the travel side, I still have group cruises to work on, vacations and cruises to book for people and a lot of that is on hold as well. Thank God we don’t fly until Monday evening. My current goal is to be completely done with everything no later than Friday morning as we have some fun stuff planned with our local kids on Saturday and want to get Jayesh and Lisa over from next door one more time on Sunday. And maybe I should try packing someplace in there. YIKES!
Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand. —Euripides
by Jim Bellomo | May 11, 2019 | Uncategorized
I just finished reading an online article about packing for travel. To be honest, it has been on my mind a lot lately. All because of one spot on our upcoming trip where I am seeing a possible problem. We leave for Edinburgh a week from Monday (May 20) and on Friday of that week we will be heading to York by train to visit some of our favorite people. That’s the day I am just not sure about. You see that morning I need to get us from a train platform into our seats on the train with our luggage. And I am still not sure how I am going to do that.
We travel with the following (see the photo): two checked bags (I know, don’t check bags—see below as to why I have to), two regular-size carry-ons and my camera/computer bag and whatever Kathleen is carrying as a purse or bag (this time a backpack, I think). When we get to Waverly Station in Edinburgh, I need to get those on to the train. Each of the checked bags weighs around 50 pounds. The carry-ons each weigh around 25 pounds. All are fairly big as you can see from the pic. My camera/computer bag weights in excess of 25 pounds.
I would love to do the minimalist packing thing. I hate schlepping bags (one of the reasons we cruise, so we can pack and unpack once) but we are about to leave on a month-long European trip that will hit four countries, 3 weeks on land and a cruise in there someplace. I am a fairly big guy (6’2″, 215 pounds) and wear size 13 shoes. I have big clothes and big shoes (nowhere near as big as my little brother’s) How do I pack for that long without a checked bag? I need shoes for evening wear and shoes for working out at a minimum. One pair of my shoes almost fills a standard carry-on. Even if I stuff them with socks and underwear, three weeks worth of my clothing just will not fit in a carry-on. All that and we think that this trip we may hit snow in June (Iceland) so I need boots as well along with sweaters and other cold weather clothing.
So someone can tell me how to get all this in a carry-on I would truly appreciate it but I have tried for years to do that and the closest I have come was way back when on our first couple of land trips to Italy and the UK when we did it with one checked bag and one carry-on. But that was before I was exercised crazed and could travel the entire of a country with one pair of shoes. It was also before part of every major trip was a cruise where I knew I would need more than jeans to have dinner. And it was before we went all over the place on trips that included stops in four different countries, including Iceland.
Lastly, YES, I have read the quote below and tried that method. On the last trip I brought back exactly three things I did not wear and all three were sweaters. Not my fault that it was almost 90 degrees in Portland, Maine in mid-October.
When you get back from a trip, make a note of what you didn’t wear. This will avoid packing it unnecessarily next time. —Robert Powell