Day 92: Now You See Me

I've wasted the last couple of days off and blamed it on the rain, I don't think the rain made any real difference I think I would've wasted them anyway. So decided this evening, after having had an afternoon nap, to do something so took myself to see "Now You See Me". It was a really interesting film and well worth the watch. It took a few twists and turn and I hadn't actually worked out what was going to happen to the main story line before it did happen, which is always great.

Day 91: Italian

First Italian restaurant experience since coming back from Italy a few weeks ago. It was good but nothing can compare to the Gnocchi I had in Salerno but in terms of the pastas I had over there this was pretty close.

Day 90: Spa

I joined the gym to work out, lose weight, get fit etc etc. But they've the added bonus of having a pool area with spa, sauna and stream room it's a fantastic way to chill out after exercise. I think this is my favourite part of the gym. But I can't just go to the pool I have to earn it first. Which I have been.

Day 89: Electric Ave

A kind of average photo sent to me while my friends were out partying back home in Wellington of my favourite and one of the best spots in town Electric Avenue. How the fun times we've had there lol.

Day 88: Scratch

A couple of awfully large scratches I had to tell a guest at work we had made on his car, only to be told in return that they had already been there. The Lobby Attendant responsible for parking the car and not knowing weather he had scratched it or not got a rather large bollocking about not doing his job properly and making us look kinda dumb in front of a guest. And no I wasn't the one doing the bollocking It was the wee high strung Irish lass so you can just imagine how that went.

Day 87: Beatles Again

I know, I know I had a Beatles photo for yesterday. But I found something even better today. Beatles umbrella! If only it wasn't soo windy in Edinburgh, I'd hate for it get broken on it'd first outing.

Day 86: Beatles

Went in search of tops to wear to the gym as I'd only one I would consider appropriate, and came home with this fantastic one. I've also liked the Beatles music but after living with a friend for 18 months who's favourite band this is I've a whole new appreciation.

Day 85: Graze

I had heard of these packs before but had never looked into buying them until a voucher came in the mail with something. So I applied online and got my first box free. I was actually really tasty so I think I'll keep my subscription for now as they're less than £4.00 each and get delivered weekly, also with the vouuher the fifth's is also free so quite a good deal really.

Day 84: True Friends

One of my best friends sent this to me after we'd a discussion about how we're apparently lot more judgmental than other people. This was a comment her boyfriend had made about us. I think everyone's judgey though I think most people however keep it to themselves rather than discuss it as openly as we do.

Day 83: Gym

Part two of my plan to get fit/healthy I joined the gym today. Have an hour session tomorrow with an instructor to work out a programme to help me achieve my goal.

Day 82: Sporty

Had a realisation the other day that I needed get fit/healthy and lose weight.  So my first step has been to go and buy some sports shoes. They feel really quite amazing on they're soo lite and comfy, kind of looking forward to using them.

Day 81: Presents

Thanks Mum, Dad and Granny. I've spent all my birthday money now. I had intended to spend it while in Italy but I think I spent all my time looking for things to spend it on that I just didn't end up spend much of it, but I have now.

I got the shoe's while in Italy at Lake Como, but I brought the handbag and bracelet, with an earth charm, this morning here in Edinburgh. Thanks Radley for having a sale on I don't think I could have justified paying full price, £220.00, for a handbag.

Day 80: Mullet

Dad brought some photo's of the extended family with them for his Aunty when they came over and gave me a copy of the photo's as well. I was just going through them and came across this one where I'm about 2 years old. Up until now I don't think I ever knew I'd had a mullet.

My Mum's the white dress, black cardigan, my Dad's the pink shirt and beard next to her, I'm the wee mullet baby sitting on the table in front of them and my brothers are the blue jumper and maroon t-shirt sitting on the other end of the table.

Day 79: Done and Dusted

Mum gave me the book she'd finished while she was here so I took it for a trip to Italy. I saw a trip to Italy because I din't really get into reading until I had roughly five hours waiting time at airports on my way home and then had the book finished in about three days.

Day 78: Real World

Straight back to work the day after getting back. I guess the real world doesn't wait.

This photo's actually from Milan but it's the fashion brand which my work is named for. I had to take the photo.  I also went into the Missoni shop in Bellagio, if only I could afford it all.

Day 77: Airport Treats

Found these at the airport while browsing the duty free shops. I din't buy them though decided on crispy M&M's as my in flight snack. I know M&M's not sure what these Polly are.

Day 76: Pompei

Pompei was awesome, except we asked the ticket sales guy where we could get an audio guide and a map from and he sent us in the wrong direction, probably didn't actually understand what we wanted. So we wandered through the ruins for about three getting scorched and probably a bit dehydrated. I have to admit that sadly by the time we decided to head out of the site we were no longer appreciating what were had around us.

The scale of what happened is almost to much  to comprehend, especially that it's not fully excavated because they'd not be able to maintain it, even now it's not being as well maintained as it needs to be. I'd be an awful loss if it continues on this way.

Day 75: Best Food/Tiny Dog

Drunk Vanessa and the tiny dog.

This cute wee dog was at the best restaurant we happened upon during our trip, Santa Lucia in Salerno. Wow the gnocchi was just delicious and the sweet wee old lady who made it and her family were just amazing it was almost as if we were at the home for dinner.

The tiny, 13 years old!

Day 74: Amalfi Coast

For the tail end of our trip we wanted to spend a few days at the beach, so headed to Salerno on the Amalfi Coast. If you zoom in on my friend in the pink you can see her staring longingly into the distance it's quite amusing considering that's just the way she happened to be when I took a photo in her general direction. Well we found it amusing but we were probably kind of drunk at the time of discovering this about the photo.

Day 73: Lake Como

I'm in love! This is Bellagio on Lake Como, I don't even have the words to describe just how beautiful this place was.

By the way, we didn't see George Clooney.

Day 72: Rain!

Full day in Milan today taking in the sights and of course the shopping. This picture however shows the most amazing rain storm I think I've seen. The day had been rather warm and sunny then out of nowhere this almighty rain/hail storm happened and you couldn't even see all the way across to the other side of the Piazza.

If you look closely at the doorway on the left hand side you can see a poor family who got stranded at the Duomo. I thankfully had been inside having coffee when it started. The funniest part was watching the people who'd decide to make a run, through the ankle deep "puddle", for the metro station in the middle of the Piazza.

Day 71: Milan

Stepped it up a notch in Milan and stayed in a hotel as appose to a backpackers, thanks staff discount.

These were much needed cocktails after an awful hot five hour train ride. Well the whole five hours weren't awful the first half of the trip was as you'd expect but then a douche of a guy got on and started trying to adjust the air conditioning, which by the way was fine until he broke it, which meant we then had to spend the next couple of hour sweating it out as if in a sauna.

Day 70: River Walk

Went for an evening stroll through Pisa which looked just amazing with the sun setting over the river.

Day 69: Pisa

Woohoo! Arrived in Italy today first stop the Leaning Tower, and just for the record no I did not take a photo of myself pretending to hold it up as you can see a random guy doing here. I might be a tourist but I'm not that much of a tourist.

Day 68: Easiyo

My birthday present to myself. Now I get yummy home made yogurt. Yay!

Day 67: Home Currency

Received a birthday present which I almost didn't recognise then it fell out of the card. New Zealand Money. I'm sure that it'll come in handy in Italy.

Day 66: Last Day

Back in Edinburgh again and off to dinner at Hendrick's where the only drink option was a Hendrick's and tonic which came served in this fantastic "tea" cup.

Almost time to say goodbye to my Mum and Dad, they're not actually leaving the UK until Sunday evening but I'm off to Italy first thing Sunday morning so they dropped me off are spending one last night in Edinburgh then heading to St Andrew's for the weekend. I didn't realise how much I'd missed home until they arrived and how much more I'm going to miss them now that I'm not going to see them again until I go back, whenever that's going to be.

Day 65: Glasgow

Glasgow was and wasn't what I expected it to be. It really is a big city, I know it's nothing in comparison to London but I'm used to Edinburgh I expected this but still. I had also heard all about the awesome shopping but that's pretty much just the same as Edinburgh and I only found this one thing I'd have considered buying.

They even stack  together like real Lego!

Day 64: Largs

This is another wee town where another part of Dad's family is, Largs. Again a wee bit like Oban it would look fantastic without the rain and fog etc etc, but hay we are in Scotland you've got to expect the rain regardless of what any weather report says.

The stream bat you see in the back ground goes on daily excursions, but last the majority of the day so that wasn't something we did. Just like we never did get around to going to a distillery.

Day 63: Eilean Donan Castle

Eilean Donan Castle was interesting in the fact that it is still inhibited. The castle was partially destroyed in 1719 during the Jacobite uprising and then remained that way for about 200 years until in 1911 when it began to be restored and was opened in 1931. The family of the man who brought and restored the castle still have it as their family home.

Day 62: Skye

Today we drove basically the whole way across the Isle of Skye. There was such amazing scenery everywhere. There was also an exhibition on Sea Eagle which we thought might be worth a visit, we thought they would have eagle on hand that you could see etc. Instead after the guy talked to you about the eagle there was a 20 minute film, which had nothing to do with eagle it was more along the lines of tourism advertisement, a really bad one. It's 20 minutes of my life I will never get back.

We eventually decided on spending the night in Portree which has some cute wee coloured building running along the docks.

Day 61: Creepy Dogs

While up North in the part of Scotland where my Dad's family are we stayed with his Aunt, who has two of these creepy dog statues halfway up the stairs. Mum reckons they're probably worth a fortune. I'm not convinced though.

Day 60: Shin Falls

Here is a great river where we could watch the Salmon swimming upstream. Some of them were so much bigger than I'd have expected Salmon to be and some seemed too small to even be considering leaping up the falls. We saw a few but apparently if we were there in a few weeks time there'd be heaps more. Again typical of us to miss it.

Day 59: Culloden

Today we went to Culloden, Culloden is the site of the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. This stone here marks where all the Clan Cameron dead were buried after the battle. It was a really interesting tour made even more eventful by the GPS personal tour radios which kind of just did their on thing. Thankfully all three of us had taken one so could use which ever one was  cooperating at the time.

Day 58: Oban

Oban was one of the places I really wanted to see, I had heard it's really beautiful, but knowing my luck it was also the wettest day. So we spent very little time there, we did go up to the tower on the top of the hill. It was still pretty beautiful despite the rain.

Day 57: Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel, my Dad had seen it on television so wanted to see it in real life. What it does is lift and lower the canal boats from one canal to another. We thought we were too late in the day to see it actually working because it said the last tour had gone about half an hour before we arrived, but as with most tours the people had to come back to where they started so we managed to see it going round. We partly round because we had gone to get ice creams and missed a bit.

Update

Just a wee note to say I've not forgotten about this, I've just been on holiday with  my parent's for about 10 days who are over from New Zealand and now have a couple of nights home. I'm then off to Italy for another 8 to 10 days with a friend who's in the process of moving over here. So I'll spend the next couple of days uploading. Thanks for bearing with me.