the travels continue..

Monday June 3

Up we woke on monday (after way oversleeping) and headed out for breakfast. we went to the counting house for breakfast -a pub that actually used to be a bank..

it was really neat looking.. no building designed as a bar would have this much architecture inside the building.

after breakfast we checked out of our hotel and got on the bus to edinburgh (which is pronounced more like ed-in-burah) - the capital of scotland.  only pictures can describe how beautiful this place was.

the city of Edinburgh is divided into Old Town and New Town. 

Above is a view of Old from from New Town.

We climbed a monument called the Scott Monument which provided us with an absolutely gorgeous view of both Old Town and New Town (Above is Old Town)

Edinburgh Castle

View of New Town from the monument

the "Unfinished monument"

the Nelson Monument

our walk from New Town into Old Town Edinburgh

the "royal mile" is a series of continuous street through Old Town.. it runs from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace.

the streets of Old Town

the buildings were all so historic and beautiful

Apparently if you spit in the centre of this heart you will have good luck for life

we had a night tour booked around 930 pm at night.. we had enough time to walk around New Town and Old Town, go on a Scotch/Whiskey Experience Tour  (in which we got to see the process in which Scotch is made and do a taste testing) and go for dinner - i had fish and chips and a Scottish beer!

the tour we went on was called hidden and haunted  - in which we got to explore the vaults that run under the streets of Old Town which the tour guide told stories of haunted Edinburgh and paranormal experiences others had experiences in these vaults. there is so much history in this town it was unbelievable! i loved it all.

after the tour we walked around Greyfriars graveyard. it was pitch black at this point so we couldn't see much.. we decided to head back to the hotel and visit the graveyard during day light.

welcome to glasgow

Sunday June 2
we started our morning out with some coffee at a place my sister had highly recommended called the tinderbox. it's a cute coffee shop with a quite charming atmosphere. once we enjoyed our coffees (iced coffees actually because it was already pretty warm at this point) we walked around beautiful glasgow. we walked through Kelvingrove Park and stopped into an art gallery on the way to the University of Glasgow.

 street of Glasgow

 some art gallery we stopped into

 University of Glasgow in the background

 One of the most amazing looking buildings at the University of Glasgow

 at the university campus still

the campus was so beautiful.. i've never seen anything like it. so many of the buildings were so old and the architecture so rare. 

walking back to my sister's campus (she went to a different university, not the University of Glasgow) we stopped to get something to get something to eat and a refreshing beer/cider to drink. we did lots of more walking around, did some shopping and then walked even more. when we had enough walking around the city for the day, we checked my sister out of her residence and checked into the hotel we were staying in sunday night. once we were settled into the hotel we went out for some dinner at a local pub (which had 1/2 price sundays) and headed back to the hotel. another late night without even realizing it - it honestly didn't get dark until after 10 pm the entire time we were there, it was great!

living on another continent for a week..

in january my youngest sister left for glasgow, scotland for 6.5 months to complete a semester of studying abroad. she was given an amazing opportunity and she grabbed onto that opportunity with passion and braveness. anyways, her choosing to study in glasgow presented me with an opportunity i could not and would not turn down. i got to visit her! i booked a week off work and got to visit my sister and three amazing cities!

unfortunately i could only afford to get one week off work (since i'm still only on a temporary employment contract).. but we were able to make the best of that one week. we made sure two weeks worth of sightseeing, attractions, tours and food made it all into the one week we had.

Friday May 31

my friend meagan and i flew out of toronto to dublin, ireland at 1140 pm. the flight was about six hours but because ireland is 5 hours ahead of toronto time, we arrived around 11am on June 1.

Saturday June 1

11 am we arrived in dublin, our bodies thinking it is 6 am but our brains overwhelmed with excitement.   we got out luggage and dropped them off at storage so we could go explore the city of dublin a bit before our flight to glasgow that night. we got into a taxi (15 minutes drive from airport city centre) and off we went to do a tour of the Guinness storehouse. for any beer/guinness fans - this is the place to be. it was a self guided tour of the whole process of making guinness including a taste testing experience and a lesson on pouring the perfect pint of the good stuff.

 welcome to the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin

 Guinness bottles and products over the years

 just a little bit of information about Arthur Guinness

 sort of like wine tasting -there is a certain way Guinness should be experienced and each of these 5 steps should be appreciated (listen to the hissing, look at the surge of gases, pour and serve at specific temperature, smell the aroma and taste the mix of flavours on the tongues palate)

 i got a lesson on how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness..

 ..and i got a certificate for pouring it properly

the guinness storehouse tour was fun! did you know there is only four ingredients in making Guinness -(barley, hops, water and yeast).. but then there is three different roasts (or whatever you would call it) of barley itself to give Guinness its unique flavour and smooth texture. i learned lots of useless information but facts and facts right. i love learning and knowing facts. 

after we finished the tour and drank some of our perfectly poured pints (my friend doesn't like beer and my body was very confused why i was drinking beer so early in the morning) we back tracked where our taxi had brought us and made our way back into town by foot. we walked around for two and a half hours to so, enjoyed some street music and went to check out temple bar.

temple bar is not one bar but a whole little area or community of pubs surrounded by narrow cobblestone streets.. the nightlife is exciting in this area, with live music at many of the pubs that can be heard out in the streets.. and other bars/pubs have irish dance shows. 

around 5 pm meg and i headed back to the airport to pick up our luggage from storage and got on our 7pm flight to glasgow, scotland (it was only about an hour flight). we arrived in glasgow shortly after 8pm and my sister was at the airport waiting for us! we caught a bus back to her flat to drop our luggage off, walked around the area for about an hour, got some snacks from the grocery store and turned on a movie. after about half an hour we were all ready to pass out in exhaustion so we just went to sleep with an exciting week ahead :)

stay tuned for many more pictures 

.. more words to live by

"We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades." - Barbara Taylor Bradford

photo via

adventuring along niagara gorge.

my dad recently got a new computer and as my dad always does, has spent the last few weeks figuring out anything and everything this new computer can do - from syncing all his emails into one account to making slide show music videos.  he has the same computer as i do, but trying to figure out this computer was never something i tried to do. 

anyways, point is - dad is going through photos and making albums for each year/event and organizing everything he has in terms of photos and videos. i decided i would do the same thing and then i came across my good friday photos and realized i never posted them.

so here is how my parents, terry and i spent our good friday 2013.

headed down the escarpment

 climbing around boulders

better late then never right?!

Easter!

HAPPY EASTER!

 i sincerely hope that everyone was a wonderful easter full of love and family..

ohh and chocolate!

instagram diary

just a little of what is going on in my part of the woods recently;

 my dad went to a work party at this new restaurant downtown.. there was so much left over dessert that my dad decided he'd take a cupcake home for each of us. they were from cheesecake factory and absolutely delish.. mine obviously was red velvet

 terry works with a bunch of women. so apparently enough of these women received girls from their men that terry figured he would also be sweet. on international womens day.. he brought me a bouquet of flowers and brought my mom a rose :)

 one a sunday in march.

 the weather got up to 15 degrees.. the water at tiffany falls was rushing fast down stream.

fresh batch of ginger molasses cookies.. 

is it spring yet?

after an absolutely lovely weekend with weather so perfect it was hard to believe true, we get a crumby monday with way too much rain. thats a great way to make me hate my monday even more. it would be an understatement to say i was a little bitter today...
the weather this weekend was just teasing us.. i will wait with anticipation until that weather shows up again and stays for more then two days. 
i woke up on saturday to the sun shining through the slight part in my bedroom curtains. the whole day was pure sunshine and up to 10 degrees celsius. i probably didn't take as much advantage of this beautiful weather as i should have, but i did love the fact that a coat was not necessary.
sunday i got outside a bit more to enjoy the weather. sunday got up to 14 degrees celsius. terry and i went for a drive around the city (he may have even had the windows down). on our way back we stopped for a little hike up to tiffany falls. 

after i got home from the drive/hike with terry i felt guinness was missing out on the weather he loves so much, so i thought id take him out. my dad and i hopped in the car with my pup and drove to what we thought was an entrance to the rail trail. it turned out to be a random forest but it was still the perfect place to take guinness for a walk. anywhere he can be off leash is perfect to him.. 

he even found a little lake to play in.. 

i hope next weekend is just as beautiful!