Poland

So I know its been awhile since I last went somewhere, and it was a well deserved break too. Jack and I went to Poland; a-to have some proper summer weather (doesn't exist in Scotland) and b-so I could meet his family (not too scary but slightly difficult considering I speak very limited polish) And I guess some of you probably already know now but Jack also surprised me and asked me to marry him while we were enjoying the warmth and tranquility of our polish summer holiday. (I said yes)

We left rain in Glasgow, how unusual, and arrived to a sweltering 45 in Warsaw. Jack's parents, who speak only a few words of english, picked us up from the airport and drove us the several hours to some friends of Jack's who live in a small city called Torun. It was kinda late when we got there but Peter and Eva had stayed up and we had a bit of a drinking session. Eva and Peter spoke quite good english, which was good for me, they also had a very new little kitten who kept us entertained with her antics. We stayed a few nights in Torun, doing the tourist tour of the 12 or 13th C castle ruins, the local zoo which had an emu and 2 wallabies. But we also were there for Eva's exhibition opening in the basement bar of a really old building, the evening involved a joint music effort by Peter (decks), Jack(drum machine/computer) and another friend of theirs (drums) and plenty of drinking too.

From Torun we took a 3 hour train ride to Olsztyn, Jack's home city where we spent a couple of nights, we also returned back inbetween spats at their summer house by a lake in an area called Dimotowo. The weather had cooled down to a nice 25-30 so I took to sitting in the lovely garden of the summer house reading a book when I could or walking to the small beach of the lake and cooling off in the water. Most of our meals were steak of sausage from the bbq, breakfast was simple sandwiches and nice cheeses. I got to meet most of Jack's family in the end, his mum's mother and sister stayed with us at the summer house a bit, his brother Greg was around also. We went and visited his dad's parents so she could feed us some lovely polish foods (dumplings, ravioli, baked and stewed things, I can't remember all their proper names.) and on our last day we went and visited Jack's dad's brother and wife, as well as one of Jack's 3 cousins who has an 18 month old daughter.

The day Jack proposed to me we'd been in the city so Jack could organise some things with his passport and the army (one year service is mandatory unless studying) and when we returned to the summer house later that evening Jack gathered his mum, dad, aunt, gran and brother and presented me with a ring and 22 red roses (which is the number to signify your intentions of marriage proposal in Poland) That was friday 27.7.07, we got back to Glasgow the following thursday after having to get out of bed at 3am to drive from Olsztyn to Gdansk to get on the plane, back to work and Scotland weather.

Barcelona

So finally got out of glasgow for a week, in the lovely warm and sunny Barcelona with Jack. We left cold grey rainy glasgow and arrived to 25-30 degree's! The place we stayed in was just off the start of la Ramblas, the main strip in the city, in a really nice apartment that was decorated with a bit of ikea flair. It had a well equiped kitchen which we ended up using a bit.

The first day we arrived in the afternoon so we walked down to the beach and had a bit of a wander around, ate some overpriced and rather bad tapas and then went back to the apartment. The next day we had to find Jack some cooler shoes, cause it was so hot and he didn't bring any summer shoes with him. We'd already decided to take a picnic to parc guel, Gaudi's park, so we went to the famous markets off la Ramblas and found ourselves some lovely chorizo, cheese and fresh bread, fruit and veg and we hopped on the tourist bus which took us past some other Gaudi sites on our way to the park. It was one of the best picnic's I've ever had. There were 3 guys playing some spanish sounding music, acoustic guitar and bass and a simple drum kit. That night we found our local tapas just out the front of the apartment to be the best, also much cheaper. We went back there the next night after doing another day of the tourist bus, including a visit to Gaudi's church la Familiar, the olymic park, mt monjuic and port vell. We went for a few drinks that night after dinner with another aussie couple who were staying in the apartment with us. The next few days we just relaxed and spent more time walking around the city and the beach. I'd heard about some roman ruins at a town called Sitges, so we hopped on a train one afternoon to go and have a look only when we got there we couldn't find anything, it was a pretty town on the beach though. Our last day we'd arranged to hire a car and drive 3 hours to Figueres which is Dali's home town and where there is a theatre museum which he designed and another museum. We took the scenic route along the coast which was really nice. We had another good, cheap tapas just near the theatre museum and then walked up to the doors of the museum, only to find that it was closed. When I asked a woman in the shop next door she said that all the museum's, including Dali's own house 30 mins away which is also a museum now, were all closed on mondays! Barcelona shuts down on sundays, which we knew about but no one had mentioned nor any guide book that I'd read had said anything about Dali town closing on mondays. We still enjoyed the drive though but it was a little dissappointing especially as it was our last day.

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention, but which I was really excited about was visiting Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavillion, it always looked amazing in photo's but to actually be inside it was another thing!

Morocco End

So we changed our plans as we went along, cause we could. After our time in Marrakech we hopped on a train and headed to Meknes, only 7 hours, and found ourselves in a less than exciting town. We had a bit of a wander around but being a friday everything was dead. (A muslim thing) So the next day we hopped on the train again and hit Fes the oldest imperial city of Morocco. We stayed at the start of the medina, it wasn´t the warmest place but we got the feeling that everywhere was like it. We experinced our first hammam that night, a bath house where the women, or men depending on the time of day, go for their wash and scrub. An interesting experience a bit like a large sauna, and we went along to another towards the end of our time in Morocco.
Saturday saw us being lead through the medina by our guide Abdul, we got to see lots of parts of the medina we´d never have found so it was worth it. But of course we were also taken to his friends shops where we did buy some bits and pieces but later decided that we´d been royally ripped off, but its still cheap so we´re not too annoyed. Plenty of people try to get your attention and custom but its easiest to just smile and ignore. But Dad, if u want 3000 camels there´s a guy in Fes willing to give them to you, in exchange for me!
Sunday we found a bus to a little town in the Rif mountains called Chefchouen, apparently a bit of a stoners hang out, but we went because of the amazing blue buildings and towering mountain peaks that form a back drop to the town. I think every second person was offering us "smokey" but we just enjoyed our time of not being hassled as much. Another day there of exploring and then, Tuesday saw us hop on a bus to Tanger, then a ferry to Tarifa Spain and another bus to Malaga. Which is where we are now. Its nice to be able to walk the street without men hassling us. So another night here then its on the plane to sunny Glasgow!

Marrakech

Sorry its been such a long time but i've finally found myself somewhere a bit more interesting than working in Glasgow! So me, Krissy and Nel arrived in Morocco yesterday morning, all rather smoothly, the sun was shining, which made us extremely excited, even if its not super hot! we left the airport and were on our way the catch the bus into town when a taxi driver approached us and offered to take us for the same price but then started to change his mind before we'd even shown him where we were going; saying maybe it will cost you that, we'll see... So we changed our minds and went to the bus and that started a massive argument between some taxi drivers and the bus driver. We've found a nice hotel to stay in, we've eaten two amazing tagine meals and wandered the crazy souks/markets without getting too lost. Krissy and Nel ripped off a henna lady yesterday afternoon while I was having a nap, she grabbed them despite protests and started painting their hands and then when she asked for payment and realised they had no money on them she started screaming at them and they had to run all the way back to the hotel! We've been exploring more of the city today and are doing some touristy things like visiting palaces, tonight we'll hit the markets again and do some shopping and eating, then tommorrow we head to casablanca for the day and will most likely move on to rabat to stay the next 2 nights. Photos soon

Swiss Christmas

Sorry it's been so long since last post, but well I haven't really had that much to tell. I have been enjoying the hospitalty of my cousin Mike and his family in Zürich for the last week. I was delayed by a day initially due to heavy fog in heathrow airport where I was supposed to have a stop over on my flight to Zürich, that being cancelled I was flown out the following day with a stop this time in london gatwick instead. Oh what fun...

more coldness and wetness

more of the same as usual... No mother I don't think I need to be wearing a kilt, only the men seem to do that for special occassions. It just keeps getting colder and keeps on raining and it's not about to let up anytime soon, and I'm not getting anymore used to it! The puddles were iced over on my way to work the other morning. I've started opening the restaurant some shifts, will see if it is going to continue because really I should be getting paid more if I'm doing that, like supervisor role.
I heard about a Korean restaurant somewhere in glasgow, looking forward to hunting it down and getting me some nice spicy bulgogi or kim chi.
Hope you're all well

Le Glasgow

Sorry to all who await new entries, I am partially slack, partially not had anything new or interesting to tell! So I landed on my feet and into a job rather quickly, a new restaurant-Bistro Julienne, that has now been open for a week. On the fancy side, I have to wear proper black trousers, white shirt, black tie and 'cause I'm a bar girl a ridiculously large white over shirt which makes me look like I should be working in a butchers. So far its been ok, very slow to pick up the client base unfortunately, so no extra hours that I was hoping for. Also found a place to live, after sleeping on Krissy's floor for 2 weeks I moved into a flat in St Georges Cross area. I'm sharing with a young lithuanian girl and a nigerian guy. We don't really see much of each other as we're all operating on different hours.
So the plan is to stay here till xmas, visit Mike and Bonnie in Switzerland for xmas, then move onto London town for the new year! Hope everyone is well, keep me upto date on news from home please.