Windows and Linux fans don't mix...

  

Day two in Madrid has gone really well!! I've only almost died 5 times today! White vans are just as evil in Spain as they are in the UK!

M set an alarm for 8am and met The Sleep Monster at half 8, she apparently hurled abuse at him and grumbled when he turned the light on (I have zero recollection of this and think M may be making it up!!).

When we eventually got out of the hotel (and after we dropped into Maccy Ds for breakfast...) we jumped onto the Metro and headed for the Reina Sofia which is billed as one of the best museums and modern art galleries, housing works by numerous artists including Picasso and Dali





We finally found the Reina Sofia after almost wandering into a government building and being politely told to move on (note: just because the building is "big and pretty" doesn't mean its the one we're after!!). The gallery its self is housed in a really nice building and I loved the archways! Got some cracking shots!




Here's the bit where we have to admit we're both either uncultured swines or a bit too dim to get it: surrealism! Honestly, we've seen loads today from wandering around the galleries but after about 45 minutes wandering around the Reina Sofia we just didn't get get it. Picasso... ? Dali...? There were some other ones too who are apparently really famous (uncultured...) but we kind of gave up. I enjoyed seeing the photography pieces, but even some of them were a bit way out for our tastes!






Moving on we went towards the Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace) which is the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family. We went via a shopping centre and paid 15E for a data sim card with 2GB data that also allows tethering! We've both spent about £10 with EE/T-Mobile in a day being given a piddly 100 or 200Mb of data. This is not worth it, tip for anyone travelling abroad: get a local Sim card for your phone! When you can use Google Maps and Google Translate you will thank me!!












The Palace building is from the 17th Centruy and absolutely gorgeous architecture! We were lucky enough to get inside the Palace and do the tour, you get to wander around some of the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen in my life. I lost count of the number of chandeliers I fell in love with and the table! OH! The table!! Someone has clearly been at it with a ruler, it was stunning!!! Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos inside the Palace, but here is a photo from Google showing what the dining room looked like! Gorgeous! I also realised that, at some point in my life, I really should invest in a throne! I could have brought a mini desk throne.... but decided not to!

After the Palace we decided to find a little tapas cafe down the road, and have some lunch. By lunch I mean salad. By salad I mean fruit. By fruit I mean grapes. We had wine for lunch! I love the Spanish culture! The conversation with the cafe owner went something like this:


Owner: "Would you like drinks?"
Us: "just one glass of wine, its lunchtime"
Owner: "no problem, sit down"

Then he brings us a small plate of nibbles.... and the bottle of wine. Well it would have been rude not to drink the entire bottle. We also finished off the tapas (choroizo... mmm mmm) and dug into a Russian Salad too! Stunning!! A bottle of lovely red wine and three plates of Tapas for 25E! Brilliant!

After the Palace we took a leisurely walk back up the road outside and through the park, Jardine de Sabatine, where M posed for a wonderful photo series we are calling "Kings (and One Queen)". Perhaps it was the wine that helped?!

One last place on our whistlestop tour was the Temple of Debod. This is a real ancient Egyptian monument in the heart of Madrid. I really enjoyed it here as we were losing the light which made it perfect for taking photos. I spent ages playing with a slow shutter speed to get that water silky smooth, and admittedly we made little ripples in the water to get a good shot. I'm really proud of them!

The temperature really dropped while we were at The Temple of Debod and it was around 7pm so we decided to head back to our hotel, have a little chill out time and then find a local restaurant for dinner. We arrived back at around 8ish and M got comfy. Very comfy... he finally woke up about half ten and, although the local restaurants were open until midnight and 1am repectively, none of us could be bothered to move after a long day's exploring!

Instead we did some reading about what we are going to do tomorrow, attempted (and failed) to get a VPN working to watch Jericho on ITV player (I will watch it tomorrow on a streaming site instead... Hans Matheson... mmm mmm!) and, at M's request, another couple of episodes of Dr Quinn!! Brilliant.



You may be wondering what on earth the title for today's blog is all about. Well M and I both have our netbooks with us, both running Linux. Both have Android (Linux) phones and I have my Nexus 7 tablet and watch, both Android (Linux). Safe to say we're not really Windows fans. Sadly this took a physical turn and we are now in a room across the hall because we attempted to open the window in our room to let some air in just before bed... it let loads of air in and wouldn't close!! Bit of a disaster but we were moved swiftly and now settled down to sleep. Windows and Linux fans do not mix! ;)

Lots of things planned for tomorrow and a very late night thanks to Window Gate(s) (see what I did there?!).

Hasta Manana!

Photosphere of the Palace grounds

Photoshpehre inside the Palace, amazing ceiling!!

iEstoy Viajando con mi Esposa!

We have arrived!!

The day started around midnight on Monday when M arrived at mine, I was busy filling in a job application and watching the Anaheim Ducks win against the Calgary Flames (wooo!!!). We were planning not to go to sleep because we has to get up so very early and spent a few hours settling down with Dr. Quinn on (I've been turning M into a Dr. Quinn fan!), we made it through the first four episodes of Season two (watched in the correct viewing order, not the order it was aired... because I'm a fussy nerd like that!! Despite our best efforts we snuggled down on the bed in my Den and fell swiftly to sleep for an hour!!


We were rudely awoken at around 0430 by our set alarms and wearily piled in for breakfast burritos
(recipe below!) at 5am. Once we were adequately fed and watered we picked up our belongings and went to catch the peasant wagon to the Airport. The only good thing about living near the airport is that its only £1.60 to get a bus right up to the terminal, sadly this also means that all public transport links go to the airport and not through my village, and the bus stops at about 2300 and doesn't start again until 0543 meaning our options for a night out in London are limited to an extortionate taxi fare home!

Felt a bit like The Beatles... but not as much as
when I was in China wandering to a charter jet
 (same as used by private jets) with guitar in hand!

We arrived at the airport at around 0550 and, thanks to some generous fast track passes that were donated to the cause, were through security baggage by 0630! Just in time to have a wander through the revamped terminal. A little tidbit of information here: When I was 18 I had a job working at Wetherspoons airside in Stansted Airport, I LOVED that job and the folks that worked there and had a great time. That was, however, 10 years ago and my goodness how the terminal had changed!! It is entirely unrecognisable and so very easy to lose my barings!! The Windmill Bar has changed completely and looks nothing like it did when i worked there at all, so very strange!!

Memories!!

We stopped in for a drink and then headed down to gate 45 for our flight. Luckily no-one questioned me about my rather large "one personal bag" or the fact that my tripod renders my carry-on bag too tall, so thankfully we were right through and on the plane in no time!

and we're off!!

Settled down in time to hear the Captain state that the journey to Madrid would be "bumpy" and boy was he right! For the entire flight there seemed to be turbulence! I did wave to my house on the flight over (although, truthfully I'm not sure if it was my house!) and I think we flew over Jersey...or possibly Guernsey... or possibly the Isle of Wight?! I can hear my dad singing a song about the IoW right now that I won't share with you!!

Start as you mean to go on: with food!

We touched down in Madrid with a fairly pleasant landing and passed thorough customs in record time (despite having a near miss where my bag got caught on the escalator and almost pulled me over the side!), ready to navigate the Metro to our hotel. We've picked up a tourist travel card for three days that gives us access to unlimited use of public transport in the Madrid area, this will be really useful and, as it runs out on Thursday and we fly home Friday, we're planing on being a bit lazy and hopping in a taxi to the airport Friday morning!

I am so proud of this photo...

Its the first time, as an adult, I've been on the underground service in another country and I was really surprised to note that it smelled exactly like London... minus the piss! It was easy to navigate too, although the Madrid Metro has numbers (line 1, 2, 3, etc) rather than names (Central, Circle, Victoria, etc). Getting to our hotel was a doddle too, we're about a 15 minute walk from a metro station!

I'm please to report that our hotel is LOVELY! We've pad around 30E (can;t find the Euro sign..) a night and were expecting just above hotel standard, but we've actually got a really nice hotel that is above Premier Inn standard! It also has A BATH!! <3

Few hours kip in the hotel and it was off to find some food, what do you eat while you're in Spain? Japanese Sushi of course! It was an interesting experience trying desperately to order from a Japanese lady who spoke Spanish and precious little English, my appealingly bad Spanish helped us through with a lot of pointing, hand signals (the polite ones) and nods... we wont mention the fact that we ordered off of the Valentines menu... We finished off our food by heading over the road from our Hotel to the Irish Pub! Such cultured people we are!!

Back at the hotel by midnight and, after a long day, there was only one thing to do... plug in M's harddrive to the smart TV and watch an episode of Dr. Quinn before bed!

Tomorrow we plan to head into town and see a few of the tourist sights, more selfies to come I promise!!

Buenas noches mis amigos!

We're off to Sunny Spain!

It's 2016!!

2015 was a bit crap for various reasons, with some good highlights, so this year is going to be really awesome.

I've decided to do some more travelling this year, as I feel like I need to see more of the world. You see loads of things across the media about this country and that country and this and that... I sit and wonder is it really like that? Are people really like that? With that in mind I thought now is probably the best time to get up and find out! I figured that, although I'm earning ok, I am never realistically going to be able to move out on my own unless its in rented accommodation, and even that will have to be some hideous house share, and I can't do that again! So might as well put my earnings towards some fantastic trips, only thing to do was to get a new passport, which The Old Lady and The old man kindly brought for me for my birthday!

By the way... I have nothing against Australia,
and do plan to visit...
but it looks like my pin fell out!

Over the next few years (or until life takes another massive change) I plan to travel the world, go to as many different countries and experience as many different cultures as I can. I'm hoping to be able to take photos of different places and get some new perspective. I realise everyone says that but you never know. anything will be new to me and that's what's important!

M booking our trip,
while I watched the ice hockey!
COME ON ANAHEIM!!

With that in mind: first stop is Spain! I know its not a particularly adventurous destination for you seasoned travellers out there, but I'm going with one of my very dear friends, M, and his passport runs out in a few months so we're stuck with the EU and I was told "I have a drawer of Euros, so pick somewhere in the Eurozone". After spending a few hours scouring Google, Trip Advisor, TravelSupermarket and eventually booking with Expedia (never do that by the way, they are liars...) we've booked or trip to Madrid.

I've got half term off ( 13th-21st Feb) off so we're visiting Madrid between 16th-19th, flying home on the 19th and going to visit the Sausages (they know who they are!) at the weekend. Sorted. :)
 Naturally, being me, I've packed and repacked about 5 times so far, and we have no check-in baggage allowance with Ryanair, but I think I'm sticking with this list:

1. Clothes
- undies
- 2 string vests
- 1 pair leggings
- 1 pair skinny jeans
- 1 pair PJ trousers
- 1 t-shirt
- 4 Tops (2 double as nice going out tops)
- 1 pair of flat shoes
- 1 long cardigan
- 4x socks
wearing: skinny jeans, comfy top, hoodie, scarf, & jacket


2. Liquids
(never quite sure how far their "liquids" policy goes, do balms count s liquid? What about solid perfume?)
- hand sanitiser
- face wash
- shampoo
- eye drops (contact lenses, these are essential!)
- lip balm
- solid perfume
- foundation (in a mini pot!)
- solid deodorant (home-made, in a mini pot)
- benefit travel mascara (amazing..)
- first aid balm (home-made, goes everywhere with me!)
- all-purpose soap (Lifeventure, in a smaller bottle)
- blush (Maybelline the mousse one, really nice!)
- sleepy time balm
- toothpaste (in the contact lenses pot!)
- moisturiser (home-made, in a mini pot)


3. Flight Essentials
(its only 2.5hr flight, but I'm not planning to sleep beforehand, so might as well try to sleep on the plane!)
- passport & tickets etc in their own under-clothes-carrier thing
- neck pillow
- eye mask
- earplugs (also in case M snores in the hotel!)
- mini eggs
- Green and Blacks milk chocolate (delicious!) 


4. Makeup & Toiletries
- Gelert giant travel towel (never quite trust hotel towels...)
- make-up bag (from Primark, isn't it cute!)
- MUA face palette (enough for bronzer, highlighter and a few different neutral and dark eye shadows)
- mini brushes (both eco tools and Primark, eco tools are the best)
- bronzer and powder (in contact lens case which isn't shown)
- mirror compact
- make-up remover pads (from Primark, so small..)
- 4 hair bands
- tweezers
- fold down toothbrush
- antibacterial wipes (for the plane...)
- toiletry bag to hold it all, in cammo obviously!


5. Travel Book & Organiser
- Travel book (I've been slowly filling this in over the past few weeks and will continue to as I travel the world)
- Organiser (this is great, has space for notes and a few zip up compartments, data is still expensive in EU so I might have to actually remember to write things down rather than rely On Google...)
- Pink satchel to hold books and pen!


6. Backpack & Bags
- borrowing Teapot's 40ltr backpack as mine was too tall for Ryanair...
- big blue handbag (JUST in Ryanair's "plus" bag size...)
- Tripod (technically too tall for Ryanair... we'll see if they complain...)
- Selfie stick and remote! Had to be done....
- 3 pack down shopping bags (one is a backpack style... this is a hang over from Scotland where bags were 5p, this rule also came into the UK in October... and I'm cheap)
- Water To Go bottle in the pocket (or at least it will be when I can find it...)


7. TECH
(here's where I packed too much I'm sure...I can't help being a gadget fan who hates being bored...)
- Nexus 6P phone
- spare phone (hopefully my Nexus 5, with a sim card from 3 so I can have data connection... hotel has free Wifi and we have the BT wifi password too!)
- 10" netbook
- Nexus 7 tablet
- DS lite & M3 card
- 3.5" Chinese mini tablet (its cute! It also plays video and takes a 32GB card)
- mp3 player (arrived in the post today!)
- 3 portable batteries (2 of which are solar)
- 3 EU travel adaptors
- 2 USB plugs
- 1 USB Type-C plug (for my phone... thanks Google for being such a great innovator that no-one has caught up yet)
- bluetooth speaker
- Headphones
- Moto 360 charger
- a shitload of leads and adaptors for various devices


8. Camera
- Pentax K-50
- 18-55mm kit lens
- another lens (I think its 70-300mm but can't remember. Really lovely vintage manual lens!)
- a few filters
- 2SD cards (32GB)
- remote shutter release control
- battery charger


I am clearly over packed for 4 days... but at least it fits into two bags for the flight!! I've read loads of those "round the world trip in a carry on" crap articles and every time I'm like WHERE IS YOUR TECH?!?

As usual, feel free to comment... and wish us luck!!!

Day 10 - Fuelled Entirely by Irn Bru

Wow it has taken ages to sort this out! Google Photos has stopped accepting DNG files (the raw format my camera shoots in) and of course I didn't realise this at first so I'm like "upload my 176 photos", Google skipps them all so I tired again... three times,then again on another PC then eventually had to convert them all to PNG files and they finally finished uploading and being edited earlier.... yes I ahve SERIOUSLY slow internet so 176 photos took about 10 hours to upload :(

Anyways... onto Day 10!!

Skye Landscape

Dunvegan Castle

The aim of today was to get out and experience as much of the tourist crap that Skye had to offer as possible! Being big fans of Peatbog Faeries we were really hoping to visit Dunvegan as they have two songs about it (Welcome To Dun Vegas and the Veganites) as well as Angus MacAskill's house (they also do a song called Angus MacAskill). We saw on Google that Dunvegan had a caslte, and who are we to pass up a trip to a caslte?!
So off we went, the landscape of Skye is odd, The Old Man and The Old Lady really like Skye, but I've got to say it looked a bit bleak and depressing. I'm sure it's different in the sunshine, but by this point in the holiday I'd forgotten what sunshine and being warm and dry were!
Dunvegan Castle was nice. It's home to the seat of the MacLeod of MacLeod, chief of the Clan MacLeod. It was really cool to see so many artifacts from the castle's history in the rooms, some of which dated back to the 15th Century. I really liked the maid's room as there was quite a bit of chipped and decayed looking stuff there... I love a good bit of rust!!

Doggies lording it up at Dunvegan Castle

Only one of us could go in at a time, though, and we couldn't take any pictures so you'll have to suffice seeing pictures of the outside and of my handsome doggy and his best mate Princess! :)


We got to wander around the gardens with the doggies though and they loved it! The castle had the round garden, the water garden and the walled garden. It also backed onto the beach but the weather wasn't really good enough to go paddling!

Garden Waterfall

The walled garden was nice and had a vegetable patch that looked like it was doing better than ours, as well as loads of other plants. The water garden was lovely and had one of Skye's many MANY pretty waterfalls, still not convinced a waterfall can be ugly?

Getting to try out that slow shutter camera technique is good fun. I can honestly say I think I've just about got the hang of this whole small f/stop means more light, slower speed means more light and blurry. Still not sure what ISO is though, even though I've read about it and Wiki'd it... think I need it explaining in simple person's language.

Off we go to the next thing on our list: Angus Macaskill's House. Angus was a 7ft 9in gentle giant born in Scotland who moved to Canada. I'm not entirely sure why there is a museum dedicated to him on Skye, other than one of his distant relatives, Danny MacAskill, is form Skye and is a famous cyclist.

Angus Macaskill's House

 The museum was really nice though and is in one of the traditional black houses, so if anything it was really interesting to see inside one of the traditional dwellings. There were also lots of artefacts from the Victorian era that were out for display. It's great when a museum lets you get up close to things in such a way and doesn't hide them behind cabinets, this is my favourite type of museum, an immersive experience!

A Gentle Giant

 We moved on from the Angus MacAskill museum to find the Skye Museum of Island Life. This looked interesting on Trip Advisor and was again set in a traditonal 'blackhouse'. We had learnt about Blackhouses from our strip around the museum at Bettyhill in the highlands, so it was cool to be able to go in and have a look around

This museum was really small, and the main thing that annoyed me was there was stuff on the walls that were reprints of newspaper clippings, but the edges had faded so badly you couldn't read them, bugged me a lot that did!

Skye Black House

I really found being inside one of the blackhouses quite depressing if I'm honest. Not because it was a rubbish exhibit, far from it, but because it was quite shocking to be up and close to the sights and smells of traditional island life. The house was black on the outside, as well as the inside, from the soot from burning peat. This was evident because the smell was still lingering! Apparently the thatch is redone every year in the traditional way with rushes being hand cut. All in all a very interesting half an hour!

Museum of Island Life

Our busy action-packed day wasn't about to end there and we moved onto the next place on my list to visit: Neist Point.

The End Of Skye

Neist Point is a viewpoint and is located on the most Westernly part of Skye. This was also the most Westernly coast we would get on this trip! The viewpoint was amazing, really rather amazing!! As usual for this trip it was way too windy and rainy to get HARVe up again, so sadly I don't have any really cool aerial shots, but I got plenty of pictures of the rocks and cliffs.

Thistle! When in Scotland...

Ears Flapping In The Wind

There was even a couple getting married near the point (which we didn't climb, Teapot couldn't be bothered!) which was lovely. Good on them... poor sods must have been freezing!!! I did hold Prince up for a show of love and affection, his little ears were flapping in the wind... I still don't think he's forgiven me completely yet!!

Someone is unimpressed with Neist Point

Next stop: The Fairy Pools. Now I'll admit my little post card addiction had lead me here because I picked up a Fairy Pools post card and it looked stunning!! It looked like a set of pools with almost coloured water in them making them appear magical, so we were hopeful for this one!!

The Fairy Pools

Sadly, what we got was much less "enchanting and magical" and more "encouraging pneumonia".

The Fairy Pools are located along the road to Glen Brittle and is apparently a 30-odd mile walk into the Glen. Along the way there are hundreds of little waterfalls and pools that ahve been created naturally that I'm sure the less cynical of you readers will think is really cute and magical.

"I'll fill up our water-to-go bottles" she said
"It's good fresh water" she said
"It will taste NICE" she said.
Horrible.

Please don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the walk and it WAS very pretty... but this is Scotland. Moreover, this is The Isle of Skye, to say a waterfall is a rare thing is to tell a big fat lie. There's loads of them ll over the island and I'm sure they're all jsut as pretty.

Actually, if I'm honest, I probably would have enjoyed the Fairy Pools a lot more if it wasn't RAINING YET AGAIN!! Really bored of rain and being cold and being damp right now. Oh and did I mention that "headache" I was suffering from a few days ago has turned into a huge lovely cold. Chesty phlegmy cough mixed with the shivers and snotty nose. Just what you want when you're camping in SCOTLAND which is COLD and DAMP!!! Also didn't help that the water we filled up our water-to-go bottles with from the Fairy Pools tasted disgusting. Wouldn't recommend it.

Hundreds of Waterfalls

Dinner time looms and we've got a few choices, wither go into Portree again and try to find a cafe with a seating area outside, get something to cook from the Co-Op in Portree, or forget Portree all together and drive a stupid amount of time in the wrong direction away from our campsite in search of something that resembles Scottish seafood. Guess what one we picked?

We stopped off in a place called Cafesia, hoping for atleast a vaguely filling dinner. So far I've not managed to sample much famous Scottish seafood and have been disappointed with bloody Bookers Basics scampi from the "famous" Portree fish & chips shop, so something filling was all I was hoping for.

Wow did I underestimate this place!! I'm pleased too, this was one of the highlights of my trip!! I went into the little coffee shop to order while Teapot was outside with Prince and Princess, it was really packed (AND WARM!!!!) but the staff were SO nice and friendly. I ordered the sides (Sweet Potato Chips, Haggis Balls with Spicy Mango Dip & Doughballs) and our pizza (local Scottish Seafood Pizza!) and she said it would be a 45 minute wait for the pizza so they would send our sides out as starters.

Sweet Potato chips, Doughballs,
Haggis Balls with Spicey Mango Dip

Am I glad they did, the sides were literally to die for and the pizza was well worth the wait. Honestly, it was the best damn dinner i had for the whole journey and I'd go back to Skye just for that cafe, despite the fact that it was about 15 miles away from our campsite in the wrong direction!!!

As much as I'm moaning a bit today, and that's mainly down to the fact that I felt like shit all day and was really REALLY fed up with being cold and damp, I did enjoy the whistle stop tour of The Island, I just felt that it seemed like Blackpool end of season. Kind of like it needed a good lick of paint and some maintenance, everything looked a bit tired and half arsed. I know it was raining and cold, but  even Portree and Dunvegan looked like they were about to fall down.

Delicious Seafood Pizza

I guess I'm not not a natural lover of The Isle of Skye to be honest and I probably wont bother coming back in a hurry. There were nice bits, just not enough to make me fall in love with it.

Tomorrow's plan: Leave Skye (can't say I'm overly upset about that) and travel down to Loch Lomond via Glencoe,