Janingalina

who ever writes that in a subject line? me, apparently.  

 

you know how they have to make everything in Germany complicated? like they can't have All-Season tires, they've got to have summer and winter tires? and if you don't have your winter tires on in the winter and you're in any kind of accident, then you're like automatically at fault, at least partially. yeah. i haven't let that bother me to this point, but it's snowy and i'm heading to the alps this weekend, it's probably time to put the winter tires on.

 

last night i pulled picknick's winter tires down out of the attic - it's a trapdoor/ladder affair, and i have to say, a little rickety. so i'm always nervous and extra careful when i'm taking big unwieldy things up or down the ladder. it went ok, but was a lot of work. i felt like an ant making lots of trips to get the whole leaf back to the nest.

 

first i pull down the trapdoor, crawl up into the attic. crawl back down when i realize that one of the lightbulbs is out and i can't really see up there. cannibalize a lightbulb from my apartment to replace the attic bulb. find my tires in the far corner of the attic.

 

take tires from attic corner to the top of the ladder (1, 2, 3, 4).

 

with a deathgrip on the left side of the ladder, brace tire against shoulder and side of head, hold with right hand, descend ladder (1, 2, 3, 4).

 

tires piled in the entrance to my apartment. take tires down stairs one at a time (1, 2, 3, 4). piling in entryway of the apartment, bottom of the stairwell.

 

pull car around so that it's parked illegally, but not too far from the door of my apartment. run tires out to the car, stack carefully in trunk (1, 2, 3, 4). try to close the liftgate.  fail.  grr.  reposition.  fail.  grr.  reposition.  success!

 

this morning the mechanic at the dealership asks, "would you like us to store your summer tires here for you?" me: "You would do that? Oh God, yes!"

 

it's a small fee, but this way i don't have to run through above process 3 more times when i put summer tires up in the attic, pull summer tires down to get them re-installed, and put winter tires back up in the attic. 4 times! because i'm going to give this lease car back in the fall, so i'd need to pull the winter tires down again for the giveback.

 

so, money massively well spent. :) i'm a happy customer and i haven't even gotten the car back yet.

 

blognote: a 2008 roundup is coming.  really.  i'm going to try to revitalize this space a little in the coming year.  please bear with me, i have really great intentions.  Thanks so much for reading.  :)

nick and marts came to visit me in europe, http://www.farkinfinally.com/

pictures and stories from my partners in crime (and probably m'self) will be gathering there.

Labels: adventures, europe, holland, travel, vacation

i may be the worstest blah-ger that ever was.. but here for your amusement are pix from my july vaca. we took off at like 3am on monday the 7th. i slept in the car as hannes drove us south. we stopped in passau so he could pick up an "oops, my passport ran out and i want to be able to get back in" ID.

I woke up somewhere in Austria. We ate the salami sandwiches i packed for breakfast at a rest stop in the alps.

we got into slovenija ok, but getting out was a trick. actually, we got out ok, but were selected for "random" search at the croatian border.

this is the nice dog and guy who looked through all of our baggage and every bit of my car, and needed to have Tampax Tampons explained to them.



go figger. and in the afternoon we arrived in nin, croatia and found ourselves a cute little apartment for a few days. first we slept off the 8 hours of driving, then an evening stroll yielded pictures of boats



and roman ruins sticking out of the earth like broken teeth.





i will add what i can to the narrative when i can..

for now, i'm well, happy, and still bouncing 'round Europa.

Labels: croatia, europe, travel

Day 4.  A Sunday.  On Harris, nothing is open.  One can't get a cab because they don't break the sabbath.  One can't get tweed, because that would also be breaking the sabbath. 

Getting on the Zodiac to head for Harris, I was reminded by several members of the group not to forget my camera.  They were used to seeing me kitted out with the whole photog backpack.  I had decided to observe in my own way, though.  And Harris became an island, that if you were not there, you don't get to see.  I needed a day to experience it by myself, without the lens between me and the landscape. 

Also, so much of these islands are shaped by wind.  So much of the experience there, the feeling of wildness, has to do with the wind whipping over it, bending the grasses and knocking down potential saplings.  I couldn't catch the wind on film.  not yet.  so on Day 4, i went to experience it. 



Day 5.  St. Kilda

It's a lonely and forlorn place, inhabited for thousands of years but evacuated in 1930.  Now sheep wander amongst the stone cairns once used for drying seabirds, abandoned blackhouses, and dry stone fences. 

in the summer work parties carry out preservation tasks while seabirds breed and rear young. 


 






I climbed up the hill, looked out over the cliff on the backside of the island and took pictures of kittiwakes on their nests. 





Later we sailed past the tiny bird islands just north of Kilda.  All the white on this sea stack is Gannets and Guano. 





Gannets can only nest on sheer rocks that have an almost-constant high wind blowing by because they're big and bulky, and takeoff is an issue for them.  Better if they can just drop into the air-stream. 

Here's a pic of one taking off from the water (i had to work to get this one!), which the cruise company later used in some of their paperwork.  check me out!  i'm now a credited nature fotografin!






anyway, as we cruised around this island, thousands of gannets wheeled overhead.  for the record, those buggers are a huge mass of dive-bombing muscle and have a 5.5-6 foot wingspan. 
these are the best pics i got of them kettle-ing overhead..









and some gannet closeups for ya:








it was a big day for nature photography.  :D

After all this birding excitement, we spent

Day 6. Iona

The island of Iona is where Christianity first came ashore from Ireland.  We visited the beautiful Abbey there.  And while I'm not such a fan of the Catholic Church, it was quiet, peaceful and lovely. 






Mom and I bought Fair Trade chocolate at the gift shop (mm!).  Then while M&P hunted Corn Crakes in the irises, I went to the beach and played with crayfish and hermit crabs.  I didn't get their pictures (we were having too much fun together), but I did take the view from my little spot on the beach.




That afternoon we sailed through the Inner Hebrides, past Castles of the Rich and Famous





I wandered abovedecks after a little nap, and was the first one to spot the Basking Shark (badly photographed here)






(or was that nessie!?)

That afternoon was the last Wildlife Roundup, in the bar, where everybody compared lists of what they saw that day.





Landing in Oban, we bussed past Loch Lomond to Glasgow, and took leave of our Cruisin Companions.

Then it was just me, Mom and Dad in Glasgow.

Mom visited with Dr. Livingstone, I presume..   just in front of the Glasgow Cathedral






And then I took both of my parents to St. Mungo's.  (ok, not the hospital for magical mishaps and maladies, but probably - hopefully? - as close as we muggles will get).





There we learned more about the actual St. Mungo himself..  (click and check it actual size at flickr if you like)





before we left, we visited the kelvingrove museum.  we arrived before opening hours, so we sat in the window of the coffee shop across the street, M&P (who still have jobs at Ford *knock wood*) had fun spotting the Ford cars that are different in Europe, checkin out the Fiats and Vauxhalls and all the other weirdo tiny-euro-cars. 

I took a picture of the ceiling inside the Kelvingrove, because i just love ceilings that look like they're carved from butter. 






and why does the museum have an organ? 

cool though. 

so that's it.  the next morning we went to the airport and headed back to our respective homes.  :) 

i think i'll have to go back next year though, i feel like i really missed something with skipping Fair Isle and missing Jamieson's in Lerwick, Shetland.

and she breaks the silence with, not pictures of scotland, germany, croatia, or estonia, where she's been.. 

but with a new dress.  a dirndl to be exact. 






and I'd like Ein bier bitte!






danke!

i´m collecting up stories to tell and pix to show faster than i can tell/show them.

the last installment of the scotland adventure will be coming soon. but not too soon. because this weekend i´m headed up to some gravel pit/strip mine near dresden to freeze my tuckus off and finally finish up my scuba diving creds. w00t!

and the delay before this was a week working in sweden and then a week in croatia. in sweden i stayed over a weekend and got to do some fun urban shopping and ethnic food eating. there was also a destination-less road trip in which i drove south along the west coast, stopped at some little beach towns, and saw moose, deer and cranes on the side of the road as i drove back north on an inland route.

croatia was a blur of beautiful adriatic beaches, grilled squid, and gelaterias. poor me. ;) mentally, i´m still a little bit on the beach down there.

so. expect more scotland pix. sometime after this weekend. after that there will be croatia pix. hopefully i get both out before i meet a friend in estonia for a long weekend, and then proceed to be in sweden working for two weeks. because the chances of me updating then are very minimal. i´ve already got my pass to the Wayoutwest Festival in Slottskogen (central park in Gothenburg).

i love summer. :D

ps, if I owe you an email, you´ll probably get it in the near future. i´m really trying to catch up! :D

Labels: catchup

On Day 2 we landed at Sumburgh on Shetland.

Our first bird that day was the Terrible and Infamous Thrush Nightingale.



really, a retiring little thing, rarely seen and content to sing in the lower branches of whatever undergrowth is at hand. the fact that this one posed for me was quite out of character.

Then we saw Shetland ponies with foal. Everybody say aaaawww...



And finally, on to the ruins! Layer upon layer of ancient dwellings were to be found at Jarlshof.



After crawling through as many of the wheelhouses and broch's as one could stand, there was more birdwatching. mmm.. oystercatcher. and for me, sheepwatching.



In the aftenoon, we headed over to remote Foula, where basking seals ignored us in the harbor.



Foula is a small island that supports about 10 crofting (subsistence farming) families. I was offered a lift to the other side of the island by a guy on his way, so I piled in.



This sea-stack is what was awaiting me at the other end. along with some cute sheep, fields of peat, and cranky bonxies.



bonxies, better known as Skuas or Jaegers, are fairly large, very mean birds. they fly right at your head when you're on their turf or nearing their nest.. needless to say i didn't stick around that part of the island long.

Next I saw a pretty skylark singing on a fencepost. i didn't know exactly what it was, so it was temporarily named the Foula Fencepost bird. There were quite a number of them.




Foula was fun, because it was sort of like a petting zoo. I got to pet the sheep, there were dogs, bright frogs, and the shetland ponies were on the march.



just don't try calling home from here.



Day 3 - Orkney

I think Orkney was one of my favorite places on the trip. I got a little cagey from being hustled place to place and on-and-off of buses, but there really was a lot of serious cool shit to see. Maes Howe, an ancient Pictish burial mound was really exciting. You know, in the way that only ancient astronomical chambers built around standing stones and graffiti'd with viking runes can be exciting.



We only have a few outside pictures, because the National Trust doesn't allow photography. I will say, though, "Extremely cool." The megalithic stones were brought to this place from miles away. The 4 cornerstones strongly resemble standing stones, and aren't loadbearing, so they were probably there long before the mound was built, long, long ago.. This is one of those ancient works that lights up special on the sunset of the winter solstice.

The viking graffiti from many years later said things like, "I am a viking, and I'm writing high up" over the main door.

Then it was off to the Ring of Brodgar, a massive circle of standing stones about a mile from Maes Howe. It was large in diameter, so I couldn't really catch all the stones at once. suffice it to say, it looked like a ring of broken teeth. it was on a small strip of land between two lakes.



i really like how the ring was inside of a channel, which separated it from the surroundings. rumor has it that cutting through the solid rock to dig the channel would have been more difficult than mining and setting the stones.



just a piece down the road were the Stones of Stenness, another standing stone circle. this one smaller, and with fewer stones remaining. it was built at a later date, and the stones were a lot larger.



i found it very interesting that two of the smaller stones within the circle seemed to "sight" on Maes Howe. (that lump in the middle).



by midday we were toddling around skara brae, which seemed much like jarlshof in that it was a bunch of old dwellings on top of each other. fun for the "flintstone" aspect of the architecture, but that was about it.




oh, not entirely true. they had a good gift shop where i picked up a book on runes and The Orkneyinga Saga, a hilarious account of the earls of Orkney. How can you not just love stories about guys named "Thorfinn Skullsplitter" and "Einar Buttered-Bread" I very much recommend this one, i find it a bit more readable than Beowulf.

In the afternoon we trekked past the Italian church, but not being big on either WWII history, or churches, i went out with the birders and skipped stones on a lake.

We spent a few afternoon hours exploring kirkwall (where i bought some yarn of north ronaldsey wool), and then headed back to our boat in Stromness (a very cute little town, where M&P and I stocked up on beverages and had a dinner of fresh fish and chips, fried right on the pier).

As the boat pulled out, we sailed past the island of Hoy. The sun was low, and I think it lit up the red sandstone beautifully.



And then we saw the Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack standing out on his own.



oooh.

stay tuned for more tales of islands and isolation as our travels take us to the Outer Hebrides and beyond!

Labels: adventures, birds, scotland, travel, wildlife