Hi!
I’m catching a plane to Scotland in 4hrs to go backpacking around the UK and Europe with my cousin until the end of January, 8) woo-hoo! If any of you have a spare chance, I’d love to meet you over there for a drink. I haven’t got a plan whatsoever about where I’m going, so let me know if you’ll be around & where and I’ll try and make my way over!
And hey, next time anyone thinks of coming down to sunny Australia, give me a bell and I’ll catch up with you in Sydney!
Thanks,
Keith
You do realise that it’s winter here don’t you? ;D
Any way I hope you enjoy, Scotland is cool (well actually cold and wet at this time of year…)
Dan.
EDIT: typo
In The Netherlands, it is supposed to be winter yes… but due to the climate changes we are ‘suffering’ 14C now :o
There should be snow 'n stuff…
We’re all gonna die!!!
You’re right. Glasgow is bloody cold, wet and windy. Also, I never knew that by ‘bad weather’ they meant that it was dark for 20hrs of the day… It may as well be the north pole!
I’m at glasgow uni and its really great, like Hogwarts from Harry Potter and the pillars and stuff look like something out of a computer game. I love it here, the people are super friendly. The night life is fantastic too, since it gets dark at 4pm everything starts early and goes late. The girls really dress to the nines as well! If anyone comes here, Sauchiehall street is the place to be.
So dan, where are you in Scotland? I’m heading to Edinburgh & maybe Aberdeen tomorrow!
Funny you should say that, in Sydney we all may die since we’ve only got 4yrs of water left in the dams…
So who’s going to have time to meet up? 
Keith
I’m down in Birmingham / London / Brighton for the next couple of months
Trainspotting is set in Edinburgh, but you’re much more likely to get hassled in Glasgow. All the nasty bits in Edinburgh are hidden away from the tourists.
Heading to Aberdeen and you think it’s cold in Glasgow? Prepare for an education. 
Really? All this time I’d assumed it was Glasgow cause Edinburgh was such a nice place when I visited (not to say Glasgow isn’t a nice place, um, yeah…). Shows how much attention I pay!
EDIT: Thinking about it, probably has something to do with the state I was in while watching it everytime
Kev
[quote]So dan, where are you in Scotland? I’m heading to Edinburgh & maybe Aberdeen tomorrow!
[/quote]
Actually I’m in Cardiff (Wales) i just meant Britain in general when I said ‘here’
I hope that your enjoying your stay - we’re spending Christmas in Scotland.
Dan.
edti: typo
Great! It’d be a really something to meet. If you’re not busy I’ll send you a PM when I’m down in the London area after the 15th of December.
Cool, well have a great time too. I heard new year’s eve is a big event here as well - they call it hogmanay.
Kev and Bleb, I’m surprised Trainspotting was set in Edinburgh - it’s really pretty and quite touristy. But Glasgow has a lot of character - like did you know that the native Glasweigian speciality food is the deep-fried Mars bar?! A girl on the bus told me you can take a Mars bar in to most fish and chip shops to get it battered and fried - yuk! And second to that is the ‘Scooby-snack’ - bacon, sausages, cheese and tomato sauce between two bits of bread.
All of Scotland seem to like Haggis. As a sidenote, in the Kelvin Museum in Glasgow they have a ‘Haggis animal’ which is described here.
Anyhow, I’ll resist myself from describing all the funny things here. If anyone else wants to meet up please let me know as it’d be great to see you in person :).
Keith
[quote=“CommanderKeith,post:10,topic:28859”]
In other news…
It’s a shame you’ll miss Hogmanay, I probably could have scared up a couple of extra tickets for the street party. I’ll be pretty busy until then with Christmas shopping and visiting family though.
I met up with Adam (blah^3) this morning and I can verify that he’s a legend. We got coffee in a London Starbucks and talked geek and other stuff for a good hour or two 8). He explained a bit about his career which was really interesting as well as other things like what’s happening with Java, games, JGF, etc.
Its great to have such a cool community like this.
No sweat, have a good time up there. Thanks a lot for the offer of tickets but I’ll be in Europe.
I went to Inverness (far north of Scotland, near Loch Ness) and it was bloody freezing. To make it worse I didn’t have a place to stay that night since the bus arrived just after midnight which is when all the hostels shut… I had to rough it and tried to get some sleep outside this castle but it was too windy and cold so I just wandered around freezing my butt off until McDonalds opened at 7.
I’m in London now and before the end of January I plan to drop in on France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain (maybe even Canary Islands!), Poland, Scandinavia and Italy, but not in any order. If anyone else has a spare moment and wants to meet up then it’d be great to meet you over a drink :). I know its a bad time at the moment with Christmas and all though.
Thanks,
Keith
Happy new year everyone. I’ve been flying around to lots of countries in the EU on this really super-cheap airline called http://www.RyanAir.com. Most flights cost less than 1 euro plus an average of about 30 euros tax and duties. You europeans should definitely look into it… you can go to some really interesting places, just look at the Flash map which shows all the routes.
One of the last places I went to was the Canary Islands, Tennerife. Unfortunately it wasn’t the tropical paradise I imagined. Instead it was just a massive nursing home island full of europe’s old people. The temperature was nice and warm though (20-28 degrees celsius).
As an alien to europe I’m busting to give my take on europeans. Prepare for some sweeping generalisations! 
The Italians are very funny people and they communicate with hand gestures as much as through talking. They’re also a little dysfunctional for example with their crazy driving. It is fitting that one of their most famous buildings is the lop-sided Leaning Tower of Pisa.
The Germans are very friendly and somehow they eat the heaviest/richest food without getting fat. And they love blowing up fireworks. Also their train system is the best (just like the stereotype the trains were always on time). Their autobahns are a great idea.
The French, present company excluded ;), are a little difficult to deal with. I could swear they all know english but sneakily refused to use it. Lucky I knew just enough french to get by.
The Spanish are the best dancers, seems like they’re born with the rhythm.
Even though I’ve only been in europe there have been Americans everywhere and they’re always positive and cheery. There are also Polish people travelling to and from Poland that we have bumped into who are always happy to chat.
The Dutch have a really funny language, they love riding bicycles, and apparently a massive chunk of their country is below sea level. They have this saying - god made the world, but the Dutch made holland.
One thing I don’t understand about the europeans is that apparently they can’t understand one another even when they are both from the same country. For example, I’m told that people from the north of Germany can’t understand people from the south. Similarly in Spain. But in all english speaking countries we can understand each other easily even though we are on different continents…?
Thats not true. I’m from the South(ish) of England, and I have troubles understanding those from the North of England, but I guess what they speak can only roughly be called English
Endolf
That’s a good point. Is CommanderKeith really saying that he had no trouble understanding Glaswegians? I grew up 20 miles from the place and still live in terror at the prospect of making conversation with a Glasgow taxi driver.
Edit: By way of demonstration: witness the Scottish parliament website rendered as your typical caber-tossing local would read it to you. This same person would swear blind that he’s speaking English, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
I notice how you didn’t include us british in your list of generalisations…
Wow that web site is really funny. Phonetically that is exactly how the Scottish speak, except with as many “Aye” as you can fit (aye seems to mean yes/OK and you can start any sentence with it). Though its a good laugh how thick some of their accents are, I wouldn’t say they spoke a different dialect of the english language. I never had any trouble speaking with them except for when they began to mumble, which they do quite a lot… Maybe that’s why you and Endolf have had trouble - mumbling is a problem.
dsellars, I love to generalise but since I could actually communicate with the British properly and get to know them better it was a little harder to make bold generalisations, but I’ll do it anyway
The english are the most reasonable of the lot and the most understandable (in terms of accent, theirs is crystal clear). Londoners are all really busy but even though half the population of the city is lost tourists they’re always pleased to give out good directions. Also, as Australians we were treated like celebrities since everyone seemed to watch the terrible TV soap show ‘Neighbours’ and they could pick our accent. The english are also the best soccer-crowd to be in. We went to a Middlesbrough vs Fuham game and they were singing the whole time!
The Scottish hate to be lumped in with the ‘British’ and they are the most fiery and tough of the lot. They also drink the most, even the girls. Glasweigians especially are the best since they live in the ugliest city which for some reason made them the most humorous. Also, the terrible weather and the way it gets dark at 4pm meant that going out at night was the main thing to do. The Scottish are also good at making stuff up, like the ‘haggis’ animal, the Loch Ness monster and the tourist motto on government advertisements: ‘Scotland - the best small country in the world!’
The Irish are the best performers I have ever seen. In the Canary Islands there were Irish pubs everywhere with live performers singing any song you could throw at them, and the oldies there asked for lots that were from way before I or the performers were even born… And the Temple Bar district in Dublin was full of live performers singing and playing the piano or fiddle. They’re also really super-nice… We were in Dublin only twice and each time it was only overnight for 12 hrs since we had to get a plane early the next day. We just hung about the Temple Bar area all night and morning and on both separate times, random Irish who we met at the bars offered us their own place to sleep for that night!
Unfortunately we never got to Wales but I’d love to hear someone else make some generalisations about them…
What?! Wales is crammed full of sex-crazed pinup models. It’s like a carpet of nubile young erogenous zone from coast to coast, crying out for antipodean man-flesh!
You didn’t miss much…
edit: almost forgot about the beer rivers and steak-trees.
You should be a travel agent