HI FANS!
Moien letzeböier!!!
Week ago we had the great honour to participate the 15th anniversary of FINLAND-LUXEMBOURG Society in hotel Royal in Luxembourg city. I was honoured with the title of "idean äiti", the first mother role for me ...
Thank you so much for inviting us, and vielmools merci for the absolutely funny evening.
Special thanks go to our good old friends:
Yves Piironen, the very first chef of FinLux, and his wife Helena
Marianne, still an active member, and her hubby Luc
Hanna and Nick, our dear neighbours in Rue Ermesinde

These girls wanna have fuuuuun! Heavy dancing started immediately after dinner.

VIP drinks for VIP guests in VIP LOUNGE!
Did we have fun, folks, wow wow wow.
Next morning we two had less fun, but managed to catch our flights, first from LUX to AMS and then from AMS to EDI. Our bags made it a day later, we received them in our hotel in Stirling at noon ... as pretty frequent travelers we have got used to this procedure already, and carry the most important stuff in carry on bags.

Scotland is a green country, indeed, this is a view down from
Stirling castle.

From Stirling we drove east along the coast to
St Andrews, "
said to have been founded by St Regulus, who arrived from Greece in the 4th century bringing the bones of St Andrew - Scotland's patron saint".
(Lonely Planet Scotland). Known as GOLF and university town.
A lot of nice ruins, though, as everywhere in Scotland.
Then we made it up further north, to this little town called Pitlochry. On the right is the pub (run by a hungarian guy) in Pitlochry where we watched the football match Germany against Austria, 1-0!

Next morning we drove to Blair Castle, what a charming place. And the northest one in our tour. "When the Atholl family first made their home in Strath Garry, more than seven centuries ago, it was a wild and dangerous place. It was also a strategic one. Whoever held Blair Atholl was gatekeeper to the Grampian and the route north to Inverness." (Blair castle guide book)
Our journey continued back south, along Loch Lomond, being the biggest lake in mainland Britain, and driving my hubby almost crazy - no time to take fotos. And the scenery is quite similar to Finland anyway ...

And what did we see in Glasgow? Well, this guy looks familiar, remember Saturday nite ...! Yes, Nick happened to be in town on business and spent us dinner, thanx so much, Nick!

We also saw this necropolis next to Glasgow Cathedral. From here you have quite a good view over Glasgow. I just wonder if it is true: In 1999, the city was designated UK City of Architecture and Design?! Yes, there are a few cute art nouveau buildings, but it will take many more years to come to get this city look like a nice place.
BUT: they surely had many fancy indian restaurants, would be a reason for us to return there again.
And finally, here we are, in EDINBURGH. Yes, we did this hop on and hop off bus tour, and it was very good.

Alltogether we learned quite a lot of Scotland's history, in the magnificient Edinburgh Castle there are several museums and interesting expositions, it is a place worth visiting. NO, hubby did not have to buy this helmet, I did not hit him, no, no, no, he was allowed to watch further football matches!
TV screens were the thing he watched ... it is amazing how many "not so thin" girls there were in Scotland!
There was also Edinburgh Film Festival starting on 18.6. We did see one pakistani film, in down town movie theater close to our Mercur Point hotel. Somehow the big stars kept hiding, we only saw Sir Sean Connery posing in between Keira Knightly and Sienna Miller in the newspapers, and Prince Harry we missed by an hour, he was parading in the old town when we were returning our rental car to the airport.
What do you eat in Scotland? We tried pub food (chicken/fish and chips) (and learned again that Kartoffelchips are called crisps in UK) and Indian (chicken and nan). In EDI there was at least one very nice Turkish restaurant in the Hanover Street, go and try and tell us how it was, please. We also went to two jazz bars, both nice with live sessions.
Many tourists travel to Scotland because of the whisky. Well, we are no whisky lovers and didn't become any but we did the "Whisky Experience" tour and learned that drinking scottish whisky is like drinking wine, to appreciate Scotch whisky you check:
colour - light blond, bright copper or rich amber?
body - light, medium or full?
nose - are the aromas malty, smoky, fruity, chocolatey?
palate - is the character softly sweet, rich and fruity or peppery and spicy?
finish- does the flavour remain for a long time or does it disappear quickly?

You can enjoy whisky in many ways ... "warning: do not drive whilst using this product".

This is the "Birthplace of Harry Potter", it is THE pub where Ms Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter scripts.

And this is the Balmoral Hotel at Princes Street. Why? Well, this is where the criminal russians* stayed in Ian Rankin's novel "Exit Music", which is the final case of Detective Inspector John Rebus. Being my preparation book for this Scotland holiday.

I do like the kilts, but the music ... the music ... no thank you!
* Russians. They kicked the Dutch out of the games ... what a sad thing to happen. I held my orange umbrella so proudly over my head in Scotland. I actually do have Dutch ancestors. We saw very many sad Dutch people in Alt-Sachsenhausen last nite when walking to Schweizer Strassen Fest. Such a great weather for a street festival!
Juhannus? No se meni siinä siivellä, Skotlannissa oli yllättävän valoisaa, paljon valoisampaa kuin täällä Mainin rannalla, jossa nyt odottelemme ukkossadetta, ilma on tosi hikinen.