Flying Fiddler

Wow, it's been too long!

2008-03-22T10:38:00.003-04:00

I was chatting with my friend C. B. and he commented that I had slacked off on the blog... so this is for you sir!

Just a few updates since March, 2006.

Katie and I got married on September 9, 2006! We had many friends and family members present (including C. B.!) and we had a great time at the wedding and the reception. It feels like ages ago now.

We found out that we're pregnant just a few months ago... she had her first ultra sound last week and I was ecstatic to see the future addition to the family. She/He is definitely stubborn! "Cashew" (we're naming him/her that for now) refused to move for the doctor. A measurement was finally able to be taken and it confirmed that Katie is into her 12th (now 13) week of pregnancy. My trusty 'Guys guide to pregnancy' has been a huge asset during the first trimester... I'm confident it will help during the next adventures a head.

As if that wasn't enough... we're also looking for a house up in the Barrie area. I've been living in apartments far too long and I refuse to raise a family in that setting, and in the city of Toronto. We've gone up a few times, but last time was a huge deal as we went through 11 houses! More houses to go next week.

Cheers,
Dan

Pics from Europe

2006-10-20T12:53:00.000-04:00

Katie's Chance to Brag!

2006-03-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

Hello Everybody:)

I wanted to take this chance to post something while Dan isn't here. I wanted to brag about how amazing my fiance is!

As you know, in May 2005, we got engaged and left our jobs to go on our big European Adventure! What you may not know is that Dan was originally not going to go with me. I'm so proud of him for making the decision to join me so that we could share in the time and experiences together as it made it soooo much more fun! But what I'm most proud of is how he has dealt with the challenges since we've come home.

Our hope had been that we would be able to come home, find new jobs, and just start living together in Toronto and planning for the wedding in September. However, that isn't quite how things have gone. Yes, one of us has been living in Toronto (me) and yes, we've definately been planning for the wedding. However, Dan had to go back to work in Ottawa since the beginning of January. Thankfully, he has been hosted by Uncle John and Aunt Danielle who have graciously given him room and board for the last couple of months. This means that Dan has been living out of a backpack since June of last year.

Well.....I am very happy to announce that as of Friday at 7:30 pm, he will be back here with me in Toronto FULL TIME! His transfer with the Big Blue has come through and he'll be working downtown doing computer support.

But the reason that I type this is not to tell a sob story about Dan, but to say how proud I am of the way that he has managed to keep his spirits up and his optimism high. It cannot have been easy having to leave home every other week to go away, but he did it in his uncomplaining, quiet way and he has become wiser and stronger because of the experience.

So, as much as I know that he would not want me to type this stuff (don't write about me, he says), I just need to say how proud I am of him, how excited I am to be marrying him, and how much fun I know that we'll have in the future together.

Thanks for reading:)

Love ya,
Katie

Still alive...

2005-12-29T09:22:00.000-05:00

We have been very busy since our return! We have just moved in to an apartment in North York, Ontario (north-east of downtown Toronto). The boxes are still being unpacked. More news soon...

All the best,
Dan

WE'RE HOME!!!

2005-11-20T22:54:00.000-05:00

Hello All!

Well.......WE'RE HOME!

After 5 1/2 months of adventures/misadventures/experiences, we flew into Toronto yesterday and into the welcoming arms of our families. We thought that for old times sake and to get the feeling of completion, we would send out one more mass email/blog update to let you know about our last week in Paris and our flight home.

Here's the skinny on what we were up to in Paris since our last update.

November 13 - Today being Sunday, we decided to take in another free service at a beautiful landmark. Because we were in Paris, the best place to go was to Notre Dame Cathedral of course. We were awed by the music from the organ, the 4 person choir, the beauty of the building and the service in a completely foreign language!! Although one of the readings was in English. After church, we wandered around the area, taking pics and visited St. Sulpice of 'Da Vinci Code' fame. St. Sulpice is also the church in which C-M Widor spent 60 years of his musical career! He has composed amazing works for organ and it was a huge thrill to see the organ that he once used.

November 14 - DISNEY DAY! Today, although we awoke to cloudy skies and thought it might rain, was a beautiful day. So, we bundled ourselves up and headed off to Disneyland Park here in Paris. What an experience! Katie, of course, is a Disney freak and dragged Dan all over the place. Dan was brave though and went on his very first (not one, not two, but three!) loopety doopety roller coasters! We saw the Lion King (shortened version) show, the infamous 'It's a Small World' ride, braved the Phantom Manor, escaped from The Pirates of the Carribean, were amazed at the Stunt Demonstration, and last but not least enjoyed all the characters and their parades, including the Electrical Illumination display.

November 15 - Relaxed from the busy day of the 14th! Dan moved rooms in the hostel and we enjoyed some quality time together.

November 16 - Le Bourget day! We paid a visit to the famous museum at Paris' Le Bourget airport. It hosts the famous Paris Airshow every 2nd year. The museum has hundreds of planes on display including 2 Concordes! Dan has always wanted to go onboard a Concorde... and here he boarded two of them! Prototype 001, the very first Concorde and Production #13 are in the great Concorde Hall. There is also a Boeing 747-100 on display outside the museum which you are able to walk through, when it's open ;) A small security breach occurred when Dan opened the 747's forward door, although his excuse was 'well the gate was open and the lock wasn't on!'. Security quickly came and informed us that it was lunchtime and the plane was closed for an hour....we returned when the 747 was re-opened and enjoyed our stay.

November 17 - Another relaxing day as we recuperated from the busy day of the 16th! We moved rooms in the hostel and we enjoyed some more quality time together.

November 18 - Last day in Europe! We searched for dead people, as it is free to do so! We visited Pere Lachaise cemetery where Frederic Chopin, Georges Bizet, Jim Morrison and Isadora Duncan (among others) are buried. Then off to downtown to walk around the Eiffel Tower and visit the Montparesse cemetery where Cesar Franck and Camille Saint-Saens are buried. We paid our respects and then returned to the hostel for a well deserved pizza treat!

November 19 - Never fly with Dan on commercial airlines!! He's cursed! Our flight was originally delayed 2 hours and 50 minutes but extended to 5 hours thanks to the ongoing labour dispute with the bus crews at Paris airports. The flight was smooth and we enjoyed 3 movies enroute. When we arrived in Toronto, and strapped on our bags, Katie's family and Dan's parents were there to greet us, with a great huge sign! Hugs and kisses all around, and we enjoyed a feast at Tucker's Marketplace with stories, photos and laughter galore.

It's great to back in Ontario! We are spending a few days in London before a busy weekend and then some time with Katie's family. Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch and all of your support through this adventure!

Pics from Paris

2005-11-12T05:03:00.000-05:00

Letter from Barcelona & Paris

2005-11-12T04:46:00.000-05:00

Hello All!

This is a french keyboard today, so some words might look weird.

Our last overseas update! We can't believe how quickly the time has gone, at times, especially since we've begun travelling around Europe!

Here's a quick update on what we did this past week:

November 4-8 - we hung out around Barcelona visiting the Cathedral; the beach; La Rambla; the Olympic Grounds 1992; Parc Guell (Look that one up online.....it was awesome!); and L'Aquarium. At the Aquarium, our favourites were the sharks, rays, seahorses, seadragons, PENGUINS, and a nemo fish :) We also learned a new card game from some Aussie and American friends at the hostel and enjoyed having a kitchen to cook in again!

November 9 - We left Barcelona and the heat for Paris and the cold! The temperature in Paris is about 10-15 degrees cooler than Barcelona, so it was a little shocking......it will be fun to come home to Canada and feel what real cold feels like again! Dan isn't cold and calls Katie a wimp for thinking it is here! We found our hostel and checked in no problem and found out that there are free movies in a movie theatre every night! Katie is in heaven!

November 10 - After looking at a map of our area, we thought we'd try to walk to Walt Disney Land.....unfortunately after 1 hour of walking, we realized that it is quite a bit further away than we originally thought.....but ze had a lovely ti,e walking around St Mandé and discovering our area.

November 11 - Today, being Remembrance Day, we had wanted to be at Vimy Ridge.....unfortunately finances were tight and this was not possible. So we stayed in the city and went to the service downtown at the Arc D'Triomphe. It was okay with a band playing while they rode their horses (and we thought it was difficult to march and play!), but it lacked the emotional effect that the Ottawa service has always had for us. Afterwards we walked along the Champs Elèyseés, found some cool car dealerships and Dan even sat in a F1 racecar!!! He looked cool!

That's pretty much it....we bought our tickets for Disnleyland Park yesterday and are hoping for better weather next week to go have a nice day there. We're also going to Le Bourget, near Charles de Gaulle airport where we can go onboard an actual Concorde! Dan is very excited about that!

Here's a few pics for you to look at....don't worry? we'll have lots more to share when we get home next week!

Love to you all,
Dan & Katie

Some more photos

2005-11-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

Letter from London and Barcelona

2005-11-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

Hello All:

So a week has passed and we´ve only visited two cities.....it feels so weird not to be moving around as much!!

Here´s the highlights from this past week!

October 29 - Today was the day for the British Museum. Katie has been looking forward to this visit for quite some time as this Museum is the home of the Rosetta Stone. It was great to see it and read the deciphering story of how they figured out how to read heiroglyphs. There are stories that go along with that, but this costs money, so we have to keep it short :) After our visit to the Museum, we headed off to Leicester Square to meet up with Heather and Kiel from our Trafalgar Tour. We found them amidst the throng of people trying to buy last minute half price tickets for shows and headed over to the Maple Leaf Pub for lunch! Dan was sadly disappointed at the pub as being Canadian, you would think that there would be some Canadian beer. The only one to be found was Molson and ew.....who drinks Molson! He was very sad that there was no Keith´s.....guess he´ll have to wait until we´re home! Then we were going to try and visit the London Dungeon, but as it was two days before Halloween, the lines were extremely long and we decided not to wait. Heather and Kiel said that they would come back another day and we all headed off to Tower Bridge. Dan and Kiel enjoyed walking around on a map of the world, pointing out places that they´d been or wanted to go. Then we said goodbye as Heather and Kiel were off to see the Phantom of the Opera, and we went to see a movie. We saw the new Zorro movie in a MASSIVE movie theatre with 3 levels of seating! The movie was excellent and after, we hopped onto the Tube and headed back to our hostel - interesting place by the way.

October 30 - Today was Sunday, so we decided that we would visit St. Paul´s Cathedral for church. It was the only way to get in for free and being the cheapos that we are, decided it was a good idea! We attended two services and loved the organ there! After the service, we rushed over to Leicester Square to grab tickets for STOMP that afternoon. We were redirected to the theatre and got our tickets. We met up with Heather and Kiel after lunch and we all went to see the show. Absolutely incredible! Of course, we´d already seen some of this type of action from our good friend Nicole Jeffrey in Ottawa and her Stomp-like group, OFFBEAT. They did this one routine with lighters and it was just really cool. After the show, it was time to say our last goodbye to Heather and Kiel as they are off to Egypt the following day. It was sad as we had spent a lot of time with them on the tour and really enjoyed their company. We hope that they are having lots of fun in the heat! Then we had dinner and headed back to the hostel.

October 31 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAREN! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Today was Dan´s favourite day in London so far. We caught the tube and headed to Heathrow airport. Seeing as how we weren´t able to get to the aviation museum in Edinburgh, this was the best alternative so far. We arrived at the tube stop and as we left the station, the planes were using the runway right overtop of us to take off! A huge British Airways 747 took off right over our heads and it was extremely loud! Then we walked to the Green Man Pub, where Dan has always wanted to visit. We had a Pepsi and met Jules, the owner, and had a great chat. She even gave us a number/email address for somebody in Toulouse who might be able to get us onto the Concorde! We´ll see about that. She also gave us a CD Rom loaded with heaps of information and pics about the Concorde prototype that she and others are restoring at the nearby Brooklands Museum! Dan was so excited! Then we left the pub and walked around to the visitor centre. On our way, we passed the Concorde (BA G-BOAB) on old runway 23, which is no longer used. It was sad to see it just sitting there watching all of the other planes flying around :( . The visitor centre was excellent with a great plane watching platform. As we headed back to the Tube station, they were pulling a British Airways 747 across the road! Dan has always wanted to see this happen, so we stood and watched and it was great! When Dan finally picked up his lower jaw, we headed to the tube station and went back to the hostel.

November 1 - Today we headed into the city to see the Changing of the Guard. It was neat and all the guards were in their winter uniforms. We also had hopes of seeing the Queen as she was heading to a special 7/7 ceremony for the victim´s families, but she must have left before we arrived or taken the secret way out, because we didn´t see her at all! After the Changing of the Guard, we walked up to Hamley´s Toy Store. Katie was so excited! It is 6 floors of straight toys! We spent a good 1 1/2 hours there just playing! Then we headed back to the hostel and used the internet to do some post travel planning.

November 2 - Today we flew to Barcelona. This means that we spent almost the whole day at another airport. Dan hasn´t been so happy since he proposed. We took the easyBus to the airport from Baker Street (where Sherlock Holmes ´resided´) and the driver of the bus was CRAZY! Maybe it´s because it´s been so long since we were in a car, but it seemed to us that she liked to swerve and speed A LOT! We arrived at the airport in record time and we were too early to check in. So we killed time in the lounge, checked in, and after we got through security, found out that our flight was delayed for 45 mins. We finally left about 2 hours later than we were supposed to due to a crew delay. When we got on the plane, lots of people were super pissed off, but the crew did a great job of handling them all. Even the captain came out and told people to just sit down as his crew was doing their best to get the plane off the ground. We got to Barcelona and finally found our hostel (after a bit of wandering around :).

November 3 - Today was beach day. It was a beautiful day with temps around 22 degrees. We had some breakfast down on the harbour/marina and then changed into our swimsuits to go swimming. The water seemed a little bit cooler than when we were here 2 weeks ago, but we both braved the cold and enjoyed a quick dunk. Then we relaxed on the beach, just soaking up the sun! After a long walk, including checking out some big cruise ships (Dan´s first) we returned to the hostel to have dinner and some crib. Early night tonight as we were both quite tired out.....too much sun?

November 4 - This morning we got up, had some great breakfast from the nearby grocery store and then headed off to La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral that has been in the works for almost 200 years! The main architect was Anton Gaudi who loved nature in his architecture. That is the main theme for the building with the main columns inside the cathedral representing palm trees and there is fruit all over the cathedral! We really enjoyed climbing all the stairs up into one of the towers and the views were awesome! Though a lot has been completed on the cathedral, there is still much to do and it probably won´t be finished for another 50-75 years! Based upon the designs that we´ve seen, it will be incredible and HUGE when it is finally finished.

Anyway, that is our week in a nutshell....we´re certainly looking forward to getting home and back to ´normal´. Miss you all and hope that everybody is doing well.

Some long awaited pictures...

2005-10-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

Letter from Lourdes, Bordeaux, Amboise, Paris, and London

2005-10-28T16:07:00.000-04:00

Sorry that there are no pics attached to this blog, but the machine won't attach them....will try to fix tomorrow.

Hello All!!

This letter comes to you from London, but includes much of the finale of our Trafalgar tour. Here are some highlights!

October 23 - Today we left Madrid and Spain, drove through the Pyranees Mountain Range, and ended the day in Lourdes, a tiny village in France. Lourdes is popular with many pilgrims because in the 1800's a young girl named Bernadette received 18 visions from the Virgin Mary. She was canonized by the Pope and now everybody goes to Lourdes to light a candle, walk in a procession, and participate in an evening service. We decided to take part in this ritual and very much enjoyed it! Dan carried the candle and ended up with a little wax on his shoes, but did a great job of lighting our way!

October 24 - This morning started with a search for a barber. We weren't leaving Lourdes until a little later, so Dan thought he'd get his hair cut. Unfortunately for him, it was Monday and all of the barbers are closed on Mondays in Lourdes......oh well....maybe in Bordeaux. After we left Lourdes, we stopped in Biarritz for 1.5 hours and Dan and Kiel (our Canuck friend) - otherwise known as the Prairie Surfer - had some great fun on the beach with a surfboard and some big waves. Heather and Katie enjoyed the sand (and the sand spiders) and watched Dan and Kiel in the water. Then the bus left for Bordeaux and we arrived in time for our last group dinner. After a great dinner of salad (finally!) and salmon - burger for Katie - we headed to a nearby fair that we had seen on the drive into town. We had so much fun! Heather and Kiel went as well and we went on the Ferris Wheel, some spinny rides, and Kiel went on a crazy upsidedown ride! Lots of fun.

October 25 - To Paris today! We travelled to Amboise in the Loire Valley region and saw the Castle there. This castle is where Leonardo da Vinci lived his last years and died in 1519. We saw his statue and his grave/tomb.....Dan even found a cat in the chapel that we named da Vinci....it really liked Dan! Once again we tried to get Dan's hair cut, but alas all the barbers are closed in Amboise from 12-2, the exact time frame that we were there!!!!!! Oh well....maybe Paris. We arrived in Paris to find out they'd left us and another single man off of the rooming list! No worries though, we soon had a great room that had a view of both the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral! Then we went out in the evening to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to climb all the stairs, but unfortunately they closed at 6 pm. We took the elevator to the very top and could see for miles.....beautiful!!!

October 26 - All day in Paris today. We had a great bus tour in the morning - in the rain:(. Then a small group of us headed to Versailles! It was excellent and sunny by the time we were outside again. Then we headed back into the city, visited Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, and had a great ITALIAN dinner (ironic) by the Eiffel Tower. Afterwards, we grabbed a couple of bottles of vino, headed back to the hotel, and played crib with Heather and Kiel. Late night tonight, but it's our last night on tour.

October 27 - Tour ended today. Up bright and early (the front desk screwed up our wake up call and called an hour early!!!) We left Paris for Calais, passing by Vimy Ridge on our way. We'll be back there in 2 weeks. Then on the ferry we had a nice lunch on the outer decks, played some crib/rummy, and reboarded the bus for London. We arrived in London and said goodbye to our touring family. We'll miss them all very much! Then we caught the tube and got to our hostel. It's an interesting place outside of the city, but is nice and cheap and pretty clean. We're here for 6 nights, so it will be nice not to have to move around for a few days! By the way, Dan finally got his hair cut today! The cost in Paris was outrageous!

October 28 - Spent the day catching up on sleep, doing laundry and then we visited the RAF Museum. It was great...Dan was in heaven! We saw all sorts of old planes and even a new Eurofighter model. We had a great picnic dinner and after using the internet will be off to bed. Tomorrow we meet up with Heather and Kiel downtown to go see a show (probably Guys and Dolls with Ewan MacGregor!) and also we'll be at the British Museum!

So, that's our lives for the past week.....we hope you all are well. We're home in three weeks tomorrow! Can't believe that our little adventure will be over so soon, but we're going to enjoy every last second of it!

Letter from Rome, Florence, Pisa, Nice, Barcelona, Zaragoza, and Madrid

2005-10-22T07:34:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

We have experienced so many wonderful places, people and things since leaving Iona, it´s amazing to think that there is still more to see!! We celebrated on October 19th however as the realization that we will be home in one month kicked in! We are so excited to see you all!!!

So, here´s a quick recap of what we´ve seen since our last transmission (by the way, we did find our way out of Venice!)

October 14 - Off to Rome! Arrived in Rome in the evening and as we had free time and dinner on our own, we struck out for the city via the excellent metro system. As we walked out of the station, we literally walked right into the Coliseum!!!!! Absolutely beautiful with the sun setting on it and perfect for pics! We also saw, that evening, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon (the oldest surviving building in Rome), the Piazza Navona (where we ate outdoors), and the Unification of Rome Monument. We also tried to find as many locations as possible from Dan Brown´s recent book, Angels and Demons (which we´ve both enjoyed now).

October 15 - Spent the entire day in Rome today with a local guide and a local bus driver. Tosca, our guide, was so incredibly knowledgeable! Our very first highlight was to visit the Vatican where we saw the Museums of the Popes, THE SISTINE CHAPEL!, and St. Peter´s Basilica. By the way, in the 1500´s there was something known as the great ´cover-up´where the Pope thought it undignified to see the real human body as it was sculpted, so many male parts were cut off or covered up with a fig leaf. Such a desecration of great art! Then we hopped back onto the bus and it was off to the Coliseum again, but this time, we got to go inside! Absolutely incredible!! We finished the evening with dinner with our Canuck friends, Heather and Kiel, and then had some cribbage with Heather while Kiel attended an opera in town. Excellent day!

October 16 - Off to Florence today! First we stopped above the city for a group shot which could then be purchased for 10 euros....we opted not to do this. Then we headed down to Florence where we had a leather working demonstration/sales pitch (Julia, you would LOVE this store!) and then headed to the main Dom to see the Doors to Heaven. They are replicas in the square, but the originals are in a museum and they took 21 years to make. The originals are made from solid gold! Then we headed to the Galleria Accademia to see David, Michelangelo´s famous statue. This was the original as we had already seen two fakes in the city. No pics allowed of the real thing, oh well. It was arrestingly beautiful, simple at first, but much more indepth the longer you looked. Then, we saw an exhibition for a music instrument collection. They had a Stradivarius violin, viola, and cello! They also had some Christoforo pianos, some of the first pianos ever constructed! We were in heaven! Then we walked back to Santa Croce to see the tombs of some well-known Florentines. We saw Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo, Donatello, Rossini (music guy), and Danti (who wrote The Divine Comedy). Then it was off to our hotel for dinner and bed.

October 17 - We got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa today! One of Katie´s life dreams was to see this in real life and it was SOOOOO cool! We grabbed a few shots (even one with Scooter making a swan dive off the tower - optical illusions are great!) and then went back to take some pics of some planes that Dan had seen on our way to the Tower. There was an Italian Widowmaker (F-104), F-86 and trainer MB-326 on static display! After Pisa, we travelled through 168 1/2 tunnels to get to Monaco. When we arrived in Monaco, we had 1 hour to wander around the city of Monte Carlo and see the casino and the fountains. Confession time.....Katie lost her 1 euro (just 1=) at the Monte Carlo Casino. It was tragic, but we´ve moved on:) Then we found a statue of Hector Berlioz, famous musician, and found several extremely nice looking cars! There was a fashion show on this night for Swarovski Crystals and we knew that Bon Jovi and Mariah Carey would be in town......no sightings though. It was time to get to Nice, so we piled back on the bus and when we arrived, Dan, Kiel, Heather, and Katie all walked down to the Med to see if it was suitable for swimming. The water was lovely (just wading tonight), but the beach is made with large pebbles and was not NICE on the feet :) Swimming tomorrow.

October 18 - As we didn´t have any included excursions today, we had time to do some laundry........hooray!!!!!! Dan & Kiel found a coin laundry nearby (and a cute French girl - for Kiel of course) and got that done early so we had the rest of the day for fun. Then, we headed to the ´beach´ for swimming....it was cloudy and cool, but it was the Med and the water was nice and warm. We dídn´t stay too long and headed back to the hotel to find some food. Heather was back from her extra excursion by that time and we went to the nearby Spar shop (they´re everywhere!) and bought a nice picnic dinner including some very VERY cheap wine. We finished dinner 1/2 hour later and went out in search of more drinks. We had a really fun evening with drinks and cards and had some water and tylenol before bed, so no worries about the next morning!

October 19 - We left Nice for Barcelona and had a long drive through varied landscapes. Much of the time was spent sleeping (a little tired from the night before) or reading and we arrived in Barcelona around 6 pm. Some of the group were off to a Flamenco show, but we went down to the beach (a real sand beach!) and checked it out for swimming capabilities. It looked lovely with big, huge waves and we enjoyed the sound. Then we had another picnic (non-alcoholic ;) and went to bed early.

October 20 - BEAUTIFUL DAY! We´ve had really nice weather for our tour, but today was gorgeous. We started with a tour of the city and have decided that we will definitely return here for a few days after this tour before our return to Canada. After the tour finished in downtown Barcelona, we and Kiel headed back to the hotel via the subway, changed into our swimming suits and rushed down to the beach. It was awesome! The waves were between 6-12 feet in height and it was so much fun riding them. We stayed for a good 4 hours, just enjoying the sun and relaxing. Then we returned to the hotel to find Heather back from her excursion and so we headed to the mall in search of postcards. We didn´t find any, but enjoyed the walk. Then Heather said that she´d really like to swim in the Med, so we threw our suits back on and rushed back down to the beach. We could only swim for 25 minutes, but that was enough as the waves had grown bigger since we´d left and we were all tired. We had dinner at the hotel and flopped into bed after a couple of hands of crib.

October 21 - The drive from Barcelona to Madrid was a long one and Wim (our tour guide) likes to play various types of music on the bus while we drive. Some are okay, but some are very loud and somewhat different, so that takes a bit of getting used to. We stopped in Zaragoza in the middle of the Spanish ´desert´ and saw the beautiful church there. Then we headed to Madrid and arrived at our hotel which is full of groups. Dinner was extremely interesting this evening as the main course was fish. Katie had asked for some chicken instead, but Dan, loving fish said bring it on. He got it all right......the fish came whole!!! With its head!!! and tail!!! After a large amount of laughter and some turned up noses, he managed to swallow most of it, but the fish eyes were something else all right! Thank goodness for the good custard dessert to take the taste out of his mouth - some of Katie´s chicken helped with that as well:).

October 22 - Finally we arrive at today! We had a nice tour of Madrid this morning (although the rain was pouring down) and returned to the hotel to come and write this update. We´re happy to be heading back to France tomorrow and onto Paris soon, but will definitely return to Barcelona for some more fun in the sun!

So, that´s been our lives for the last week......imagine all the other stories that we don´t have time to write about.......ahhhhhhhhh! We´ll attach a couple of pics here for you...enjoy!

Hope that you are all well and we truly are very excited to see you all soon!
Dan & Katie

Hello from Koln, Strasbourg, Hockenheim, Heidleberg, Lake Lucerne, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna, and Venice!!!!

2005-10-13T08:58:00.000-04:00

Wow!

Who ever could have guessed that you could see so many different places, things, people, cultures, etc, etc.......in only 9 days!!!!!

So here's some of the things that we've seen/done on the way to Italy. Unfortunately, our time here is quite brief (and expensive) so we can't go into too much detail.

October 6 - Left Amsterdam to go to Koln, Germany where we saw the beautiful cathedral and we climbed one of the spires. Amazing views!!! Then we left to go castle spotting along the Rhine on our beautiful Rhine cruise. We had lovely weather and Dan had his first German beer! Scooter even had some. We ended the day in Hockenheim, Germany.

October 7 - Left Hockenheim for Heidleberg, and climbed the super steep hill to visit the ruins of the castle. There was also a huge HUGE keg in the castle that Dan enjoyed immensely! Next we stopped in Strasbourg, France and saw the Cathedral with only one spire and the Gutenburg statue. Then we ended the day in Switzerland (where Katie saw her first alps!!)

October 8 - Today was an amazing day. We left bright and early for the Pilatus Mountain which we climbed using the steepest cogwheel railway in the world. At some points, it was at a 48 degree angle. Then we walked the last 200 feet to the summit of 7000 feet!!!! Absolutely amazing views. There was also an echo point, so we had a fun time yelling off the mountain. Descended via two cable cars. Scary, but fun! Then we went to lunch at a Swiss experience restaurant where we had swiss cheese fondue (yummy!) and a traditional swiss show. Afterwards, we toured Lake Lucerne with our two Canadian friends and prepared for our trip to Austria.

October 9 - Headed off for Leichtenstein and saw the last inhabited palace by the Hapsburgs. Sent a postcard to M & D P with a rare Leichtenstein stamp! Also, a Harley was spotted and photographed. Then we headed off to Innsbruck for one night. Upon arrival, had time in the city centre, bought some Peach Schnapps with Heather and Kiel (our fellow Canadians) and had dinner at the hotel. Afterwards, it was time for laundry, cards, and Schnapps!! Fun all around.

October 10 - Left Innsbruck for Salzburg. We enjoyed the Sound of Music tour with many different highlights, like the scenes from Doe a Deer and I Have Confidence. Katie was in heaven! Then we wandered around Salzburg, seeing many Mozart buildings and the Dom Cathedral (Katie's fave so far). Left Salzburg for Vienna. Upon arrival, had dinner in the hotel and went to bed!

October 11 - All day in Vienna. Late start as we didn't take the optional tour and had a nice relaxing morning! Toured St. Stephen's, and unfortunately, the music instrument museum was closed as it was Tuesday. So, Heather, Kiel, and us walked the 11 kms to see the graves of Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert, and Brahms! It was awesome. Then we experienced the Vienna underground as we took the subway back. Went to an evening concert in the Orangerie and heard Mozart and Strauss pieces. Excellent!

October 12 - Drove all day to Venice!! Excellent drive with much scenery and lots of sleep! Had lasagna for starter for dinner at the hotel.......YUMMY!

October 13 - We've been in Venice all day and have literally followed the advice of our tour guide to get lost in Venice!! Hopefully, we'll find our way back!

Letter from Salisbury, London, and Amsterdam

2005-10-05T10:09:00.000-04:00

Hello All!!!

So, this is our update letter covering the above cities. No pics today, sorry.....we're using an internet cafe, but didn't bring the camera card reading utility device thingy.

In Salisbury, we stayed at a youth hostel, and we booked a guided tour to see Stonehenge! It was awesome, with lots of information and even Scooter got a pic with the rocks. After we returned to Salisbury, we visited Salisbury Cathedral, which has the tallest spire of any cathedral in the UK. While we were there, we participated in a service that was going on for the ordination of some Deacons. Dan had communion and we heard both the choir and the organ and sang some hymns too! We also found out that David Willcocks (who writes some amazing descants for hymn tunes such as Adeste Fideles) was the organist at Salisbury in the past. Dan nearly wet his pants when he saw that he was so excited! After our visit, we went to get some picnic food (cheap!) and had a nice picnic on the lawn of the Cathedral. There was a wedding on at the Cathedral, so we got to see all the pretty people in their outfits and Rolls Royce's pull up. It was neat.

The next morning, (Dan's 30th birthday!!!!!) we were up in good time to catch the train to London. We were both very excited and it was only a 2 hour journey, so that was good! When we got to London, we realized that the walk to the hostel would be very substantial. But it was a nice day, so we started out. We walked past Big Ben (the bell in the tower), WEstminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and 3 parks! By the time we got to the hostel, we had walked approx 10 km and were exhausted!!!! But it was only 2:30 pm and we wanted to get out and see a bit of the city, so we went and grabbed another picnic lunch, sat in Kensington Gardens and watched the many planes fly overhead on their way into Heathrow. Then we went for a long walk, called Dan's parents and Katie's parents and headed back to the hostel. On the 3rd, we jampacked the whole city into one day! We took our first cab to St. Paul's Cathedral (on the other side of the city) and took a peek inside. Then we crossed over the Millenium Bridge by the Thames and walked to the British Airways London Eye! We got on straight away and had a great view. The weather has cooperated very well since we've left Iona:) After our 'flight', we walked across Westminster Bridge by Parliament, with the intent of visiting Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, it was closed until 2:00pm, so we went and met Tammy at the Trafalgar Tours office, picked up our documents for our tour, and had some lunch at Pizza Hut. (I know I know....not very British:(. Then, we headed to Trafalgar Square to see Canada House and the lions in the Square. We visited Canada House, saw the gallery there with Canadian photography, and headed back outside. Scooter met one of his distant relatives in the Square (pictures to come soon), and even Dan had some fun with the lion. After we'd had our lion's share of the Square, we headed for another Square, Leicester Square in the heart of the Theatre district to see about half price tickets for a show that evening. We scored some great seats for Les Mis (20th year running!) for 1/2 price!!!! Super! By this time it was almost 2 pm so we headed back to the Abbey. There was a huge queue, but it disappeared quickly and we were in before we knew it. Amazing time here, visiting Elizabeth and Mary I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Handel, Shakespeare (Memorial), Churchill, and Newton among many many others. From here, we grabbed a cab to the Tower of London. Had an awesome tour here with a surprisingly very genuinely funny tour guide. Saw the crown jewels, the White Tower, and the Bloody Tower. Then, we grabbed a cab back to Leicester Square for our show. It was incredible. Katie had never seen it before, but Dan has seen it twice. Dan says that this performance easily compared to the other 2 and he thought it was excellent. We even met a couple from London, ON and Adam is a pilot!!! Small world huh? After the show, we grabbed a cab to the hostel and headed for bed.

The morning of the 4th, we were up super early because our tour left from the Trafalgar Tours office at 6:30 am! We got there in plenty of time, met Wim, our tour director, and got loaded onto the bus. There are 24 people altogether on the tour and they all seem very nice. Surprisingly, there are 13 South Pacific types. There are also 4 Canadians, and the rest are Americans. We headed for Dover and crossed the English Channel on a very large ferry. When we arrived in Calais, France, we boarded our tour bus (that we'll have for the duration) and began the trek to Amsterdam. On the way, we passed through Belgium and Flanders Fields. When we were getting close to the hotel, Wim was telling us about the hotel we'd be in for two nights. To Dan's happy surprise, we found out that our hotel was to be at the Schipol Airport!!!! He giggled all the rest of the way:) We arrived at the hotel, checked in and had a great dinner. After dinner, we walked over to a McDonald's to see if you could see the runway from there. Not only could you see the runway, but the planes were using that runway for every take off and there was a huge viewing platform outside for the general public. We sat there for a good hour watching planes and guessing their types. It was pretty cool and cold!

Today, we've been to a cheese and clog factory near Volendam (Dan is sure that he was there 14 years ago!). We got some cheese samples (yummy!:) and tried on some clogs. Even Scooter tried on a pair (but they didn't fit:). Then we visited the town of Volendam (a large tourist trap), a very pretty little fishing village. We saw a great example of a dyke keeping the water from flooding the town. Then, we headed for Amsterdam and the Gassan Diamond Factory. We saw how diamonds are cut, polished and sold. They showed us a bunch of examples of different carat, colour, clarity, and cuts. We even saw a brown diamond (pretty rare). Nobody bought any though as the cheapest one sold was going for E12,000 (or $15,000 Cdn!). Needless to say, Dan was very excited that he had proposed BEFORE we visited this factory:).

Since then, we've been walking around Amsterdam, enjoying the sights, smells ;), and sunshine. We're off to meet the bus soon to head back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we're off to Cologne (to see some wise men:), and the Rhine River for our cruise.

Letter from Burntisland, York and Stratford-Upon-Avon

2005-09-30T06:40:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

So, here is our first 'on the road' update! We're going to do our best to get a minimum of three cities in each update......we shall see if that works out!

Our first stop was Burntisland. It was a great place to get to with travel on a ferry, then a bus, then a ferry, then a train, then another train, then another train!!!! But we arrived safe and sound at the train station in Burntisland, tired, but ready for our 20 minute walk to the hotel.....20 minutes, yeah right! We headed up the hill and after asking directions from a nice man in the park, made the 3 kilometre trek to the hotel. As we approached the hotel, it was exactly as Katie had remembered from pictures and video from when her Dad was here 14 years ago! Other than the fact that there had been several renovations since that time, the character of the building has remained the same. We checked in and headed up to our room (thankfully in the back of the hotel as we find the noise difficult after being in quiet Iona for so long). After showering and changing, we had dinner in the downstairs restaurant (we were the only ones there!) with a great view across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh. It was beautiful with the Castle all lit up! After dinner, it was an early evening to bed as we were exhausted. Before going to bed however, Katie opened up the window to have some fresh air come into the room. Apparently, this was a bad idea as a HUGE spider decided to join us in our room. When she woke up around 3 am, Katie looked across the room and there he was on the wall. His fangs were so big, that she could see them from where she was in the bed!!!! Dan tried to dispose of the beast for her, but sadly the first attempt failed. Thankfully, however, he found him in the bathroom and got him outside, closing the window, as the spider's nest was right outside the window.

After the drama of the morning we headed out to see the wonders of Burntisland. We explored the cemetary where the Johnstones are buried. They were still there from last time :) Off to the village we went to visit the barber (brush cut for Dan), the bank (pay for the tour) and of course an ice cream. We also sent some stuff back to Dan's parents to lighten our load a bit. In the afternooon we asked Catherine and Rankin Bell (the owners) about Katie's family friends Norman and Daphne, who had given Katie's Dad, Pops and Aunt Grace a tour 14 years ago. To our surprise they are still around and still having a great time with life. We met up with them that evening and had a great time exchanging stories and laughs. They insisted on showing us the parish church the next morning, which is conveniently near the train station! Norman is the curator so is VERY knowledgable about the church and its history. We had our tour with a quick song on the organ, tales of the baker, the butcher, and the shoemakers, and the stolen bible. We also were given a copy of the hymn books that were donated to the church by Katie's Pops and Aunt Grace after their visit with the dedication written inside......very sweet of them.

We said goodbye to Daphne and Norman and boarded the train. We headed to Edinburgh to switch trains to York on a beautiful day! Upon arrival in York, we walked up to the Mickelgate Backpackers Hostel for our one night stay. After checking in, we decided to head to the Minster.....Dan was in awe!! It was amazing, beautiful and incredible:) We were in luck too because the organist and boys choir were warming up for the evensong while we were there, so we were treated to lovely music while we explored the church. Definately a highlight (which you can tell by the numerous pics that were taken here:) Afterwards, we headed to a 400-year-old pub, where we had authentic Yorkshire pudding (appropriate:) and Lasagna (not so appropriate:). The next morning, we got up nice and early and went for a walk on the York wall. Who knew that you could walk on the wall! For free!!! Scooter even made the trip (as you will see:). Then, we boarded the train for Stratford-Upon-Avon.

We had to switch train stations in Birmingham, which was interesting as our good luck with the weather was faltering slightly. We boarded a much older train and enjoyed the 45 minute ride to Stratford. Upon arrival, the train was bombarded with teenagers heading for Birmingham (which is the second largest English city and seems like a huge big box store mall.) They were slightly rude as we were trying to get off the train with our big bags, but oh well, life goes on!:) We walked into town to find out that our hostel was 5 kilometres outside of the city!!!!!!! As the weather was still crappy, we decided to wait for the bus. We paid £3.80 for the one-way ticket (which is almost $8 Cdn) and decided that after this, we walk into town! We arrived at the hostel, had a great pizza dinner in the hostel restaurant (very convienient and economical) and went to bed in our seperate rooms.

The next morning, we decided to sleep in a bit, have breakfast and then walk into town. It was a very nice day with sun and cloud and a nice wind to keep us cool. When we arrived in town, we saw the Shakespeare monument, visited his birthplace (pretty neat), and then bought tickets to see 'A Midsummer's Night Dream'. They were super cheap tickets, so we figured that our seats wouldn't be very good. After that, we walked to the church where Shakespeare is buried, walked around town, watched the swans and other birds on the Avon, and had dinner. Then we watched the swans some more and headed to the theatre. Katie's seat was in the centre of the very top row in the whole theatre! Dan's was off to the side a bit and behind a bar. The show started and it was awesome! During intermission, Dan was able to move beside Katie which gave him a much better view of the stage. It was an absolutely hilarious second half! Then, we walked back to the hostel and it was off to bed.

This morning, we got up, threw our backpacks together and headed back into town (remember 5 kilometres, with 30 lb backpacks on....took a little longer than the first day!). We found the free internet (hooray) at the library and here we sit until it's time for us to catch the train!

So, enjoy the attached pictures, there are many more (especially of any type of Stratford bird you could ever see!) and we'll be sure to keep sharing with you.

Letter from Iona - #15

2005-09-21T10:20:00.000-04:00

Hello All:)

So, the end has come and now the real adventure is beginning!!!!! We have only 3 more days left on the isle of Iona and then we're off to see Europe!

We've had a couple of adventures this week with ice cream machines and power failures, as well as house parts in our front lawn and our housemate moving out, but all in all, it's been a nice week.

What happened with the ice cream machine you ask? Well, it was very funny if you were there and will probably lose something in the telling, but we'll try. Basically, there is a large soft ice cream machine maker in the kitchen which we use for desserts at dinner time. Katie was making dessert for somebody and was in a large rush, so she didn't check to see if the machine was turned on. It's only funny of course, because the machine was not on and rather than nice soft ice cream slowly exiting the machine, when she pulled down on the lever, cold, sticky, ice cream formula sprayed everywhere....all over her!:) Pretty funny, but again, you might have had to be there:)

As for the power failure, Dan has been really good about getting up early to get our laundry finished before we leave (as who knows when we will be able to wash our clothes again for free!). So, he was up early yesterday and then woke Katie up around 9:15 am, saying that the power had shut off and he couldn't get it back on with the pound coin turny thingy. Usually, we have to wind up the power in the house with a reusable pound coin, but that wasn't even working. This meant no shower, no light in the bathroom at all, no more laundry, and no fridge power. The fridge was okay because we don't have much food in there anyway, but the bathroom was difficult to see in. So, Dan had a bath for the first time in who knows how long and Katie was treated to some lovely singing (something about a rubber ducky?):) One for the books, that's for sure!

The house parts are in our front lawn because Paul (Sheila's brother) is building his own house on the island and needed somewhere to dump his stuff off of the truck until the rest arrives. Made a big mess though:(

And, Donna, the Yorkshire roommate, has left us to move into the flat. She won't be staying in the blue house all by herself and thought it would be good to get out now while the getting was good.

So, our adventure starts on Sunday with leaving Iona and heading to Fife. We hope to be able to send out weekly emails/blog updates still and keep you all in the loop of what we (and Scooter) have been up to.

Anyway, have a great week and we'll see you soon!

Letter from Iona - #14 - One more week to go!

2005-09-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

So, the time is drawing near.......and we have news to share!

This week we decided that rather than organize all of our own travels after we leave Iona, that we would prefer to try an organized tour with a reputable company. This method will save us cash and energy and will give us a more in depth experience for our money. So, after much exhaustive research and with huge thanks to Katie's brother Chris for his research, we have come to a conclusion. Here is our tour...........................................................

Europe Heritage

Highlights:
Dover, Amsterdam, Cologne, Rhineland, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, Lucerne, Liechtenstein, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Florence, Pisa, French Rivieria, Monte Carlo, Nice, South of France, Barcelona, Madrid, Lourdes, Pau, Biarritz, Loire Valley, Paris

We're so very excited about this.....it's a 24 day long tour with all hotels, all breakfasts, and half our dinners included. Plus we got a super duper deal on the price and so, it's just worked out really really well. (By the way, can you tell who's typing?)

So, that has been our major activity for the week. Plus we've been busy getting excited about moving on and starting the next leg of our journey. Even Scooter got into the spirit....as you can see from his pic here, he's busy resting up on his travel pillow and chewing some lovely peach flavoured gum.......believe me, it was quite the fight to get it away from Dan long enough to take the pic!!

And so, we leave you now with only one more letter from Iona to come. As always, we hope that you are all doing very well and have had a wonderful summer. By the way....we need to send a shout out to Katie's sister Julia who turns 19 today.....look out world here she comes....Happy Bday kiddo!

Letter from Iona - #13

2005-09-07T12:46:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

Less then 3 weeks now before we head to the mainland for the start of our European Trek! We've been busy finalising our plans of where to go and how to get there. So far we've decided to use rail mostly but to also include at least one flight! The chunnel is quite expensive so a flight from London Luton to Paris CDG looks like the best choice (yay!!)

Not much has happened on Iona for us to tell you about. We had a quiet day today due to the weather and Katie' not feeling 100%. A nice break from our usual whirl-wind pace. We've invited our Aussie friend Katherine over for an evening of a video and a card game or two. She finishes at the restaurant this Saturday. However, on Sunday of this past week, Katie had the opportunity to brush up on her one-manual electronic organ skills. The Parish Church (whose service is led by our friend Syd) is without an organist right now as Harold (the usual organist) has been away sick. So, their regular backup was unable to make the service and Katie got a call to play. It was worked out with Sheila and both of us were able to attend the service on Sunday. It was a very nice service with lots of talk about TeamWork and Accountability. We really enjoyed it and hope that we can attend another before we leave.

A topic near and dear to our hearts is the wildlife on Iona. You've heard about our close encounters with the corn-crake but we haven't told you about our 6 and 8 legged friends which share the house with us. The odd spider has been found (much to Katie's dismay) so we shan't discuss that topic. The 6 legged ones are far more entertaining anyways! These 'Jenny Long-Legs' or 'Squishy' as we sometimes call them (to quote the Dory, the cartoon fish in Finding Nemo). These insects only form of self-defense seems to be to dislocate a leg! Almost like some lizards lose a tail. Sadly, one such insect lost 4 of his legs during a rather horrific attempt to free him to his outside domain. I fear he has since become bird or bat food, which we have plenty of on the island.

While I (Dan) am a naturalist at heart my beloved fianceé is a bit rougher on insects. If I'm not around these 6 legged friends usually find their death with a rapid shoe or book attack. I hope some of our self-help books have not been used in such fashion... oh the irony (see attached picture, featuring our friend Scooter in his perch).

More news to share next week... for now we'll sign off. We're continuing to think and pray for all of those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Thank you to those who have sent emails, letters and packages... any word from anyone is greatly appreciated!

Letter from Iona - #12

2005-08-31T14:01:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

We gave our notice this week. Very exciting times!! Our last work day is September 24th and then we travel to Fife on September 25th.

This week has been pretty mundane with lots of work time. However, we did have fun last week at the Abbey when we went to visit Tim. Dan got to play a beaut of a violin and Katie sang with Tim playing. It was a great time and the acoustics were incredible. Then, Dan got talked into coming to the choir rehearsal on Thursday evening. He then stayed for the service and ended up in the choir for that. It was really cool because almost everyone of the 30 people in the choir speak English (even though they are from all over the world!) and they sang a Sanctus and Benedictus by John L. Bell that was dedicated to the master of music, Tim. He is an incredible musician with an obvious passion for what he does. He is currently studying his PhD at Cambridge at the tender age of 25! His specialty seems to be improv and he is amazing at it!

Today, we went for a walk to find the elusive Loch. It was going well until Mother Nature decided to unleash her wrath on the island of Iona and it rained down in torrents. So, once again, we found ourselves climbing in the wet. But, it was quite fun and we did find the loch. (See attached pics). We were going to continue on to find the Marble Quarry as well, but the rain reminded Dan of how much he had to pee, so we had to turn around. Just leaves us another adventure for another (hopefully more sunny) day.

We're quite excited to leave the island as the weather is getting more unstable each day with more rain than sun:( It also gets dark quite early now compared to when we first came, and most nights Katie ends up walking home in the dark. There's only one streetlight on the whole island, so it is muchly appreciated when Dan comes to meet her with a torch (flashlight), which happens very often.

Anyway, we wanted to send out a huge welcome back to Dan's parents who have just returned from visiting Dan's sister on the West Coast. And also, hello to Katie's Mom and Dad who are currently on a Caribbean cruise with Princess Cruises....don't worry, they missed the hurricane!:)

So, that's it....be sure to look at the pics this week....there two awesome ones of the tide when it's in and the tide when it's out....and yes, that is the exact same location!

Letter from Iona - #11 - One Month to go!!

2005-08-24T08:59:00.000-04:00

Hello All:)

Today is a very exciting day for us as we now have one month left of work and then we are outta here!

This week has been fairly quiet in terms of the misadventures of Dan and Katie. Nothing too tragic. We had a major storm here last night with wind gusts of up to 70 miles/hour (112 kms)!! Needless to say, it was a rather noisy night last night. But the only casualties that we have seen is our rubbish bin got knocked over and we lost a clothesline. They also pulled all of the wee boats out of the water yesterday in preparation for the storm as they were afraid they might wash up on shore, or worse, find their way to the bottom of the Sound. There was also talk of the ferry being cancelled today, but happily it is still running......although we are not making use of her services today:)

We've had 4 new people arrive on the island to work in the restaurant/bar/shop. Two are a couple from New Zealand, (just met them this morning), one is from Scotland, and the other is her cousin from Australia! They have all moved into the flat above the Spar shop, so not only is it fairly crowded up there again, it seems to be a South Pacific haven!! The blue house will soon be emptier (which is a happy day as there's only one bathroom/shower at our place), with Agni and Gitana leaving for Lithuania on Saturday and Lisbeth leaving for Fife on Sunday. But we're sure that new faces will soon be seen around our place as well.

Dan has had an interesting invitation for today. Yesterday, while working in the bar, he got talking with Tim, a music major from the Abbey, who had heard about his amazing violin skills. This prompted an invitation for Dan and Katie to visit the Abbey this evening to try a violin and maybe the piano??:) Needless to say, we are both very excited about this!

The first day of our work here, we both worked for the 40th wedding anniversary of a minister from Bunnessen (Mull) named Syd and his wife Edna. Syd is often in the bar, drinking ginger beer, or on the bus, so he is a familiar face around here and knows both Dan and Katie by face. One of the coolest things about Syd is that the first time Katie saw him, she saw somebody else completely. Syd could be a mirror image of Katie's grandfather on her Mom's side. He has a similar personality as well with his joking and jovial outlook on life. Syd was sitting at the bar the other evening and Katie was working in the restaurant humming along with the music on the stereo. It was the hymn tune 'Melita', which is Dan's favourite hymn. While she was doing this, Syd was listening and made a comment about it, to which Katie replied, 'well, I like Melita, besides, it's Dan's favourite hymn'. Syd remarked, 'you seem to know a lot about hymn tunes and such', and Katie replied, 'Well, I should, as I was a church organist for some years back in Canada'.:) At that point, customers walked in and she had to go back to work. But not before Syd said, 'Oh really, are you working here tomorrow?' She had to rush off. So, Syd stopped by the next day (Saturday) and asked again if Katie was working at 12:30 on Sunday. Sadly she was, but when she mentioned it to Sheila, she was told, she might be able to get an hour or two off to go and play the Organ that Syd has available to him. Needless to say, she's quite excited about that and we'll see where that goes.

More stories to share and pictures too next week. Dan's tide study is going well and the moon photos, well are unique. More practice and study are required!

Letter from Iona #10 - Retail therapy

2005-08-18T04:01:00.000-04:00

Hello all,

Sorry for the late delivery of this update... however we're willing to bet that none of you are up right now, so technically it could still be Wednesday!

We decided to take things down a notch from the previous week's mountain climb. This week we were off to Oban, the nearest big city to Iona! Oban is on the 'mainland' of the British Isles. Here's a summary of how we got there...

5:45: Up and at em...hey look.....it's POURING rain outside....oh well! We have to look good for the big city!
7:00: On the ferry to Fionnphort
7:10: On the bus to Craignure (watch out sheep!)
9:00: On the big ferry (woohoo!) to Oban
9:45: Wow, that was fast... feet dry in Oban!

We had several tasks to accomplish in Oban...Dan's first priority was to visit the barber, while Katie couldn't wait to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! There is a small movie theatre in Oban which has just started playing Charlie and The Fantastic Four.

Sadly the clippers we had access to in Iona have apparently disappeared so Katie will have to temporarily cease her haircutting duties... for now. Gavin, the sports fanatic barber (who had a Calgary Flames jersey and Steve Nash's signed jersey on his wall!) was more then happy to treat Dan's noggin to a brush cut. Good thing too as his hair was pretty scary. Then off to Tesco, the Zellers of Scotland! Several items were to be bought and we found that the prices were far more reasonable then in our little SPAR shop on Iona. For example, we bought 2 large containers of peanut butter which were cheaper then one tiny jar in Iona! Katie bought a new bath towel and shirt for an excellent price and Dan has decided not to grow a beard/mustache as there were some Gillette Mach 3 Turbo refills available. Movie time! Off we went in search of the cinemas... but on the way we passed a music store. In we went and Dan headed straight over to the violins while Katie browsed at sheet music. When we had arrived in Oban, Dan had said that if we could find a music store, he'd love to pick up a fiddle again. So, when we walked through the doors and saw the violins, we asked permission to play one and the store owner rosined up a bow for Dan to use, went into the back room and returned with a 'loaner'. Dan tuned her up and played a little tune while Katie listened and enjoyed. It made Dan's day!

We resumed our search for the cinema, and upon now finding it discovered that it was closed until 1:15. What to do for 30 minutes? There was an 'amusement' centre next door so after partaking in a racing game (which Dan won) we searched for more things to kill time. There had been an ice cream store on our way so we backtracked and treated ourselves to a few scoops. After wiping the chocolate mint (Katie) and chocolate and PEACH (Dan) from our chins the time had come to head to the movies! Our tickets were bought and we were allowed to explore the historical display (out of the continuing rain) at the theatre. On display was some signed drawings from the head Disney illustrator from many years ago (Don Williams?), the stocks which were used in Oban until mid-1800s and some amazing photos of all places, Iona, Staffa and Oban. One plaque really interested us as it expressed some of the thoughts we routinely have...

The movie started at 2 and we were in time critical mode. After 15 minutes of ads and trailers, that seemed to go on forever, the movie finally began. However, we had enough to munch on during the ads. As usual, Dan was a bit hungry (and so was Katie), so she sent him on a search for some munchies just before the ads started. As he left her parting words were 'Just don't buy one of those really big popcorn' (that another family had purchased). His reply was 'No one needs that much popcorn!'. So you can imagine her surprise when he shamefully returned with ... a really big popcorn container. It was aptly shaped in a cone, sort of like a dunce cap from the old days. A hard £5 lesson to learn for Dan's instinctive request for a 'large popcorn'. The what turned out to be very bland popcorn was gone by the start of the movie though!

We had been very excited to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as we had heard it was excellent and Dan is a big fan of Tim Burton's movies.....Batman, Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands.....etc. Must be his twisted humour! So, we settled in and watched most of it. Unfortunately, because we had to catch the 4pm ferry back to Craignure and sure as heck didn't want to miss it, we had to leave the movie by 3:30 to get to the ferry on time. We were sad because we had to miss so much of it, but we'll see the end someday. Perhaps in Glasgow on the IMAX????(It's currently being shown there:)

So, we hopped onto the ferry (again in the pouring rain) and enjoyed some food on the ride back to Craignure. From there, we got back to Iona safe and sound on the last ferry, had a nice nap, dinner, and then off to bed so that we could get up early this morning and write this update for you all:)

That's the misadventures this week....nothing too exciting (like missing the boat/bus/boat, or falling off a mountain), but we can't always lead such exciting lives or we'd be exhausted just from telling the stories!

Probably next week, we'll go back into money saving mode and stay on Iona. Perhaps we'll go on a hunt for the elusive loch on the island, which provides the island with all of its freshwater.

For now, though, that's it.

A Few More Pics of the Climb

2005-08-12T05:17:00.000-04:00

A few more photos for Letter from Iona #9

2005-08-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

Here's some more for your viewing...

Letter from Iona #9 - Dream... Struggle... VICTORY!

2005-08-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

(... or Blood, Sweat and Tears as Dan called it at the end)

Hi All:

As you might have guessed from the title of this week's update, we've had an interesting week. The first really cool thing that happened took place last Saturday when after Katie was finished work, we headed up to the tiny public library here and sat for a concert with two guitarists who are travelling around and working at the Columba Hotel (where the internet access is). They were awesome!! It was a guy and a gal (Ross and Iona) and Iona played first. She was good, but after the break Ross played and he was amazing. They both have incredible talents as everything that was performed was self-written and they probably played about 25 different songs. Awesome night! Katie also met up with the Greene's, who are friends of her Aunt Claudia and Uncle John's, at the bar the same night. They had just come from Aunt C & Uncle J's cottage and had met Mom & Dad J there and had seen a bunch of pics of Iona on Dad J's laptop. Neato, huh?

But our big adventure this week happened yesterday (hence the lack of an update on the blog!). If you remember, we had mentioned that we were planning a climb on the Isle of Mull to find a DC-3 that had crashed into Beinn Talaidh (a mountain) on February 1, 1945. Eventually the plane was pushed into a ravine and blown into smaller pieces. So, Dan had collected some maps from Jean, one of our coworkers (if you remember from our earlier story, she and her husband Tony have been helpers in our mad schemes before), and put together our route of attack.

So, we went to sleep with visions of big mountains and an 8 mile, 3 hour trek dancing in our heads.

When we woke up on Wednesday morning, the first thing that Katie noticed was the mist and rain. This did not bode well for her cooperation with this scheme as climbing a 725 metre mountain in the sun was one thing, but doing it in the rain and knowing that she was going to be wet and cold all day was not a thrilling prospect. So, we packed up our bags with food and water, mittens, first aid kit, flashlight, extra socks, and anything else that we could think of to take. Then, we headed off to the internet cafe to check out the weather to see if anything was going to improve. The weather information over here is kinda sketchy, so the best that we could get was a report for Oban which is on the mainland, quite a distance away......but it said that it would clear later in the day, so after much weasling and prodding, Dan finally got Katie to agree to go.

So, off we set on the ferry at 9 am. Then we hopped onto the bus to Craignure (where you catch the ferry to Oban), and met up with Tony (Jean's husband). The cool thing here was that we had talked to Tony about this adventure a couple of times before, so he knew that we were coming and gave us a free bus ride to Glen Forsa, the starting point for our trek. This saved us £8, so that was really cool. Tony is a very detailed and cautious person and was telling us that he thought it might be difficult for us to find the DC-3 as one of his coworkers 'knew a bit about it' and said that if you don't know exactly where to look, it could be difficult to find. With this knowledge, we set off. Dan was very excited because he'd seen a small airstrip on our way to Glen Forsa and it set the mood for the trek.

We walked along a flat walk for a couple of miles, spotting highland cows and enjoying the scenery. The clouds were still very low at this point, so we couldn't see the peaks of the mountains, but we could certainly see their slopes and they looked amazing!

Then, Dan spotted a bird flying in the sky. We watched it for a second and it turned out to be a golden eagle!! This was very exciting as they are becoming rare, even in their natural habitat and we were very excited to get to see one.

After consulting the map a few times, we continued along the path that we were on and came around a corner to see parts of a propeller sticking out of a rock, with a sign on it. There's a pic of the sign here, but basically, it is a memorial to the RAF men who died when the DC-3 crashed in 1945. It seems that in February 2005, they held a small ceremony here and laid a wreath in memory of the crash. This was where we stopped for lunch. This is where it gets interesting.

At this point, it should be said that if we didn't get to the road to flag down the bus by 5:20 pm, we would have to walk all the way back to Fionnphort (at least 15 miles) and stay there overnight or hitchhike back (this was not something that we wanted to do).

To our left was a nice looking smooth, FLAT path that would lead back to the road. However, if we took that way, there was no possibility of seeing any more of the aircraft. As we had a pretty good idea of where the pieces lay in the ravine, Dan suggested continuing to climb up the mountain to the ravine to find the aircraft. As everything had been pretty easy thus far, Katie was willing to indulge him. Besides, the clouds/sky was clearing and the weather seemed to be easing up. And, it would be beautiful to see the Sound of Mull from so high up. So......the ascent began.

Now, if Dan had known what a trechorous, horrid climb both up and down the mountain would be, he never would have suggested it. But of course, hindsight is 20/20, so we made it to the mountain bothy, which is a little shack that can be used if you get stuck on the mountain in bad weather. We signed the bothy book to show that we were there and continued to climb.
As we continued up the ravine, we had to leave the path as it basically stopped. The ground became increasingly more unstable and wet and in no time at all, Katie (who was wearing pants), was soaked up to her knees and Dan (who was wearing shorts) was getting the same way. Every once in a while, we had to stop for Katie to catch her breath and one time, we stopped by the stream coming down the ravine. The water was clear and tasted beautiful, so we filled up our water bottles and soaked our heads. As we were doing so, Dan's eye caught some metal under some rocks. He pulled it out and there was our first piece of airplane!!! We took pics of it with Scooter and Katie (they're attached here).

Then, we continued on up the side of the mountain. Our original goal had been to actually climb the mountain, but we had severly underestimated the height and difficulty of this climb. So, we settled for climbing the side of it to stay out of the water in the ravine. We continued to climb upwards and stopped to turn around and take a picture of how far we had come. This pic shows the distance from the water (where we started) to where we were sitting to take this pic. Long way, huh???

At this point, Katie was getting very tired and Dan was starting to fatigue as well. Then, we spotted a lot more pieces of metal in the ravine. And we had found it!!!!!!!! Almost the entire aircraft in the ravine!!! (See pics). Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the ravine ended here and after we had climbed up it to see the plane, we had to turn around and climb up the side of the ravine to get around it. This meant that we would now have to climb up and over the mountain......not an exciting prospect. We climbed and climbed and climbed some more and then, just as Katie's legs were about to give out...we were there at the top (well, almost the top....a little subsiderary of the top....500 metres above sea level and we couldn't see anything because of the clouds. At this point, we were starting to worry about the time as it was just about 4 and we still had to get down the mountain and across to the road and we couldn't even see where the road was! So, Dan said a prayer and the clouds lifted....just like that. Talk about a gift from God. If they hadn't lifted, we might still be stuck on that mountain.

So, we started our descent. For anybody who thinks that climbing down a mountain is much easier than climbing up it, we challenge them to do it. The ground was still very boggy even that high up and no step was assured. Extremely tough on the knees, the descent went smoothly, but too slowly. We were following the ravine between the two mountains, but it was rocky and unstable. At one point, Katie bashed her knee into a rock, causing immediate pain and bruising and then a few minutes later, stepped onto a large rock (which should NOT have moved!) and fell on her butt. Although it sounds quite funny now, it wasn't at the time. The only benefit to falling so quickly again, was the fact that it made her knee hurt a little bit less. Dan was a little more sure footed, but tripped a few times too as his legs began to tire. In this manner, we continued on down the mountain. As we could now see the road, we had a good idea where to go, but time was running out. We decided to get down to the treeline and follow a fence that we could see there. This caused some problems as well due to the unstable nature of the ground and the pain and fatigue we were feeling. At one point, Katie sat down in tears, ready to give up, but Dan wouldn't let her. After some tense words being exchanged (for which all was forgiven later), she got up and we continued onwards. At this point, we didn't know how far we were from the road, but the watch said 5:15 and we still couldn't see it. On the point of desperation, we looked through the trees and saw a path and then just a little further down the path, was the road!!! After this point, we started laughing and walking faster...especially when we reached the path and could walk on solid ground again.

We reached the road at 5:22 and sat down. Although there were cars whizzing by, we didn't see the bus and were afraid that we had missed it. But low and behold, it was running late and it came at 5:25. We laughed, flagged it down, and hopped on board. Tony, Jean's husband, was on board going home and he laughed when he saw us, telling Jean later that we looked like two drowned rats. Upon reaching Iona, we went home, showered, changed, and took ourselves out to dinner as a reward. After all, we had climbed for 6 HOURS, basically non-stop, up to a height of 500 meters (1640 feet) and needed some R&R. During the course of the meal, Dan said, 'if I ever suggest climbing any other mountain, please just hit me in the head and say, do you remember Beinn Talaidhe??' Katie agreed and we both went home to bed!:)

So, that has been our adventure for the week. Long story today, but now you all know why we didn't write yesterday.

We hope that you are all doing very well and we miss you all bunches!!

test picture - take 2

2005-08-03T09:01:00.000-04:00

Letter from Iona - #8

2005-08-03T08:55:00.000-04:00

Hi all:

Sadly today we have been unable take our exciting hike from Glen Forsa to Glen More on the Isle of Mull. It was going to be very exciting because we were to see a landing strip, a Piper Cub (airplane), a crashed DC-3 Dakota and hopefully some wild deer and beautiufl scenery. But, unfortunately, we have been rained out! That's okay though as it gives us more time to plan and put together some food for this adventure. Basically, it is an 8 mile hike (or 3 hours) from Glen Forsa to Glen More and would need to be started earlier in the day to make sure that we didn't miss the bus going back to Iona!!

Not much has happened here this week. Dan went to see a celtic harp concert on Sunday evening that was just amazing. The harpist is going to be travelling to Nova Scotia this fall on tour. Anyway, it was quite good.

Our plans for our onward journey are progressing and we look forward to it every single day. We are now at the half way point in our working as our last day is to be September 24th, leaving on the 25th.

By the way, our wedding date has been set too. We're just so proactive over here!!:) We're getting married on September 9th, 2006 and the craziness of planning is just beginning. But it's so much fun!:)

As the weather is clearing here now, we're planning a hike to the southern part of the island today and of course, Scooter will be making the trek as well. Pics to follow, I'm sure.

Anyway, we hope that the heat wave has broken in mid-southern Ontario now and that you are all enjoying the summer.

Letter from Iona - #7

2005-07-27T08:11:00.000-04:00

Wow....nearly two months!! Who would believe it!

Not much to report this week so Dan gets to type =) Finally I have relinquished the power... albeit temporarily!

Although our activities have been somewhat limited this week ironically Mother Nature has been fruitful with some amazing weather recently. Our most exciting day was without a doubt Sunday. Sheila, our employer, arrived in the bar at 2:45. She had heard that a large basking shark had been spotted on the morning Staffa run and suggested, as it was quiet, that I hop on the next boat and see if we can spot it. Katie had just started her break and Sheila gave the go ahead (as Katie may have been a little late for her evening shift) for Katie to come along, pending room on the boat.

While I waited for my relief to show up Katie ran and got jackets and the camera. I grabbed a bag of Prawn Cocktail crisps (or chips as we call them in North America) and managed to get on the boat. Off we went to Staffa while we desperately searched for a Dorsal fin or anything related to a large fish. Unfortunately nothing appeared, except for the dock at Staffa. We skipped out on the cave and this time went to the top of the island for a relaxing stroll while we waited for the boat to return. We spotted Gannets, Gulls, heard that infamous CornCrake and enjoyed the unique geological properties of the island.

The boat soon returned and we headed back to the Isle of Mull. Graham had told me that didn't have much time to search for the shark but they'd try a bit harder on the way back. The fish got away again as unfortunately we didn't see anything except jellyfish, birds and plenty of salt water. Not even our new friend Sammy the Seal made an appearance. I know we'll have other opportunities in the future. A little info about the Basking Shark.. it is the 2nd largest fish in the world after the Whale Shark. They have spotted a 15 foot long and a 25 foot long shark in the area. I'm certain we'll see one ... one day!

I mentioned Prawn Cocktail crisps in the above story. One of the quirks that we've found are the many different flavours of crisps that are available. I've sold plenty of Ready Salted, Salt & Vinegar, Ketchup (Tomato Sauce), Smokey Bacon (mmm!), Cheese & Onion, Prawn Cocktail and the brand new... Worcestershire Sauce (very mmm!!). Strange eh?

The website also lists their 'full arsenal'... some are quite frightening if you ask me.

Barbecue

Beef & Onion

Cheese & Onion

Heinz Tomato Ketchup

Marmite Yeast Extract

Pickled Onion

Prawn Cocktail

Ready Salted

Roast Chicken

Salt & Vinegar

Smoky Bacon

Worcester Sauce

Anyways, that will leave you either hungry or nauseated! That's all for this week. We shall enclose a few pictures from Staffa as we close out this weeks log.

Special congrats to Katie's cousin Brad and fiancee Jen! They have announced their engagement and the knot shall be tied next fall. 2 for 1 deal Brad?

That's all from Iona... for now.

Cheers,
Dan & Katie

Letter from Iona - Special Edition

2005-07-22T06:11:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

We thought we'd send out a special email after our adventures yesterday. You may need to set yourself up with a nice cup of tea as it may take a while to get through this. Here's how it went:

5:30 am - We awoke to the grey, overcast skies of another cloudy day here. But, thankfully we knew that the weather could change at any minute and so looked forward to some sunshine. Prepared our knapsacks with lots of food, sunscreen, mittens, camera, batteries, coats, and other necessities for a typical day in Scotland.

6:30 am - Left the house to walk to the Ferry station. Along the way, stopped in at the bakery to grab some breakkie....Dan had a chocolate square and Katie had a maple syrup flapjack (this is all that was ready at that time in the morning!).

7:00 am - Bought our return ferry tickets and the ferry left from Iona to Fionnphort. Uneventful ride, except we met a couple from Hobart, Tasmania on our way who were also going to the games.

7:10 am - Arrived in Fionnphort and transferred onto the bus.

7:30 am - Bought our return tickets and sat at the back for extra leg room for 'Long Legs Pergau'. This is the first time we've been on board anything that moves faster on the ground than the speed of our feet in over a month!! Saw Tony, the bus driving husband of our co-worker Jean when we picked him up in the small town of Bunnessen.

8:45 am - Arrived in Craignure feeling a bit quesy from sitting at the back of the bus. This was mostly due to the crazy driving over here, dodging sheep, cows, and cars! But that quickly passed and we stopped for a break.

9:00 am - Boarded another bus, buying another round trip ticket and headed off to Tobermory. By now, the weather was closing in and the mountains were beautifully covered by clouds! But the rain was only light and we were still optimistic that it would hold off.

10:00 am - Arrived in Tobermory. Visited a nice little art shop right where the bus dropped us off and asked about all of the 'Balamory' paraphenalia that we could see around the city. Apparently, this is a kids tv show that was filmed in Tobermory about 2 years ago. Now, all the kids come to see 'Jacko's Paint Shop' and other such things and it has really changed their entire tourism focus. Tobermory is a great place for this kind of thing as all of the buildings are already brightly painted and it looks like a little kids village anyway.

10:15 am - Finally found the pipe band that was to lead us to the Games Field. We had gotten off the bus one stop earlier than we should have and so, got a little bit lost. But all we had to do was listen for the pipes, and we found the little village with them playing there. As we waited, the MacLean Clan Cheiftans started walking towards us to the beat of the music from the drums and we all fell into the parade following the 'Pied Pipers' as they were, up the hill to the Games Field.

10:30 - 3:00 pm - Enjoyed watching the various events of the games, including a lot of highland dancing, triple jump, long jump, high jump, caber toss (throwing a big log as far as you can), hammer throws (throwing a hammer as far as you can), weight toss (throwing a weight as high as you can), and lots of running races. It was great fun and the sun even came out for a while. They had an excellent turnout and had a very diverse crowd. There were scouts there from Germany and France along with cyclists and other tourists from the USA, England, and Scotland.

3:00 pm - We decided to head back to where the buses were (in the town itself) as we didn't want to miss the last ferry back to Iona at 6:30. We weren't sure what time the bus left, but we were sure that with so many people there, it would probably run fairly often. Along the way, we stopped to buy Katie new shoes (hooray!! - no more blisters!), a new battery charger (hooray!! - no more dead batteries!), and the thing that did us in was the stop for ice cream (Katie's idea:( )

3:30 pm - We slowly made our way to the buses (there were two), munching on our ice creams and enjoying the nicer weather. As we came up to the bus stop, one of the buses (that looked full) departed. There was still another bus waiting there, so we went to the door to get on it. Then disaster struck. The driver told us that the bus that had just left was the last bus until 5:50!!!! This meant that there was no way we could catch the 6:30 ferry to Iona let alone get home that night. However, the driver did give us some hope in saying that when the next bus left for Craignure at 5:50, one of the drivers took his bus to Bunnessen for the night, which is only 6 miles from Fionnphort. There is a little boat called the Volante that does a late night run for £5 each from Fionnphort to Iona. This was our best hope.

3:40 pm - Headed to bar after a slight reaction to the news. No worries though as there were no tears, only a few choice words and a few regrets for a certain ice cream stop. We figured that there were four options available to us.
1. Stay in Tobermory overnight and try to get back in the morning. This was not a valid option as we had to get to work by 12:00 pm and if we stayed, we would arrive back at 2 pm.
2. Hitch a ride to Craignure and try to catch the earlier bus that would meet the 6:30 pm ferry.
3. Go to Craignure at 5:50 and stay overnight there. Then, catch a bus in the morning to Fionnphort and get back to Iona at 10:45 am. This was a strong possibility.
4. Go to Bunnessen with the other driver and walk to Fionnphort, hoping to catch the Volante before it left at 8:30 pm.
Our first course of action was to cancel out option one. It obviously wouldn't work. Then, we saw some of the Mull and Iona Piping Society coming to the carpark after the games. If you recall, we sent pics of them from their trip to Iona last week, where Dan saw them play and talked to some of them. Being the very brave person that he is (and after much prodding and encouragement from the chicken, Katie), Dan walked brazenly up to one of the drummers and told him how much we enjoyed their music that day and then went into our sob story. Sadly, although the fellow was willing to give us a ride, there was no room in the inn as he had his entire family with him:(. So, plan number 2 didn't work. Dejected, Dan walked over to some sailboats that were moored on the land and started formulating plan number 5. Katie saw that this could lead to disaster and talked some sense into him:). This left us with options 3 & 4.
4:30 pm - Back at the bar, eating an apple, and drinking some apple juice. We called the Craignure Travel Information Centre to see if there were any rooms available that night and there were a few, so Katie took down the numbers of the establishments in case we needed them.
5:30 pm - The other buses had come in to take all of the people to Craignure. We went over to the bus drivers and met Anda who would be taking his bus to Bunnessen that evening. He said that he would be happy to take us as far as he could. Then, Katie had an epiphany. She remembered that Jean and Tony (we work with Jean at the restaurant and Tony is a bus driver) live in Bunnessen and wondered if Anda knew Tony. He did and pulled out his cell phone to give us their phone number. Katie called right away to see if they might be able to give us a ride to Fionnphort to catch the Volante, but nobody was home. Don't worry, said Anda, Tony will be home by 6:00 pm.

5:50 pm - Bus left with us onboard surrounded by a bunch of French scouts. They were rather rambunctous and loud, but they weren't that bad after a while. And then they started singing along with the elevator music playing on the bus, which included such selections as Feelings, When a Man Loves a Woman, Yesterday, and Ode to Joy. We were quite joyous when we reached Craignure and everybody but us left the bus.

6:15 pm - Reached Tony. He said he'd be glad to take us Fionnphort, just have the bus drop us off at his gate and walk up to the house. We're going to buy them a nice bottle of scotch as thanks for this.

6:30 pm - We left for Bunnessen with just Anda and us on the bus. Beautiful drive during which we saw a buzzard, two herons, 2 red deer, and lovely mountains and valleys. Also, Dan found out about a Canadian DC-3 that crashed into one of the hills during the war and there are still plane remains up on the hill. New project for Dan? Climb that hill!!!

7:30 pm - Arrived at Jean and Tony's gate. Thanked Anda and walked up the hill. We were met by Jean at the door and invited in for tea as the boat didn't leave until 8 pm. We had a nice chat with them and saw the new house that Tony is building on the adjacent property as his 'spare time project'.

7:45 pm - Drove to Fionnphort to catch the Volante. Said goodbye to Jean, Tony, and Sophie the dog, as the Volante came in. Then, the biggest excitement of the day (for Katie) happened. A huge grey seal popped his head out of the water right beside the pier!! We had heard about Sammy the Seal, but hadn't seen him. He is a massive Grey seal that all of the fishermen feed and he's pretty tame. So, we got some great shots of him in the water.

8:10 pm - Volante leaves Fionnphort pier for Iona.

8:13 pm - Volante arrives in Iona (a heck of a lot faster than the ferry!!). We disembarked and headed into the bar for some much needed food and drink. We had spicy wedges, J2O (juice), and tablet ice cream for dinner.

9:00 pm - Headed home for well deserved rest and relaxation before today's work begins.

One day, we will learn that ice cream is bad for you and you shouldn't eat it, but that day was certainly not yesterday.

Hope you enjoy this and if you need to take a nap in the middle of it, we understand as we know it's long.

Letter from Iona - 6

2005-07-20T17:35:00.000-04:00

Hello All:

So here's what's been up this week.

We've had some wacky weather going on with days that start out beautiful and sunny, then 30 minutes later it's raining cats and dogs outside, then sun, then gusty wind, then rain, then cloud, then sun again.........Right now, the motto is, just wait 30 minutes and it'll be a totally different day outside. However, because of all these weather changes, we've been priviledged to experience 2 beautiful rainbows! We've attached a pic of one here, but the one yesterday was a double rainbow!! Sadly, we weren't able to grab the camera in time for that one. Katie was working, and Dan was reading.

Katie also saw an otter yesterday in the water outside of work. Apparently last year there was a whole family of them that lived at the bottom of the pier and they were seen quite frequently. But so far this year, this is the first otter that they've seen.

The other excitement for this week was the Mull and Iona Piping Society that visited us last Friday. Dan was able to catch them in action as they piped up the hill to the Village Hall playing 'Scotland the Brave'! There was a good turn out and in such a small hall, the music was very loud, but enjoyable. There was also a flutist, guitarists, vocalist, and a fiddler. Dan, of course, felt a pang of sadness when he saw the fiddle as it made him miss Felix (his fiddle), but he thoroughly enjoyed hearing the music and making small talk with a number of the musicians afterwards. He then followed them to the pub to meet me after work as we said goodbye to our kiwi friend Jess. She's left now and has been replaced by two Aussies. They only arrived two days ago and we haven't had much chance to get to know them as they live in the flat above the Spar Shop.

Our biggest excitement by far will be tomorrow as we once again leave the Isle of Iona and this time head to the Isle of Mull where we will attend the Tobermory Highland Games. The Piping Society will be there as well and there will be music, dancing, and athletics. This means that we worked today, but will have tomorrow off. We'll be up for the 7 am ferry (much to Katie's chagrin and Dan's happiness!) and onto the bus to Craignure. Then we switch buses and head to Tobermory. We're really looking forward to some new scenary and fun for a day. We'll be sure to take pics and have stories to tell next week.

Other than that, there's not much else to tell except that we wish the Harry Potter fans all the best in the release of the latest book and hope that they all enjoy reading it!

Until next week!

Letter from Iona - 5

2005-07-13T15:19:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

We've had quite the week! We experienced 4 days of 'Scottish Fog' from Thursday through till Monday morning. Monday we awoke to blue sky and cirrus clouds! It was quite an ordeal to get the motivation to head to work. As luck turned out we both got the afternoon off and we decided to become beach bums. Across from 'our' house is a small beach which is usually jellyfish and seaweed free, which was the case on that Monday. Katie, being part fish, of course showed me up and ran right in. I needed a bit more coaxing but eventually bit the bullet and threw caution to the wind. Another reason for the quick dip was to wash off some hair. Katie kindly once again put on her barber hat and gave me a much needed brush cut (#2 this time!).

Because of last Wednesday's lovely weather, we chose to climb to the summit of Dun' I again. We've attached a couple of the pics from there, including one of Scooter, standing at the very highest point on the whole island! We also discovered the Well of Eternal Youth, which Dan promptly drank some of. We'll see what comes of that! We then had the idea that we might find some seals on the north end of the island as some have been spotted there, so we walked up to that end, but alas there were none to be found. After this, we had reservations at the restaurant for dinner (to celebrate our anniversary). We ate & drank so much!!! Afterwards, we found our way home and had a lovely sleep. One of the nice things about working here is that we generally don't start until 11 or 12 o'clock. This means that we can choose to either sleep in (which Katie does frequently), or get up early and go food shopping or do more reading (Dan does this a lot!).

Today, we had the most excitment of our whole time here. The owners of the restaurant are all a family with 3 sisters working together. Their brother doesn't work in the restaurant, but operates a sightseeing boat company to islands of Treshnish and Staffa. Because we are employed by the three sisters, we were able to hop onto this boat for a 5 hour sightseeing trip FOR FREE!! This was quite a bonus as it usually runs about £17.50 per person for just one island. On the Treshnish Islands, we saw puffins (see pics below), and almost saw a basking shark (one was reputedly in the area). The weather was lovely today and made for a nice boat trip. Then we headed to Staffa. On the way, we saw some great grey seals (much to Katie's delight!), and once on the island, visited Fingals' Cave. The Island of Staffa is said to be the other end of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, according to local legend. It was all formed by volcanoes, 60 million years ago! So, we saw puffins, comorants, gulls, seals, and a porpoise on the way back to Mull. There were probably lots of others, which Dan can now pick out in his brand new bird book.

The other excitement that we had due to nature was the appearance of a corncrake in our front yard! It would seem that this bird had a nest in our neighbours' yard and when our front yard grass was cut this week, it appeared one morning. We were lucky to grab a few shots of it and have included them here.

Other than all of that, things here progress well. We are still learning new skills at work (Dan improves at the bar with every shift) and are getting to know our co-workers better. Our friend Jess (from New Zealand) leaves this Saturday for Malaysia with her boyfriend Rob and then they are off to home. She's cool and we have an open invitation to visit whenever we can. She's from Queenstown and Dan thinks he may have eaten in her Aunt's restaurant.

As always, thanks for all of your comments and emails. As you can imagine, they mean a lot to us over here, a little isolated from the rest of the world. Your kind blog comments are always appreciated and welcome.

So long for now,
Dan & Katie

Letter from Iona - 4

2005-07-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

Wow, our fourth letter....that means already four weeks!! It seems in so many ways like a very short amount of time and yet we both feel like it has been so long since we saw our beloved Canada!

We hope that you all had a wonderful Canada Day (and Independance Day for our American friends). We celebrated here by wearing our cool sparkly Canada flag pins that Andi gave to Katie for her birthday before we left. We also received a great Canadian postcard from Nanny with a great letter with an update from her. To be nice to the other Canadians here, we made them little Canadian flags and gave them out at work. They were very excited as they didn't have anything!

Things here have been fairly nice this week. Last Wednesday after our update, we scaled the monstrous Dun' I (the local 'mountain'). Its summit is 101 metres tall and it took us all of 15 minutes to climb from top to bottom. We had some help with our climb though as it was soooooo windy that it felt as if we were being pushed to the top. Sadly, because it was too cloudy, and we didn't have any batteries, there were no pictures taken. But we are resolved to climb it again today (we have new batteries) and take some nice landscape shots. The view is incredible. You can see all of the island as well as a substantial amount of Mull, Staffa, Ulva, and possibly even Ireland (although Dan doesn't think so).

On another note, we have seen the illusive Corncrake!(Yes, it does exist!) We figured that as it was so shy, we would have to go on a hunt for it. But sometimes, things are much easier than you think they will be. We had the window open in our room (due to the immense amount of cigarette smoke from our lovely housemates:( and we heard the tell tale 'cck cck' call of the corncrake. Katie popped her head outside and there it was sitting on a log in our neighbour's backyard. Dan says, 'are you sure that is it?' and Katie said....'I don't know, let's just watch it for a second'. As if on cue, it opened it's mouth and said 'cck cck'!! So, not having a camera, we were unable to take a picture, but we're quite certain that we'll see it again, and then we'll be ready!

Yesterday was our 2nd anniversary together. To celebrate, we're going out for dinner tonight (as Katie had to work last night) and today is our day off. As a surprise, Katie gave Dan a great Scottish music book that she found in the shop across from the Restaurant. We've spent much time already trying various tunes out on the recorders (driving our neighbours crazy, I'm sure). More practice is necessary! Perhaps on a beach or a hill somewhere in the peaceful countryside. Then the only things that we can bother are the sheep or cows!

Anyway, off to Dun' I now and the north end of the island.

Test of image attaching

2005-07-02T04:55:00.000-04:00

Just a test

Thanks for the tip Cblog!

Letter from Iona - 3

2005-06-29T09:15:00.000-04:00

Hi All:

So this has been a week of minor challenges and exciting times. But don't worry, we're still speaking!:)

Dan's hair had taken on the look of a chia pet, so we decided it was time to pull out the shears. I went to the farmer next door and asked to borrow his sheep shears, but he would have none of it.....NOT!! We asked our boss and she had her mom bring down their clippers. Then, the fun began! Katie got home from work around 9:30 and Dan was anxiously awaiting her arrival, and hopped off the couch when she walked through the door. He'd been looking forward to this all week! So, after Katie read the instructions and completely prepared herself for this task, Dan says, "oh don't use the instructions, here's what we're going to do. Put the longest clipper on and just start at the back. That will give you practice and then we can get shorter. Oh, and can I have it longer on the top and shorter on the sides, and tapered on the edges and and and........" Katie said, NO! We'll do it like the instructions say. Anyway to make a long, painful story short, the hair has been cut and is beautiful (plus he still has both ears and is still talking to me....2 bonuses!). We'll have a pic soon which leads us to the next challenge of this week.

I am sad to tell you all that the battery charger has passed away. Unfortunately, it has ceased its operations and will no longer be providing its services. So, now we have a decision to make, whether to purchase a new charger or just use batteries for the camera. Thank goodness the IPOD doesn't take batteries too! :(

However, we did take a lovely walk last week up behind the house (on the Hill of the Frog, Dad P) and over to the Atlantic side of the island. From there, Dan yelled "Hello Canada" as this was the closest we have been to home, but alas, there was no reply other than crazy oyster catcher calls (these ones are kinder than those in N.Z.!) and the relentless gulls (Katie's mortal enemy!). We explored this area and the golf course, see attached pics and then walked through the middle of the island via the village. For all of you birders (Pergau's and Comfort's), there is a mysterious bird here called the corncrate. It has a very raspy call and is extremely hard to spot. We have yet to see one (although we are only casually looking). Someone came into the bar the other day and said that they spotted 31 over their time here. It is a sanctuary for them here and apparently Dan now has the inside scoop of where to spot them. More to come on that!

The wildflowers, buttercups, and daisies are all in bloom here now and make for beautiful fields on nice sunny days. Yesterday the temperature was probably between 25-28 celsius, but with the ever blowing wind it made it quite nice to walk in. Very little humidity here which is interesting as we are so close to the water.

The coolest incident this week happened on Saturday. We had over 150 people in the restaurant (tour groups) and Katie was serving food like crazy while Dan was super busy in the bar. All of the sudden, people stood up from their tables and started looking and pointing out the windows towards the Sound. Out there in the sunlight, you could see a motorboat toodling around in the water, seemingly just wasting time, fishing. Suddenly, out of the water came three fins, leaping out of the water around the boat.....DOLPHINS!! Katie and the serving staff were so excited that all food serving stopped as all watched them playing with the boat. Sadly nobody got to the bar in time with the news to let Dan know what was happening, but apparantely once they are here, they come back often.

Anyway, I think that's all that there is to let you know about this week. Again, we hope that you are all safe and happy back home, miss you all bunches, and love you all very much.

Letter from Iona - 2

2005-06-22T06:59:00.000-04:00

Hi Again All:

So, it looks like Wednesdays are now our regular day off. It's nice to have something to look forward to!!

Things here are going along quite nicely in this sleepy little island. We have two new roommates, one from Fife (Eastern Scotland) and the other is the sister of Agni from Lithuania. So we now have 4 housemates which is interesting with only 1 bathroom, but we seem to manage ok. Sadly, we had a death in the household this week as one of the girls broke the washing machine by putting in a huge duvet that was way to big for the machine to handle. So, Dan, being the man of the house, took the machine apart, found the broken belt and gave the sad news to our bosses' husband. Soon, we will have either a new belt or a new washing machine, but regardless, there will be no more washing of duvets!!

Let's see, what else.....I will pause and ponder....oh! Katie was attacked by a seagull on Sunday when we went outside to eat our lunch. She had made a beautiful stuffed roll (for us North American types, that's a sandwich!) with chips and a square, when out of the blue, this attack gull went on a kamikaze mission and dove for her sandwich, snatching it off of her plate before she'd even taken a bite! Thankfully nobody was injured in this event, but the seagull almost died when Dan threatened to take it out by throwing rocks at it. We didn't think that would go over well with the guests sitting there watching, but the staff would have been happy!:)

One story that should be told about Edinburgh was our haunted walk that we took. We were told by one of our Irish roommates at the hostel that it's fun to take a haunted walk in the dark. Because it doesn't get dark up here until 10 or 10:30 pm and we were going to do a lot of walking the next day, we chose to do this around 7:00 pm when it was still light. In the end it didn't matter because they took us into the underground streets of Edinburgh where it is basically pitch black anyway. There was an entire city that existed under there in the 1600's, and now they say it is haunted by this or that ghost. All of the underground part of the tour was lit only by the guide's flashlight. Katie's hand might have been turning a different shade of blue due to the squeezing that Dan was doing of it, but she was holding his pretty tight as well. We toured through different rooms, seeing witches sacred pentagrams and circles of stones until we reached the final room. (There were only 5 of us on the tour, by the way). Here, she split up the two guys and the three girls and put them on opposite sides of the room. Then she started talking about this poltergeist that lived in the room and after talking it up a lot, she turned off the light. The next thing we knew, somebody came running in from the hall, grabbed one of the girls from behind, scared the beejesus out of all of us (somebody screamed like a little girl, but I won't say who........Dan!) and ran out of the room. With that the tour was over and we headed back up to civilization. Dan had a good shot of straight whisky to calm his nerves and we took off for the hostel.

So, that's it for today. We hope that you're all doing well and we'll write again next week.

For now, so long!

Letter from Iona - 1

2005-06-15T06:51:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

So, here it is....we've been here for almost a week and had lots of fun. Our first 3 days were absolutely gorgeous with sunshine and warm weather. The last few days have left a bit to be desired. It's funny though, even when it is raining outside, the area is still beautiful. We've had a few close encounters with some sheep as they snuck through the gate in the back yard and came bawling up to our window before taking off for the front yard where the gate was open and onto the road! Dan and I watched, sure that one would meet its doom with a passing car (yes there are cars on the island, but only for local residents and delivery trucks), but thankfully a collie came along and scared them back into the yard. The next day, the back gate was fixed and the front gate closed, so they are no longer our close neighbours, but we still see them from a distance and can certainly hear them well into the night. Speaking of night, it doesn't get dark here until 11:30 pm and morning dawns as early as 4:30 am!! Makes it a little difficult to sleep sometimes, but also makes it nice for walking home from work late at night.

There are no locks on anything here as it is a very close knit and friendly community of people. We've now met all of the staff and each one of them is interesting in their own way. As Dan told you earlier, Vicki and Danielle are from Canada. We've also met Jess from Queenstown, NZ; Sian from Glasgow; Agni from Lithuania; Donna from Yorkshire; Shauna from Iona; and a couple of girls from Mull who work in the kitchen but don't speak much. The restaurant and the Spar are owned by the same family with the three girls, Sheila, Dan, and Eilee working in the kitchen and the shop. Their brother also operates the boat to Staffa to see the Puffins and their Dad is known as the local rich guy celebrity on the island.

Katie is working in the kitchen mostly, but has been put onto the night shift to help with taking orders, serving food and drinks and clearing tables. She's also been helping with the food prep of making sandwiches in the mornings, peeling potatoes and carrots, and making salads. Dad, thanks for always making me set the table properly as the knowledge has come in handy here a lot!

Dan has become Bar Man Joe.....you can ask him for pretty much any kind of shot, mixed drink, lager, dark or light ale, coffee, tea, cappuccino, espesso, you name it, he can make it. No one's died yet, so he must be doing ok:) The first day, they had him peeling carrots and potatoes, but then saw his other talents for making drinks and ever since, he's been behind the bar.....or at least cleaning it.

Our house is a special kind of house. We've added a link here so that you can see it.
http://www.tobermory.co.uk/panorama/aerialimages/iona/memi.jpg
It's the fourth house from the left in the picture.
First of all, it has been scheduled for demolition for about three years now according to Sheila, but they just haven't gotten around to doing that yet. There is no central heating in the house, but they've given us large space heaters and after we stole one for our room, we were okay. We also have large duvets for each bed and linens that they've provided, which was nice. One morning we woke up to no electricty because the meter had run out, so Dan nicely got up at 5:30 am, took a £ (pound), stuck it into the meter and turned the crank. Now don't worry because it doesn't cost us a cent. As soon as you turn the crank, the £ comes flying back out at you and you can reuse it over and over.
The microwave works quite nicely as long as you bang it hard enough in just the right place which goes for the living room light as well. Our two housemates are having a war about cleaning right now and have nightly arguments with Donna yelling at Agni in highpitched Yorkshire english and Agni saying back in her Lithuanian accent..."I don't want to talk to you right now Donna..." We just lay down and laugh into our pillows.
All in all, it is truly an experience.....we're slightly sorry that we didn't get into the Spar shop housing where the rest of the girls are as they have wooden cabinets, skylights, seperate bathrooms, and personal tv's. In the end it doesn't really matter because we aren't home enough to worry about it. We've both been working for 4 days now and have already worked 35 hours each....money money money!

Anyway, we miss you all bunches and will keep you updated with our "Letters from the Isle of Iona" (Anybody who has heard Wingfield CD's will appreciate that)

Love to you all,
Dan & Katie

Safe on Iona!

2005-06-11T05:34:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

Katie is doing some food shopping so I've snuck up to check the hotel here in Iona. It is the only place with Internet access. We arrived safe and sound from a whirlwind travel adventure yesterday. We went by rail, water, road, water (again!) and by road (again!) and got to Iona earlier then planned. We're living in a small cottage which is a 5 minute walk out of town. So far the weather has been gorgeous with no hint of rain and just a few clouds. Iona is spectacular with gorgeous hills, lots of sheep (in fact they are some of our neighbours) and all sorts of visitors. We've met most of our co-workers. Our fellow canucks are: Vicki, who is from Saskatchewan and Danielle is from Nova Scotia.

We are safe and enjoying our adventures. We've put internet cafe in our budget so we'll have 15 minutes to check email/update the blog each week.

It looks like we'll be 'floaters' so we may both be working in the restaurant, cafe, bar and spar shop.

Edinburgh was amazing... we'll have heaps to tell everyone soon.

My time is short so I'm signing off.

Love,
Dan & Katie

We made it!!

2005-06-08T04:09:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

Just checking in... we arrived in Glasgow at appx. 11pm Eastern Time on June 7th. We made our way with two other canucks (Julie and Andrea) to Edinburgh. We are now using the internet "cafe" PC at the Castle Rock Hostel to send this update to you!

Love and hugs to all

Dan & Katie

One sleep to go!

2005-06-06T20:34:00.000-04:00

As Katie would say 'One sleep to go'. Wow, tomorrow at this time we should be over Newfoundland! We've been camping out in Peterborough for the last 3 days having a great time with friends and family. For our last evening of Canadian living for some time we went to the superb (and free!) Peterborough Zoo. The cougars were certainly living a dream life as they were hiding out in their enclosure enjoying the cool breeze of the evening. One cougar even had his/her head on the door frame appearing to have a snooze! One day I'll be doing that but in a hammock!

Off to re-pack the 80 litre bag! Our next posting will be from Scotland! For those who like to track flights we're flying on Zoom 276 (ICAO code: OOM276). The aircraft type is a 767-300ER.

A link for a photo of one of Zoom's 767s can be found here:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/853204/L/

All the best - Dan

More details about the proposal...

2005-06-02T07:06:00.000-04:00

Once the ring was ready (I had done so much research on that my brain hurt) I laid out the plan for the proposal.

I should start with a story that our friend Fred Pattison told me. His great Aunt Isabella and her beloved soldier friend were dating when he was called to war. He left her a farewell present and then departed. She was so heart-broken that he did not propose before he left that she never opened the present! She died of a broken heart years later. Meanwhile our soldier friend, never having heard from his beloved Isabella, was tragically killed in the war. Isabella's family were clearing her stuff and found this package. It was opened and it was a pair of gloves with a suspicious bulge in the left glove's ring finger. It was indeed a ring and it was the soldier's way of proposing!

So the plan was set... A rose arrived at Katie's work asking her to meet me at the War Memorial at 6pm. I met her there and after discussing about how we could wait for a bit before eating (phew) we started on our walk. Katie offered to put my jacket (which I was carrying) into my backpack and proceeded to open the bag... Wait! There's a gift for you (oops, well I can't keep a secret to save my skin) So our walk started with Katie's curiousity in full tilt. Major Hill's Park was blocked off for the Tulip Festival so a walk along the Ottawa River below Parliament Hill was decided.

I finally saw a bench that was empty and suggested we sit down. Out came the package and Katie was happy to open it. Toe Socks (they came with the gloves) emerged and she just loved this. A few minutes later I suggested that she should keep looking in the box, and so emerged the gloves (which matched the toe socks). A wrapped ring emerged from the left glove and tears were flowing. Katie unwrapped the ring which I promptly borrowed. I got on my knee and said: "This is the part when I get on my knee... I love you; You are the best thing to ever happen to me; Will you marry me?" While I uttered these words I was putting the ring on the wrong hand... oops! I corrected that nervously and with a bit of an embarassed look.

There was a brief stunned silence and finally she said Yes! Many more tears and 5 minutes later she was on the cellphone to her parents with the news. Now secretly I had made reservations at the Courtyard restaurant per a suggestion from Katie's Mom. We made it on time and of course the entire staff there knew about this. Bill and Barb (Katie's parents) had sent a card and a bottle of champagne to start off our meal! I had no idea and I really appreciated the surprise!!

A lot of people knew I was going to propose but I only really decided how just a few hours before the big event. As my Dad asked a few days prior: "Who doesn't know about all this (meaning the proposal)" I thought for a few seconds and replied "Just Katie!" Thank you everyone for keeping a great secret! - Dan

Checking in from London, Ontario

2005-06-02T06:57:00.000-04:00

The first part of our journey has been accomplished. Katie, myself and the 24' truck we rented are safe and sound in London. We decided to move all of our belongings to my Grandmother's farm house which has a very large basement space which will be ideal for storage. Driving the 24' truck on the 417/416/401 was interesting to say the least!

We definitely made the rounds before leaving Ottawa last week. We had dinner with our friends Charles and Valerie and their family, dropped in with my Uncle John and Aunt Danielle (in fact crashed at their house on May 31!) and made good bye calls to others that unfortunately we ran out of time to visit.

We had a great sendoff from Ottawa thanks to the handbell festival committee and our great friend Nicole Jeffrey. I managed to stuff in a 'Bells over Ottawa' T-Shirt into my 80 litre trekking bag so it will be making appearances over in the UK and Europe.

As our reward for getting everything ready to be moved by the end of May 30th we set a goal to take Nicole to see the latest Star Wars movie, which was excellent. We are going to miss you 'Scooter'!

While we're in London for a few days I'll be taking the time to help out around the farm and my parent's house. The grass is quite long so you can guess on my mission for the day!

Have a great day all! Our next journey is a bus ride to Peterborough. We will catch the 4am bus on June 4th - Dan

She said Yes!!

2005-05-25T08:57:00.000-04:00

Katie and I have been very busy getting ready for the handbell festival (OGEHR's 20th festival here in Ottawa!) and moving our stuff to London before the big flight. However I wanted to get one thing done before things got really crazy!!

I've been wanting to propose for a few months now... and the original plan was to propose to her while we were away. However a month ago I realised I was crazy to do that as I wanted her to have a chance to tell her family and friends in person. The quest for the ring began and ended with a great result. I proposed on May 19th and she said Yes!

More about the proposal itself after all the craziness is done here in Ottawa.

Have a great day! - Dan

Flight review - Dream achieved!

2005-04-21T06:56:00.000-04:00

What started out way back on October 31st, 2000 has finally come true. That was the date of my first flight lesson with Joe Mulkins. It was that day that I really started to hope that my dream of flying to London, Ontario to see my family would come true.

One thing you must understand is that I LOVE aviation. My Grandmother lives beside the London airport and I remember with great detail falling in love with airplanes when visiting my Grandparents when I was young. I love the sight, sound (now at least) and yes even the smell of anything to do with aviation. It is in my blood and I shall forever be in love with it.

My relationship with aviation has been taxing at times. There was my first airshow which my Dad took me too. We left during the then Blue Angel’s equipped Douglas A-4 Skyhawk team show because of my screaming. I just could not bear the ‘agony’ of the noise!

Dan Pascoe, a renowned airliners.net photographer has this photo from the very same airshow weekend as the event mentioned above. You can view it by clicking on this link: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/305060/L/

During my Cub Scout days we were given the oppourtunity to fly over Niagara Falls for a winter experience that we’d never forget! Just imagine having the privilege of viewing this famous landmark from the air! I remember climbing aboard the Air Ontario Convair-580 and grabbing a window seat. We cruised over Niagara Falls and I was ‘wowed’ by the ice and steam at this wonder of nature. Perhaps it was the water or steam but I suddenly seemed to need some Coke, and a lot of it. Several glasses later I was filling bags left and right as we flew through turbulence on the approach back in to London. As we exited the plane I remember falling to my knees and kissing the asphalt of the tarmac thanking God for my return to earth.

Dan Pascoe has an excellent photograph of an Air Ontario CV-580 at airliners.net. You can view it here: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/231328/L/

On October 28th, 2004 I earned my private pilots’ license thanks to the help of some excellent instructors. Joe, Derek, Aaron, Kate and all the staff at OAS (Ottawa Aviation Services) are the best and I can’t thank them enough for all their coaxing, encouraging and endless patience during my lessons. I can only hope that they know just how much their teaching and my license means to me. My family, of course, is a huge support. Mom, Dad, Karen and Nanny (my Grandmother), from afar, have supported me financially and emotionally in ways they will never know. Last but definitely not least… Katie, my always patient girlfriend, was a HUGE help in my flight test and written exam studies. We started dating on July 5th, 2003 and I don’t think she had any idea what she was getting herself into!! She’s my best co-pilot, my best friend and most importantly she completes me. I didn’t know my potential before I met her and now I know I’ve only just begun!

So what do you do to celebrate all of this? Why, achieve your dream of course! Katie and I started planning our big trip months ago and used my Dad’s birthday as a great reason to do the flight. We have a couple of other things on the go right now too… we’re helping coordinate an amazing Bell Festival which will be held in Ottawa in late May and we’re getting ready for a big trip to Scotland and Europe in early June. To say that we’re busy and financially stretched would be an understatement! I told her at least a few times that we better save our money and rent a car but she insisted that we do this. Dreams should come true after all!

The weekend was absolutely beautiful. The temperatures were very warm and the skies clear. I think other factors were coming into play! The day before the flight I was very anxious to go but a bit nervous as well. I had never flown through Toronto airspace so I didn’t know what to expect. I made the decision to GO bright and early on Saturday morning. My flight planning was done and re-checked a few times. We decided on going the ‘south route’ along the Lake Ontario shoreline to avoid Pearson airport. I wanted a nice view on the flight after all.

Arriving at OAS early on Saturday Donna broke the news… 4 planes were out with snags. On such a beautiful day… what a shame! It seems my luck was holding out. For a while I’ve known that Mother Nature and airplanes like to play games with me. Something inside me knew that everything would work out though. Our departure time was pushed from 9am to 10am. James, the mechanic arrived and all was fixed. We strapped C-GAIC to our backs and off to Peterborough we went!

The flight to Peterborough for gas/break was amazingly smooth and went extremely well. Katie did a fantastic job following the map and we arrived with no glitches. Katie’s Mom and Dad met us at the airport as we had planned and welcomed us, as always, with open arms. They too have been very supportive of my dream and their encouragement means a great deal to me. I was able to fulfill my first promise of the day and we helped Katie’s dad, Bill, get strapped into the Katana. Off we went with camera, video recorder and 2 fairly big guys in the brave Katana for a circuit and a city tour. Bill quickly familiarized himself with the area and was able to find a TV tower near their house. In just a few minutes we were orbiting the area and Bill had switched to paparazzi mode. Katie and Barb (Katie’s Mom) had returned to the house in the meantime and were able to see us flying over! Upon the return to Peterborough we bid farewell to Katie’s folks, got refueled, filed a new flight plan and headed off to London.

Toronto airspace, I’ve decided, is really a wonder upon itself. I have much respect for Air traffic controllers and what they do in that airspace is nothing short of miraculous. While it’s true that Pearson airport is not ‘too’ busy on an early weekend afternoon… that’s not taking into account every General Aviation pilot with any common sense getting his/her airplane dusted off and heading to the airspace on a gorgeous Saturday! East of Toronto was relatively quiet, over Toronto was busy, west of Toronto was… insane! On top of it all, we were flying over Lake Ontario… which probably is not the most comfortable feeling, for someone not crazy about heights. Katie put on a brave face and stayed calm and collected just like a pro! Soon enough we were clear of the madness and west of Woodstock with London in sight!

Nanny’s house is just north of the runway 27 threshold. I knew for my dream to be reached I needed to land on that runway. Nope, the airport wasn’t good enough ;) My heart sank a bit when I heard the wind definitely did not favour that runway. We flew by Nanny’s house north of the airport and entered the left hand approach for runway 15. After landing, we taxied to Empire Aviation (which had kindly waved my parking fee for the 3 night stay), outside of which my parents and family friend Dr. Pattison patiently waited! Of course there were hugs, kisses and pats on the back all around.

Our friend Dr. Pattison is one of a kind. He is a retired medical doctor, he volunteered at a nearby prison at which he helped prisoners with their problems, and he is an excellent pianist and … a former Tiger Moth pilot! He is one of my heroes and a great friend. We jammed quite often during my London days and I have fond memories of tackling some tricky violin sonatas with Fred at the piano. Fred had just returned from Scotland the day before but he braved his jet-lag and came to greet us. Thanks to his effort I was able to fulfill my second promise of the day. Fred and I took off and did 3 circuits on runway 15. He was grinning from ear to ear and I know he was remembering his flying days.

The weekend was a busy one with our schedule jam-packed until Monday afternoon. It was Mom and Dad’s turn to go for a flight! Dad was on a school bus run so Mom was the first passenger of the day. On the way we picked up Nanny so I could give her a brief rundown of the Katana. Katie and Nanny headed off to the ‘spotting area’ and it was time for Mom and me to get ready. After a detailed briefing off we went to do some circuits. The wind was calm on Monday, however for the sake of seeing Nanny’s farm and Fanshawe Lake we stayed with runway 15. I was in the zone and made ‘greaser’ touch-and-goes much to my delight. Mom isn’t a great lover of flying, in fact I know she gets nervous, but on our flight she was calm, cool and collected. I was pointing out sights to her and she was taking it all in. I’m very proud of her and thank her for letting me show my appreciation for all of her support. Two circuits were enough for Mom and we headed back to Empire to get Dad.

My Father, who celebrated his 60th birthday on April 20th, knows all about dreams. He has wanted a Harley-Davidson motorcycle forever and finally this past March, he got it! He was kind enough to give me a ride home on Saturday on the Harley-Davidson and I was anxious to return the favour. Off we went for more circuits on 15 while I pointed out sights and answered whatever questions he had. On our second circuit I spotted the family at Nanny’s farm (running her home) and I gave them a ‘waggle’ of the wings to say Hello! With the winds calm now was the time to achieve my dream. The tower controller granted my request for an approach and landing on runway 27 and the stage was set. We landed on 27, I shared my appreciation with the tower controller and we taxied back to Empire Aviation for the last time.
Tuesday morning, with rain and storms threatening Ontario in the early afternoon we headed out as early as we could. Again we were treated with smooth air and a quick and steady tailwind! We made record time to Peterborough and Ottawa and returned the plane to her owners.

So what’s next? I have plenty of new dreams now that I have the key to new possibilities! Now that I have the private license I can continue to learn, improve and earn new ratings, type endorsements and licenses in the future! Thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way… you know who you are! I’ve only just started…

All the best to you and yours!

Dan Pergau
flyingfiddler@gmail.com
http://flyingfiddler.blogspot.com/

The mysterious violin maker

2005-02-10T07:04:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I've been trying to dig up some history on the man who made my violin. The best I can make out his name is 'Joseph Krotshmann'. The label says that the violin was made in 1840 and then there is some german text under his name. I haven't been able to figure that out yet.

In other news, Katie and I paid a visit to Bill from Perry Sound in the Transport Canada hangar last Sunday! I was like a kid in a candy store!! I'm still sorting through the pictures. We also went for our first flight of 2005 and had a great time! The ride was smooth but unfortuantely the visibility was quite low (4sm at best). Have a super day!

2004-11-17T06:27:00.000-05:00

Good morning!

Wow 2 posts in one day...

Here's a picture from Hailey's christening way back on October 31st. Proud Mom and Dad are with her too (of course). I was honoured to have been asked to be Hailey's GodFather! I look forward to spoiling her in the future and to make sure I am helping out where ever I am in the world.

Cory, Wendy and Hailey... my GodDaughter!