Scotland (again) and possibly the last trip for a little while...

Welcome back to Scotland! (who knows...in a few days it might actually be it's own country again! exciting stuff!)

This time we stayed at a National Trust property at Threaves Estate.  We didn't know it at the time but there is a wildlife sanctuary here.  If you ever get tired of all the sheep and coos you can get a bird book and start checking off the song birds, swans and ducks and birds of prey.  If you are looking for non-bird-like animals you will have to be more patient - or buy a bag of nuts.  Red squirrels are pretty hard to spot unless you fill a bird feeder with peanuts...if you are really lucky you might even spot an otter(no such luck for us), bats (again no luck) and there are of course those other type of "animals" that tend to fly by...we saw the RAF-hawks 3 days in a row!



Threaves Estate has a house that you can tour and a big garden where with all sorts of mini gardens in it.  It is actually quite interesting.  They also sell the garden veggies (really cheap too!) and they were so good...

they also grow other stuff here...though i'm not sure if this was actually edible or not...

Threaves Castle is a short drive away from the house and it's on a little island.  Don't forget to ring the bell to summon the ferryman...

...no coins required but if you want to come back you do need to pay at the little shack on the other side and show your receipt!

The castle itself isn't much of a castle these days - the floors and walls are long gone so you can see the shell and use your imagination!

Of course we didn't spend all our time in Threaves, we went to the beach...

...around here the tidal flats seem to go on forever

We stopped by Glasgow on the way home and took a ride on the clockwork orange...it's a loop - you either take the Inner ring or the Outer ring...super easy and cute but remember to hang on! It's a bit bumpy

And of course no trip would be complete without the exploration of different foods...
Scottish breaky!

Scottish Desserts - this is Cloutie dumpling and custard

Whisky!

and Tablet! (we did eat other things like steak pies and scotch pies but they didn't last long enough for a picture...)

Super Moon in Ottawa

We went to Ottawa recently to see some friends and watch some fireworks and conveniently it was also the right time to see the big "super moon"

The fireworks are usually held at Lac Lemy but this year they had them right downtown on the river.

Pretty sweet backdrop eh?  The Chateau Laurier is on the left and Parliament is directly behind.  We are actually sitting on the lawn of the Museum of History (formerly the Museum of Civilization)

The fireworks were pretty cool.  I must say that I wasn't expecting 80's pop, it was actually a nice surprise!  I think usually they use classical music...though nowadays unfortunately I think the 80's does count as "classic" music...

Here is the super moon again...it was just in the perfect spot!

And here is a brief touch of the grand finale - and I do mean brief...my video went a bit wonky...but think of this times about 30 seconds.  It seemed to me that they got to the end of their plan, realized they had a bunch of the budget left and decided to blow it all at the end...it was kind of crazy.

Babymoon in Africa

So technically we weren't in Africa for the full trip...but when have we ever been able to resist a detour?  For Vienna please see the link, and for those of you who haven't been following the blog, you can see the previous safari pics here Botswana

Welcome to South Africa!

For those of you wondering why we are doing a safari "again"...well once you've been you'll understand.  Personally I like seeing animals, love the thrill of spotting them in the bush and seeing animals *this* close is something you can't do anywhere else - unless you want to be dinner...

On this safari we went to two camps, one was on the border of Kruger - Kirkman's Kamp in Sabi Sands - and the other is on the south coast of SA and it's called Phinda (pronounced Pinda)

Of course people want to see the Big 5 - how about the Baby Big 5?

Baby Elephants

Baby Rhino

Baby Buffalo

Baby Leopard (so she's more of a teenager on the verge of getting kicked out of the house but she's only 14 months old, plus when she stares at you in the jeep with those big eyes you can see the childlike wonder in her eyes...wondering if we're edible or not...)

"Baby" Lions (so these guys are more along the lines of teenagers too but their Aunt still babies them so they deserve to be called babies)

OK OK... here's a real baby lion...note the tummy...he stuffed himself with wildebeest/gnu the night before

Of course the Big 5 aren't the only ones with cute little offspring...
Baby Wild Dogs

 Baby Impala

 Baby Wildebeest

"Baby" Kudu (again more of a teenager...)

Baby Nyala

Baby Cheetah

And of course there are future babies too...see the bump?

Eating in Vienna

First impressions of Vienna...it is probably the cleanest city we have ever been in, it is very walkable (as judged by my now aching feet), it has a very nice transit system, there seem to be an awful lot of palaces and it has no shortage of good desserts.

Of course we didn't just eat, so I'll get to that in a minute...

We visited two palaces - the Hofburg was first.

Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside so you'll have to look at the link below.

http://www.hofburg-wien.at/en/things-to-know/vienna-hofburg.html

First you see the "silver collection" which is an insane amount of dishes, cutlery and table centre pieces.  My personal favourite are the faux gold plates - apparently heads of state only eat off gold, so what do you do when you've melted them down for the war effort?  You make fake ones!

Lastly you go through the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments.  Sisi (Elizabeth) was married to the longest serving european monarch (Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria).  For reference Queen Elizabeth II still has to rule for about 6 more years to beat him, though technically she's outlived him.  Anyway, Sisi was very pretty but hated being an empress and hated the limelight so naturally, after she was murdered, she became a media sensation.  Statues, commemorative coins, movies and of course a complete museum dedicated just to her!  I'm sure she would be genuinely mortified.

Of course no royal family can live entirely in their winter residence so off to the summer digs...this is Schonbrunn Palace

As you can see it has a quaint little garden to go with it. This tiny little backyard also hosts the oldest zoo in Europe complete with pandas and polar bears. 

 View from the bottom of the garden...or the top depending on how you look at it...

We saw a few churches - this one is St Stephens
It has a cool roof which you will see in all sorts of pictures of Vienna, unfortunately for us the ancient lift that gets you to that roof was broken - but thankfully it broke before we got in it!

This one is called University Church and is Jesuit Based, as you can see they prefer a more ornate level of decor but I wonder if they ran out of money because they couldn't afford a real dome...

Now you see it...

Now you don't...

Now, on to FOOD!

Our first impression of food in Vienna was the Naschmarkt, we didn't actually eat there but easily could have.  It is quite a long row of stalls and restaurants that seem to terminate with a flea market.

There are many stereotypical Viennese dishes so we tried our best to try as many as possible in our short time here.

Here we have schnitzel and potato salad

Goulash

Bratwurst and Beer

Tafelspitz

Cheese dumplings (these were cold so i'm not sure if they are truly in the Viennese style, they are also missing their breadcrumbs)

Topfenknodel (official cheese dumplings swimming in sauce with strawberries.  Delish!)

Gelato (you may think this is not a Vienna thing, but after walking past numerous Gelato places with packed patios I assure you it is!)

Pancakes filled with Apricot Jam

and of course no trip to Vienna would be complete without a stop at a coffee shop to have from Sacher Torte