Scotland – The Blue Van – Overland Travels

Highland Dance

Annabelle DeCorso — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 19:03:04 +0000

I’m a Scottish Highland Dancer with the Red Hackle Pipe Band in Fairbanks. Highland Dancing is more of a athletic dancing and physically demanding. It’s also solo and competitive.
I know 4 1/2 dances, the Highland Fling, the Lilt, the Flora, the Sword Dance, and the Seann Triubhas, (I only know half of the Flora).
I’ve been dancing for five years. There is a Highland Games in Palmer, Alaska each year, and you can compete in it for Highland Dancing. When I first went I danced the Highland Fling and the Lilt, I’m not sure what place I got. I also dance at the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks but not for competition.
In July before I went to the UK I went to Vernon, Canada where there is a school/camp thing called Piping Hot Summer Drummer Highland Dance, it was intense and I got super sore, but everyone there said I improved a ton.
When we went to Scotland I was excited because I thought Highland Dancing would be like a big thing there. . . It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. My parents found a class for me to take, it was a bit awkward there because I knew different steps then everyone else, but it ended up okay.

The outfit for Highland Dancing is a kilt, hose, a white blouse, a jacket, leather dance shoes that are called ghillies, for the national dances you have to wear a white blouse, a circle skirt that has a tartan on it, a plaid which is a fabric that hangs over your shoulder which is the same color of the skirt, ghillies, white ankle or knee socks, and a vest. The outfits are weirdly expensive.

The music in Highland Dancing is usually bagpipes, I’m not exactly sure what the names for the dance songs are but the Sword Dance’s song is called Ghillie Callum.
I can’t wait to I get back because I’ll be able to practice a lot more.

Shetland – Sylvia

admin — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 14:05:49 +0000

We went on a ferry to the Shetland Islands, it’s a part of Scotland. It’s famous for the sheep that make beautiful yarn. These are special sheep they are not like any other sheep because this is such a tiny island that all the same here but different from every where else. It’s famous for these ponies that are very small and they have been here for thousands of years. They are very tiny and they have lots of hair. To get here, we had to take 2 ferries. One to the Orkney Islands that took 90 minutes and one to Lerwick that took 12 hours. It had a theater, gaming area, bar lounge, restaurants and a store. There was no people von the ferry at all. We slept in the theater, me and my mom but everyone else slept in this place called the Pod Lounge. The Pod Lounge cost £10 more to sleep in one but we didn’t have to pay because there was no one there. A pod was a chair that was comfortable and you can lean back. I didn’t sleep in there because I didn’t want to be quiet. The next morning we went to breakfast. It was all you could eat so I was excited. The food wasn’t v that good. I don’t eat eggs so I don’t know how good the eggs were. The bacon was Scottish and not like American bacon. American is fried in a pan and is crispy but Scottish bacon is more like ham and it’s called rashers. I didn’t like the bacon. I had cereal. When we got off the ferry we drove to a cliff over the ocean with no fences. My brother Jack got very close and I got freaked out. We found two fairy rocks! The rocks had deep puddles around them.

Hostels

Jennah — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:10:13 +0000

Since the end of December, Jack and I have stayed at three different hostels in two different cities and countries. The first one we stayed in was on Cow Gate street, by Grass Market, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Cow Gate has many clubs, hostels and bars on it. Even later than three am, you can hear people out and about on the streets, singing and playing music. One time, right outside the hostel we were staying at, there was a group of people from several different countries playing music on a guitar and singing.
The second hostel we stayed at was in London. I can’t recall the name of the area it was in, but it was only about three or four tube stops from Buckingham Palace. This hostel, in my opinion, was not as fun as the one in Edinburgh. Security was a lot more intense. You had to have a key to get inside,which wasn’t very fun. If you were outside talking, the security men made you go all around the building to the smoking area, even if you weren’t smoking. You had to be quiet because of the residential buildings nearby. And, one of the people we were with while there wasn’t much fun. I did meet a very nice Argentinian man, though,and they gave you free towels with your room.
The last hostel we stayed in was in Edinburgh, like the first one, but in a different area. This hostel had a lot of very nice qualities – free breakfast, free laundry, etc. The showers were particularly enjoyable. All of the hostels had a chill out room. The first one had many big cushions scattered along the floor and a TV that was always playing movies. The second one, I didn’t go into. And this one had comfortable leather couches and a little kitchen area for making food, and a TV. In the chill out room, Jack and I met a big group of people who were all staying there for the weekend, and who had also all met at the hostel. There was an American, but a majority of the people were from Scotland or England.
Eating food while staying at hostels is hard. It’s expensive to buy food from the city, and even more so to buy it from the bars that are usually attached to the accommodation. While staying there, Jack and I lived off a lot of kebabs and french fries with gravy. Mom bought us soup once, which was greatly appreciated, but I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve eaten french fries with gravy from a restaurant called the Clam Shell while staying at a hostel in Edinburgh. For future reference, it isn’t really a good purchase. They aren’t very filling nor good for you. Kebabs, on the other hand, are very much worth what you pay for.

A Comprehensive Update Part 1: Florida to Liverpool

admin — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 20:15:50 +0000

Celebration Station!

We left Florida later than we intended. The camper needed to be customized for Team DeCorso – new sofa, new table, 5 bunks with an optional 6th bunk, bunk lights and chargers, a new oven/stove, upgrades to the running lights, a new stereo and speakers, new countertop in the kitchen, 14 hooks for coats and an overall upgrading of the camper (like scraping off the pink & blue gnocchi-like wallpaper border that was added to the bathroom and kitchen). During this time, we had a great stay in Florida! Swimming, bike riding, Snapple-drinking good time with grandpa & grandma!.

We left Florida on October 10, so very late as we needed to be in Halifax to catch our flight to Glasgow on October 20th.

Steak & Shake!

Bay of Fundy

The USA & Canada

We raced up the eastern seaboard. In Asheville, we visited Aunt Alice and cousin Mary. In Cleveland, we visited Grandma Dorothy and Aunt Pat & Uncle Smitty. Jack visited Carnegie Mellon and spent an evening with their pipe band. In New York, Mark realized he did not have the title to the camper and we had to send power of attorney to Ryan at a FedEx. In New Hampshire, someone hit our mirror while we were parked and broke it off. In Maine, we went out for lobster with the legendary Joni McNutt. In Calais, we fetched the camper title from FedEx. We drove around the Bay of Fundy, watched the tidal bore and arrived in Halifax on 10/18. We woke up early on 10/19 to discover that the transmission had completely failed. A panicked call to Mr Transmission, and $3000 (thankfully Canadian) later our camper was on the road again. Mr Transmission lent us a pick up truck so we could run our final errands and do our final paperwork for shipping the camper over. On the morning of October 20th, the camper had to be at the quay before 11am but our flight did not leave until 10pm. We spent the day sightseeing in Halifax , learning about the great Halifax Explosion and the Titanic Exhibit. Two things we learned: the explosion released the equivalent energy of 2.9 kilotons of TNT and Halifax was the staging ground for rescuing people from the sinking Titanic, although all they recovered were dead people and a sad collection of items like dolls and baby shoes.

Edinburgh

Our plane landed in Glasgow and we caught a Citylink bus to Edinburgh and were at our lovely home by 11am. Ourhouse was literally 41 steps off the Royal Mile, on Bell’s Wynd. Later, in a bookstore in Leith, we would read in Haunted Edinburgh that our house was haunted. The house was perfect for us, the location was fabulous.

The camper departed Halifax on 10/24 and was supposed to take 7 days to get to Liverpool but a storm in the north Atlantic delayed the ship and we were happy to extend our stay in our little house on the Royal Mile to 3 weeks. We had a really great, super fun, amazing time in Edinburgh. We went to Tesco and bought a ton of weird British food (vegetarian haggis, clotted cream, crumpets, bangors, swedes, neeps, bramble jelly, turkish delight and several chutneys). We went to the Scottish National Gallery. We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens. We visited the castle. We went to almost every pub, or so it seemed. One night, Mark and Jack and I went to a small pub

Royal Mile looking towards Holyrood

with traditional music and had a great night of drinking, singing and dancing. We went on the Harry Potter Tour, in the poring rain, and saw where JK Rowling wrote the books, the inspiration (and grave) of Tom Riddle, Diagon Alley and much more.

We spent Halloween here. Sylvia and Annabelle went trick or treating in neighborhood of old gothic mansions. They had to do a trick at every house to get candy. Max supplied one excellent joke that no one had yet heard here: Why does Peter Pan fly? Because he can Never Land. We found the neighborhood from someone we met at the Unitarian Church in Edinburgh. We also went to the Royal Botanical Gardens on Halloween and did the Witch Hunt Trail, where you had to collect information on magical plants for a surprise. That night, was the Samhain Festival at the Grassmarket, a torch procession and very well attended.

Sylvia’s favorite painting at the National Gallery

Halloween Vampire Princess

Halloween at the Botanical Gardens

Bell’s Wynd

Samhain at Grassmarket

Bridge to island uncovered at low tide

Liverpool

Catching the early train

Finally the camper arrived in Liverpool. Team DeCorso got up way too early and took a train to Liverpool. While Mark fetched the camper, Jack & Jennah went on a quest to find the house where John Lennon was born and Annabelle, Sylvia, Max and I went to the Albert Docks, World Herit age Site (not exciting at all).

Mark appeared with the camper and we piled inside and began the long task of preparing it for travel. We had screwed all the doors shut and put paneling over all compartments and screwed that shut, a basic RORO safety measure. Turns out, someone did steal stuff from our camper, it seems they always do. They took our Tide-scented Febreeze, a string of solar LED lights and, sadly, Mark’s drill so unscrewing became much more work. Next we had to find water, gas and propane (which required a fitting which had to be shipped from Oxford). While we unscrewed cabinets and waited for the fitting for the propane, we camped north of Liverpool at Crosby Beach, site of the 99 Iron Men statues. We also rode out the first storm

Rain gear!

with a name in UK history, which battered the camper with 75mph winds. We had to move in the middle of the night to find more shelter. We also went to a store called Go Outdoors! and bought all of Team DeCorso suitable rain gear, jackets, boots, umbrellas and hats.

Then, with fuel and water and propane, we started on our left-driving journey.

Traditional pub vegetarian breakfast

Pub breakfast – rashers and bangors

Christmas Fairs in General

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:28:20 +0000

Christmas Markets are tiny shops that have tarps over them or some are board booths made out of wood and some are inside these tents that have a ton of tiny shops built inside. In Welshpool we got there the night they turned on the Christmas lights. They turned them on in the town center. We walked there and there was music and Santa was there! We got to see him. He was in the town hall under the stairs in a broom closet but they called it Santa’s Grotto. I think a grotto is a tiny house. While we were in line to see him, there was a dancing reindeer. Me and my sister danced with the reindeer. There was a candy store where we got a big cup of candy. We went to one that had only 10 booths and it was pouring rain, freezing cold and hailing and everywhere there were broken and ripped umbrellas, garbage cans of umbrellas, a shopping cart of broken umbrellas, broken because the wind was so strong it just tore them apart. It was windy and cold and hailing, that was the worst ever. We found a mall and went into it. It was kind of fun. It was warm for one thing. And it smelled like food. We went to Disney Store but it just had Disney stuff. We went to another toy store and it had a person who gave glitter tattoos. I got one, it was a penguin. We went to a Christmas Fair that was kind of fun. We all had some money to spend. It was in Nottingham. Nottingham is famous for Robin Hood, Robin of Locksely. I know he was pretty famous. It was back in the time of King Richard. We went to the forest he lived in, Sherwood Forest. We got to walk around and saw the great oak, it was an oak that had been alive for many, many years. It was kind of ugly. It had metal poles to hold it up because it was so old it was falling down. At the Christmas Fair in Nottingham, there was a giant slide that looked like a lighthouse. I got to go down the slide twice. It was pretty fun. Max got a sausage. My sister got hot chocolate, it had one of her favorite candies in it, a Flake Bar. It was all flaky and ground up and put into a bar. We stopped at a bookstore and there was a parade we heard but it came by and we missed it. We went to one Christmas Fair with my aunt Sara. She plays a violin in an orchestra. That was fun. We got to see her. It was cool and fun. We were in York. York looked old aged, like the middle ages. Stone walls, houses that were stone and brick and wood and painted white. While we were there, a flood happened on the River Ouze. The Christmas Fair was pretty fun. Aunt Sara bought us roasted chestnuts. I didn’t really like them. They tasted like potatoes to me. But sweeter. They had a slide there. My sister bought my mom a scarf there for Christmas. One of my mom’s friends told us to go to a pie shop there and it was actually pretty bad. It was not a sit down place and there were only three kinds of pie and they tasted bad, all of them had meat. I think meat pies are bad. The biggest Christmas Fair of all was Edinburgh! It had rides and tons of shops. There was one shop that sold really pretty cards, the cards were paper but it was like folded together so it popped up. When you opened them, there was flower bush or a reindeer or a heart or a ship or a ferris wheel. I went ice skating there with my brother Jack. I was really looking forward to ice skating. It was a big circle circling a building where you could go get hot chocolate or this stuff called mulled wine that is just like wine heated up. I got hot chocolate but my brother got wine. You only have to be 18 to have alcohol here. We got to keep the cup. My sister Annabelle, my dad and my brother Max rode some swings that were really high. I didn’t ride. I didn’t want to go. We went to see the light show, it was songs and music and a ton of lights, the lights were red, white and blue. All these Christmas Fairs were a little bit magical.

The Train Ride & a Castle

Sylvia DeCorso — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 21:46:40 +0000

We woke up really early in the morning, like 5am or something, to go to the train. We didn’t have any breakfast so everyone was really hungry. Mom made sandwiches but I don’t really like sandwiches. On the train, there was a cafeteria and a bathroom but the cafeteria was closed but in first class, they had food. So we had to eat sandwiches for lunch and I really don’t like sandwiches. The train took about three hours. It was night when we left for about an hour and then it started becoming day and then we switched trains. We got to Liverpool and we had to go to the bathroom but it cost 30 pence and there was a really long line. Liverpool was kind of ugly. When we walked around a mall and we went into a shop to use the bathroom. We saw a kit for a gingerbread house and I was thinking of buying it when we got our camper which was at a port. We walked to a dock called the Albert Dock and it had a lot of stores. There was a candy store on the dock and a store that was named after my sister Annabelle called Annabelle’s Accessories which my sister’s name is. After that, my sister and brother showed up. My sister and brother got to the dock because they came from John Lennon’s house. I don’t know who John Lennon is. We each bo ught a scarf and it was pretty. We walked about 2 miles to the camper and dad picked us up in our camper which had just been shipped. It took about an hour to find a place to cam p. We are camping at a beach with sand dunes and iron men made to look like this one man and there are 100 of them on the beach. They were creepy because they stand there and just kind of watch you. The next day, me and my brother and sister went out to explore the beach and we went way out really far because the tide was out and there was one iron man covered with barnacles and seaweed.

Before all this, we went to a castle back in our town. It was really fun. We walked around the dining hall and it was the castle where Queen Mary of Scots and her son lived and he made a coffin just for his mom, exactly of the perfect size of her exact face, eyes, dress and shoes. We went to where he made a building for his mother, because of her execution. She got executed by Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth chopped off her head. Before that she was in prison for 20 years. And there is a building made just for another mom, the oldest building in the castle and when the British attacked, they spared this one building. It was a tiny church. We saw the crown jewels of the castle. It was interesting. At the castle, we had snacks. My sister and brother had cake and my mom and dad had shortbread but I had crisps. Crisps are chips in Scottish. Later we went out to dinner and it was really nice. I got Bangers and Mash which means sausages and mashed potatoes. We were all really full. My brother couldn’t eat it all so he wrapped up his fish in a napkin and put it in his pocket and we called it a night.

Our House

Max — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 17:12:12 +0000

The apartment we are staying at is very nice. It is big enough for all of us, and very centrally located on the Royal Mile. Our house has three heaters, and a fake fire place. It has two mini fridges and a freezer. The street it is on, Bell Wynd, is supposedly haunted. A man killed his wife in a apartment. Later a blacksmith broke in to the house and moved into the upstairs room. He said he saw a white ghost walking around his house and the street. Also near our house is a Pie Marker, a place that sells meat pie. We are also near a Tesco supermarket, where we get most of our groceries. We can walk almost anywhere from our house.

Canada by Sylvia

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 00:13:56 +0000

The trip from Florida was fun. We got to camp on the roadside and we had a fun time driving and we finally reached our destination which was Canada! We went to the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tidal bores in the world. We got to climb around on caves and rocks and stuff. That night we reached Halifax. The next morning, the car broke down. We had to take it to the shop and it cost like $5000 (it’s like Canadian money is waaay cheaper). It took a day. We camped at a KOA. Once we camped at a KOA and Annabelle said they had a bouncy pillow and I do not remember the bouncy pillow because I was 3 years old. It would have been really great. I was probably not scared. I was hoping this KOA had a bouncy pillow. BUT it turns out it was DEFLATED for the winter. I felt sad. The next morning, we woke up and it was a really big rush because we had to go to the airport. Dad and Max dropped us off and we stayed there about 2 hours. We went downtown on a bus. When we got downtown we had to walk quite awhile to get the the beach where we met up with my dad and brother. We went to the Titanic museum. It had parts of the Titanic. It had stories about the Titanic sinking. The museum also had something about the Halifax Explosion where a ship blew up and it killed thousands and thousands of people. All in all, the museum was kind of depressing. Then we got pizza and we had a really big rush because we were going to miss the bus. We got to the airport and the plane started boarding. It was a 5 hour flight with TVs on it. We got to Glasgow and we had to take a bus here. It was cool. It had a bathroom. And first class seats. When we finally got to our flat, we settled down, watched tv and made dinner and walked around and went to bed.

Halifax

Annabelle DeCorso — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:49:06 +0000

It was dark when we arrived in Halifax, we all went over to the grocery store. We got some stuff for dinner and went back to the camper.
The next morning the camper had a transmission problem and it needed to get fixed, they said it would be a two day job. But we we’re leaving in two days and the camper had to get shipped out tomorrow.
We all went over to Tim Hortons and got breakfast, then we drove around a little bit in a red truck that Mr Transmission let us borrow.
I don’t know how but they fixed the camper by the time we got back.
We went to a KOA to camp.
The next day we all headed to the airport to drop our bags off, my brother Jack and my sister Jennah stayed and watched the bags.
The rest of us went downtown to meet up with my father and my brother, Max, they went to drop the camper off at the port.
We walked around quite a bit and then went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. It was exciting yet sad because of the explosion of Halifax and the sinking of the Titanic.
After that we got pizza and headed back to the airport.
We flew out to Scotland. This was a great day.