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.

Ferries

Max — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 15:32:48 +0000

The ferries you take over to the Shetland Islands are luxurious and fun. On the ferries there are cabins which you can rent for the night and a lounge called the Magnus Lounge. The lounge cost around £10 to get in but once you are in you get free soft drinks and snacks. There is also is a play area for little kids and a room with video games for older ones. The one with the video games costs money to play my sister and I found out. It cost £1 for fifteen minutes, which is kind of expensive. When we went on the ferry from Orkney to Shetland we slept in the Pod Lounge, which is a room filled with these strange chair this for sleeping. My mom and Sylvia didn’t sleep in there and instead slept on the floor of the cinema. You can also buy breakfast on the ferry for yourself. You can buy a meal or the all you can eat breakfast buffet. We got the all you can eat breakfast buffet because for every adult meal you buy, two kids under sixteen eat free. The breakfast was pretty good. They had soda and juice. The eggs were ones you can buy that are freeze dried that you have to put in water to eat, so they were in a tub of water. After breakfast I felt sick. The ferry are called Northlink, and they sail to the Orkney Islands and to Shetland. The ferries also come with free wifi that, once you get out to sea, is very slow. Also on the ferries are gambling machines, which Jack spent £5 on. It was a sunny day on Shetland which is very rare. The ferries ride over is around twelve hours. The ferries are super nice and fun and have comfortable chairs.

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.

Glasgow on October 20!

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 07:30:48 +0000

We have made our final plan. After hundreds of plans and ideas, we settled on this one due to the fantastically cheap airfare ($159 on WestJet from Halifax to Glasgow, free 50lb checked bag, free carry on and free movies on the non-stop flight), the fact that Halifax is the last port in North America, reducing shipping time by half (now 8 days), and Glasgow seemed like a good place to start this next adventure.

The plan is to fly to Florida and pick up the new Expedition Vehicle (which still needs a name) and then spend about six weeks driving to Halifax. Mark is in Florida right now doing some needed work to the new EV. Making sure the roof is not leaking, replacing the three-burner stove and the weird little convection/microwave oven with a real oven and a 4 burner stove. We are keeping the weird little oven, just adding one big enough to bake a cake. The rest of the work will take place at the end of August when we retrofit the bedroom with bunks.

In the meantime, it is the Tanana Valley State Fair and the Blue Van and the camper II will be there for the whole nine days!