Donde es Danny?

So here's the story. After many months of planning the Sweeney and I headed over to Spain...Madrid specifically for a weekend of R&R. Well the R&R bit kinda fell out the window along with our common sense and we drank ourselves stupid.

We found an awesome club called the Palacia something or other. It was an old palace that had 14 rooms, 20 foot high ceilings, totally medieval feel to it with lots of character, and characters and it didn 't shut till 6am.

The first night we thought we'd have a few beer and get to bed early. Nope, met some Spanish folk, watched one of them eat a rose for a woman...(and bleed like a stuck pig when the thorns ripped his lips open) and came home after muy vodka and beer at 4 am. Second night more of the same, but home at 6ish, and the third night we came home around 10am after having beer and eggs for brekkie...hmmm. In between the rather wild nights were days of photography, and we did get some good photo's...or so I think.

We also went to the Sofia something or other museum and checked out a bunch of exhibitions, but the Picasso and the Salvador Dali's were the best...sadly no photo's for you. There were also some really cool photo's from a bunch of individual artists. Some were pretty inspiring because they were just normal photo's but taken in such a way that they had a totally alien look to them.

My Spanish and my photography both improved muchos, I got better at playing with the light in the photo's and also at ordering food and drink in Spanish...two of the main objectives for the weekend accomplished.

We also met a whole whack of pretty cool characters, and had an awesome time...so thanks to everyone at Mad Hostel...cuz you guys made it a pretty awesome weekend!!

My British citezenship ceremony in Stirling town hall the day before Spain...I'm now officially not Scottish, not Welsh, not English and not Irish...I'm British!The Sweeney in our hostel room
Doing my best to fit in at "Mad" hostel
One of the many cool buildings in and around Madrid

Pigeon-es
The little maze was cool, but sadly I lost Danny in it



The dude in the background played a mean Spanish guitar...and somehow sounded Morrocan. It was awesome though for a wee free concert! We chucked him a few Euro.



Delicate ... Scottish so the sign says, I felt a tad delicate the odd morning it's true.


There are more statues than people I reckon..but some are pretty old, and pretty cool!

He just looks like he'd whoop your ass if he had to. In a noble way.

Sweeney and I were sad to be leaving..the next day.

The only thing they have more of than statues? Scooters.


This was a really cool building, just randomly set amongst the others.

Good use of leftover cannon balls
Note the bike? 3rd balcony? A Giant I think.

I think this was or is a parliament building?


They do like symetry the Spanish, and drinking.

Here's an example of both perhaps?

What's it all about?

It started getting serious when Sweeney realised he only had 2 days left to meet the love of his life.

This was the love of my life for the weekend (sorry Pen) but do you know how good this tasted the morning after a few beer?

My inner hippy got the better of me, and I showed my appreciation for this man's tireless journeys to keep the streets of Madrid clean.

My first statue photo, I think it turned out ok!

Talk about bronzed tan, Danny looked absolutely Scottish white next to him.

Up to date now...

Okay, so since mom and dad left I've spent 2 weeks in Manchester, and Penny has gone back to Oz to sort out her visa stuff. So by the time she gets back in early December it will have been about 6 weeks since we've seen each other!

How does one cope? Well...get out and keep busy! So with my first free weekend I planned to go surfing, get in plenty of riding, and go for a hike up Dumyat with the Sweeney!!

Surfing got cancelled, but I knackered myself with 6 hours of cycling and 3 hours of hiking over Sat/Sun. I slept well Sunday night I can assure you!! I've also booked up for a trip to Madrid for a few days the weekend of Nov 23rd...and this weekend hope to catch up with Kiwi Dan a bloke Dereck and I met in Thailand. So between catching up with family and friends, holidays to Madrid, and getting outdoors as much as I can...there won't be much done on the flat.

I am looking forward to getting my Pennyfish back though....just not the same without her!!
Here's a few photo's from the hike Mr Daniel Sweeney and I did up Dumyat.

Autumn on Dumyat, quite a pretty, rugged, splash of colour
The Wallace Monument from the hills
Those tree's aren't looking to healthy, but I liked the contrast with the green Rhododendran!

Classic Scottish hills!

The Sweeney...doing, err...something

Penny had kittens

"$£%&*%$ I just wrote a full bloody page about how we ended up with a kitten. It disappeared. So here's the short version.
Penny found a kitten that was put into a dumpster/skip at her work.
She brought it home temporarily, no cat shelter called back we kept it a bit longer
It crawled into a hole in our wall....I waited a few days for it to come out...it didn't
Eventually I went after it...at 3am, and after much fighting, scratching, and bleeding (on my part) we got it out.


Cat shelter never called....we kept the kitten!

To make matters worse, 2 kittens showed up on the sorting conveyor belt...dead, and two more showed up a few days later....Penny still has the two live ones at her work in one of the sheds...hoping to find them homes.



Due to it's tendency to cuddle up one minute, then hiss and freak out and go hide the next we called it Jex...short for Jekyll and Hyde.





So in additon to Gizzie the hamster...we now have Jex the kitten....but the family ends there!!

Jex getting ready to run and hide.

Jex obviously aware that I'm more of a dog person

Gizmo the hamster makes an appearance.....

and chews on nuts before crawling back to bed.

Jex and Gizzie hanging out

More Mom and Dad

Okay...so it's been ages since any updates on the blog. I've finally got around to putting up a few pictures. After Italy my parents went to Switzerland to visit my mom's sister Alice, and then they eventually made their way from sunny Switzerland, back to even sunnier Italy...and surprise...back to a sunny Scotland! We had a few days together before they flew back to Georgetown, and so we went for a hike up Dumyat and had a picnic (Dumyat's peak is roughly 418m roughly 1200ft which my dad and I hiked a few days later) at the halfway point and watched as my dad disappeared over the brow of the hill to explore the hills. After hearing a rather strange, almost blood curdling howl Pen, mom and I looked around to see if an animal was wounded...it turns out it was Dad's version of a yodel....frightening. All those years of choir practice apparantly haven't helped his yodeling.

We also went to visit the Falkirk Wheel, which is an engineering feat for sure. It stands at 35m or 115 feet in height and is used to transport barges and boats from the lower clyde canal up to the higher union canal. It was pretty neat to see in action!

Then all to quickly it was time for Mom and Dad to jump on the plane back to Canada...and after a bit of a fiasco with their plane (it was delayed by 6 hours) they boarded to return.

It was great to see them, but next time I reckon they need to stay with Penny and I for a week....there's still so much of Scotland for them to see!!

Dad posing amongst sunny-ish skies on Dumyat....


Mom and Penny enjoying a bite to eat during our Dumyat picnic in the Scottish outdoors...in sun!


The Scottish Thistle...can't get more Scottish than that!

Yodeling works up an appetite eh dad?

The intrepid explorers!

Mom and Dad in front of lots and lots of sheep!

The mighty Falkirk Wheel...it's wheely big.

Me..

Mom

Dad

Time to say goodbye...

Mom and Dad getting ready to leave on a jet plane.