England

I made it back from my Scottish adventure last night after a long old day in the glasgow airport full of plane delays, late buses, and general confusion. But the actual trip was excellent!
My Aussie friend Ruth picked me up in Glasgow on monday night and we went bowling with her Young Farmers Club, then stayed at her placement that night. Her placement is on a B and B and sheep farm on Loch Lomond which is a pretty famous lake in Scotland. It was very nice, I got my own Caravan to sleep in! The temp dipped down to 2 degrees that night but I have discovered the wonder of electric blankets. I am going to get myself one when I get home!
The next day Ruth took me to the train station to catch my ride to Oban where I was met by John MacDougall's sister in law Barbara. Then we were off to Lismore! It is so beautiful!!!! Mountains and ocean and green grass. It rained off and on for my days on Lismore, but I think it kind of fit the scenery, I didn't mind it at all. I stayed with Barbara in the MacDougall house where John grew up. I walked all around the farm, saw where John went to school, and met some of his old buddies! Over the next couple days I met lots of relatives, did a bit of hiking and biking, drank lots of tea and ate like a queen. A very nice time, I must say!!! On friday I took the car ferry to Oban and spent a large part of the day looking around the shops and enjoying the picturesque coastal town. Lots of fisherman! Not too many tourist at this time of year, but I am told that during the summers Oban is quite a popular destination as it is called the Gateway to the Western Isles or something of the sort. Friday night I took the train back to Helenburgh to stay with Ruth again. Had a good night out on the town then had an interesting day in the Glasgow airport. As you probably know the airport was bombed this summer, so security is quite tight (which I'm not bothered about because I'm no terrorist). However, they seemed to think they needed to keep flight information a secret or something. Anyways, I ended up getting here and then had my first going away party last night.
The next thing to look forward to is only 8 days away and that is the arrival of mom and dad!!!!!!!! I would write more, but I have to go get ready for a tour of Belvior Castle I am going on today!
If any MacDougalls are reading this, thanks for the hook-up with your family, it was wonderful to meet them all and see Lismore!

Today is the day I make good on my word to MacDougalls that I would go to John's hometown!!! I have to go to work this morning because we need to move sheep while the foot and mouth ban has been temporarily lifted, then I am off to the airport this afternoon for my flight to Glasgow (which costed me £2 - there was some tax on that, but really, what a deal!). I am staying overnight near Glasgow with my Australian friend Ruth - she is on the AgriVenture program as well, then taking a train to Oban on tuesday morning where Barbara (John's sister-in-law) will pick me up. How exciting!
I haven't posted since I got back from Germany I just realized, but I don't really have time at the moment to update. When I get back from Lismore and have exciting things to write, I may try to fill some gaps. But for now, I must shoot off!
Bye!

Finally, a little uninterrupted internet time so I can finish off this recap! I believe last time I posted I ran out of time while talking about Hitler's Eagle's Nest. So that's where we were, and it was lovely - right on the top of a mountain, and you'd look out and see the tops of other mountains and you could even see into Austria from the height! But apparently, Hitler only used this house 14 times because he was very claustraphobic (which would be no good for the elevator ride up the mountain), and he was scared of heights. What a chicken!
From the eagles' nest we took a bus to a beautiful mountain lake called Konigsee (sp?) and spent a couple hours lying in the sun and enjoying the impressive surroundings. The lake was damn cold, I did not want to swim! Took a train back to Munich and that was our day!
Our hostel in Munich (Jaegres or Tigers as I called it) was pretty good I think, as I said before it was a 40 bed room, and mine and shannon's beds were right by the door. Super. The first night I got no sleep, cuz it was the weekend, and let's face it - get 100 or so young people together in a hostel with a bar - there will be a party, and people will be coming and going all night. But it was alright. I'd stay there again.
Because so many of the German words are so long and consonant filled, I got into a habit of reading the first two letters and the last letter and making up the middle bit, maybe it was impatience, maybe laziness. But it actually turned out to be quite a laugh. Everytime we'd see a complicated word, I would read it out in my own special way, and Shannon would correct me, as best she knew how. Yep, good fun!
The next day (my last full day), we took a train to Salzberg, Austria. There we walked and bussed around the city, saw some sights, ate some food, just had kind of a relaxing day. Salzberg is the birthplace of Mozart, did you know that? There are tons of statues and museums and depictions of him. It is a really beautiful city. My last couple days, I had started to budget my money a little bit, and I made it so I would have just enough euros to last me to get to the airport. So on the train trip back to Munich from Austria, I had about 9 euros (in coins mostly) to my name, enough to pay for a little snack (we called it dinner) and the transit ride to the airport the next morning. The previous day I had asked a train man what train ticket to buy to get to Salzberg and he said and that's the one I bought for the ride there and back. However, it became apparent that we had taken a different kind of train back (a faster, nicer one), so my ticket was invalid. When we were staying with Jens and Ester they said if you get caught without a valid ticket you have to buy an new ticket and pay twice the amount of it or something. So me with my 9 euros was not prepared to pay for this.
The train guy who told me I had the wrong ticket was so nice though, when he told me I had to buy a different one from him, he watched me turn to Shannon and ask to borrow money, and then he said, "13 euros.......special price" I still ended up having to borrow money, but I am not complaining! Thank you, nice train man!
The next morning we got up early and got organized, I walked Shannon to the Hauptbanhof as she was taking off to Berlin to tour around there, then to Colonge, then back to Frankfurt to fly back to Calgary on Friday. She was a great travelling partner, we had some fun!!! I went back to the hostel and made friends with 2 members of the Canadian national rythmic gymnastics team over our hostel breakfast of toast and jam. I took the underground to the airport and flew back to London Stansted Airport where I caught a train back to Melton. So here I am back. Ahhhhh, what a great trip and what wonderful memories I will have from it!
I went back to work today......boring, but necessary! I have an alright work schedule coming up for August, so should be able to tour around here a little bit more. It'll have to be by public transit or friends though, my orange van is not up to snuff.
So that was my trip in a nutshell. I heartily reccomend Germany to any and all of you reading this!
Bye for now!!

Hi everyone,
Here I sit in an internet cafe on a rainy evening in London. What a place!!!! You should see it - things to look at everywhere, millions of people pushing around, bright lights, bad smells, dodgy hostels - it's great!!!!!! I'm here with my friend Miriam from Athabasca and we have been very busy the past couple days.
I left Leistershire on tuesday morning and arrived at Kings Cross (the station in Harry Potter) and got on the tube to go to Heathrow to meet miriam's plane from Calgary. We checked into our hostel which is a little on the questionable side, but it is cleanish and cheap which is what matters to us. From there we went to Covent gardens to watch street preformers and look in some posh shops, then to Trafalger Square, Westminster Abby, Big Ben and a couple other places near there. Today we have been busy seeing "Madam Troussauds Muesum of Wax figures" or something - it was wicked!!!!!!! You should see how real these wax people are, it's amazing. Tower of London was next including the Tower bridge. We got to see where the parts of the castle Edward the Longshanks (the bad king in Braveheart) designed and lived in. So much history, but too little patience to stand around and listen to it all, there is just too much to see! We went to Westminster abby again and actually got to go inside and go to evening prayers, it was beautiful. Then we went across the street and toured around the parliment buildings (miriam's choice) - saw the house of lords and house of commons - actually a kind of interesting day to be there because it is the day that Tony Blair the PM is resigning. Next we went on the London Eye - which is a huge ferris wheel with the people in glass capsules. Tomorrow we are going to science center (my choice), B-ham palace, and the Lion King show. Would write more but but my time on the internet is going to cut out soon. Hope you all are well and talk to you later!!

Hello again
It's a beautiful evening here in Leicestershire and I am making the most of this precious precious time to myself by updating y'all on what's been happening.
Ummm, let's see...... I have been working a lot. 9-10 hour days, 6 days a week. Ian assures me it will slow down a bit soon and I will get the 2 days off a week that I am supposed to. But for the most part I am enjoying it. I work in the shop 4 days a week either doing the till and serving customers or helping Suzy make the pies. Melton Mowbray is famous for Pork Pies, so I am getting well versed in the art of pie making. Then one day a week I work on the farm (where all the animals for the pies come from), then one weekend day I am out at markets and shows selling all the products. Today we were at the Rutland show which is about 45 mins from here and kind of like the Calgary Stampede only way smaller, and no cowboys.... or rodeos..... or mini donuts...... but instead it had the posh show jumping horses and hunting horses.
The horses in this country are amazing!!! They are all huge! Like their backs taller than my head. Leicestershire is the only county where fox hunting is still legal, so there are people with money that flock here with their hunter horses and dogs to do fox hunts, it's quite fascinating, the history of the hunt and the people that still do it in their tight pants and tall boots and red jackets and fancy helmets. Some people do it for a living even. Ian used to hunt quite a bit (he actually went on a few hunts with Prince Charles), so he has some beautiful big horses that I may ride sometime if I can find a ladder to get on.
One thing I have been having difficulty with is the pants or trousers calling. You see in England, they call a pair of pants a pair of trousers. And they call underwear pants. So the other day when I got the bottom of my pants caught in the chain of a bike and ripped them, you can imagine the reaction I got when I tried to tell people what happened. I have also said that my pants are really dirty and asked my boss if I had to wear black pants to work. It is tough to be misunderstood!
In my spare time I have been playing a lot of basketball. I got asked to join this summer league team and I said yeah, and we had our first games last wednesday, and I went to it thinking it would be just like intramural type, but no............There were uniforms and referees and steroid filled men who could dunk. There were only 2 other girls playing, both on different teams. Come to think of it, there are not many sporty girls here at all.
I joined Young Farmers a couple weeks ago and immediately got adopted by one of the girls who is sort of in charge. Her name is Emma and she has been planning my social life for me since! It's great! Last night 14 of us from the club got together for my birthday and ate Chinese food and went out on the town - very fun, yet very expensive! The club has a meeting/event every tuesday night, and every meeting/event ends at "The Sugar Loaf" which is a pub about 2 miles from my house. This week we are playing Rounders (which is like baseball - they don't play real baseball over here). We are playing to get ready for June 17 which is the Rounders competition against the other Young Farmers clubs in the county.
I got great news from my old Vikings teammate and friend Miriam that she is coming to London for 4 days before she flies to Africa to volunteer for a year. I am so excited! I think I should be able to get the time off. I need to talk Canadian to someone. I feel I am losing my accent, people only ask me to repeat myself 20 times a day now.
That's all I got. Hope you all are good. I miss you!
P.S. Congrats Kelly on one whole year!!!!!