As I said before, this vacation had a horrid start. The camera was stolen, the crappy 35mm film camera was in the apartment - a 3 hour journey away - and we were scheduled to be on the ferry to Orkney in a few hours. We had no idea where anything in Aberdeen was either and Tourist Information was closed for lunch. Great.
Thankfully we found a Jessops and they were having a sale. We got the camera, camera bag, and 2GB memory card all for the original price of the other camera (and it was 3 years old.) Would have been nicer if we could pay for it in the States where everything is cheaper, but such is life. And this camera kicks the old camera's ass. So, we have pretty much gotten over the fact that some jackass stole our old camera. I hope it brings him/her nothing but bad luck though. At least we didn't loose any of our pictures... and there is nothing incriminating on the pictures that were left on the memory cards stolen with the camera.
After lunch, we headed out to see the "Granite City." We soon came to understand why its called the Granite City. Everything is made out of gray granite. Not even pretty granite with flecks of color... just gray. At least it was sunny out, when we returned from Orkney it was a cloudy, dreary day and the gray buildings were just depressing. But we have decided never to return to Aberdeen anyway. The camera was taken on our way there, and then when we were waiting for the bus back to Glasgow, a bird took a humongous poo all over our bag (and a bit on Mike's head, and three other ladies). This bird must have been massive OR had a massive bowel obstruction. It was disgusting. I will take these as signs that God clearly does not want us to ever visit that city again.
There are a few beautiful churches in Aberdeen, the best one is a ways outside the city centre, so we were not able to see it. We tried to see St Andrews Cathedral (the mother church to the USA Episcopal Church), but we were in Aberdeen on an election day and this church was being used as a ballot site. We walked in and the people running the check-in table stared at us, started whispering to each other and laughing. Nice. Thanks to those people. When you visit my country, we'll be sure to be as nice and welcoming. So, we left that one. It was really interesting though. The ceiling was really intricately decorated with various coat of arms of the American families and Aberdeenshire Jacobite families.
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The next stop we made was to Provost Skene's House. This was really neat. They took the old Provost's house and redecorated each room around a period in time. There were two dining halls of various eras, bedrooms, etc. Most of them were 17th and 18th century (so Mike tells me) but there was one more modern room. Here there was an AMAZING room called 'The Painted Gallery.' When they were re-modeling they started peeling back plaster covers and found beautiful paintings. Most of the panels were able to be saved, thank goodness.
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This is the Kirk of St Nicholas. Well worth the visit. We were greeted by a wonderful lady who told us all about the church - its history, the excavations, a pretty chapel donated to them, how to see the rest of the church, etc. The excavations were in the older part of the church, and it was really ripped apart. But the nice lady told us all about that and how fun it was to work there with it all going on. They have pulled out lots of stuff there. You are able to see down into the work being done too; sadly, there was no work being done that day. The rest of the church was very beautiful and we would have loved to poke around more, but it was just about time to head to the ferry. We definitely did not want to be left behind!
There were lots of musicians on the ferry for some reason. The folk music festival on Orkney doesn't start until the 24th, but maybe they were getting there in plenty of time. They could have been going up to Shetland as well. Who knows... but either way, we had a wonderful time listening to all the groups playing. This was the largest gathering of musicians. They were set up in the bar area and played for most of the trip to Orkney (about 7 hours.) I had taken a motion sickness pill, so I sadly could not enjoy it. And Mike said there were people dancing too... the price I pay for not puking.
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