Holiday Family Update Part 1

Well Hello Everyone!!!

A quick note for all of you who are new to the list: If you’re fallen behind or just want to figure out what is going on, check mine and Ray’s Travel Blog - http://monkeysworldtravel.blogspot.com/

It’s been a while since we last updated everyone. It’s been really busy around these parts with the holidays and school and, well, the evils of Scottish illness. So let me take you all the way back to December 2.

First of all, a wonderful happy birthday wish to my Uncle Bob and my one of my best buds, Beth. They both celebrated their birthdays on that day and to honor their special day meant for celebration, Ray and I went out and did something fun. In our Christmas Events Magazine, we saw that the Royal Yacht Britannia (http://www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk/) was opened for this weekend only with Holiday decorations, etc. So Ray and I hopped the bus out to Ocean Terminal and went into the mall (yes, a real mall!!!). We followed some of the people who we thought might be going, but were instead heading to the third floor cinema. But after wandering around a little, we found the entrance to the museum of sorts. There was a bit of a line and I was becoming concerned about needing cash, but everything turned out fine and we entered the walkway that led to the yacht itself.

For those of you not familiar with this yacht or are incredibly interested in its history, here’s a relatively brief snippet from the Official Website:

Royal residence
Plans to build a new Royal Yacht to replace Victoria and Albert III began during the reign of King George VI. But The King died in 1952, four months before the keel of the Yacht was laid. His daughter, Princess Elizabeth succeeded him to the throne and the new Queen together with her husband, Prince Philip, took a guiding hand in the design of the Yacht, personally approving plans prepared by Sir Hugh Casson, Consultant Architect, and selecting furniture, fabrics and paintings.

No matter where Britannia was in the world, however exotic or remote a location, stepping on to the deck of the Royal Yacht was always a home-coming for The Queen. Furnished to her personal taste, each room was filled with photographs of her children, treasured family heirlooms, much-loved personal possessions and gifts from across the globe. This was the ship that, even with its full complement of around 300 Royal Yachtsmen and Royal Household staff, The Queen named as the one place where she could truly relax.

An ambassador abroad
The Royal Yacht Britannia has helped to make The Queen the most traveled monarch the world has ever known. Not only has The Queen and her family traveled the world on Britannia, but the world - its statesmen and leaders - has visited them on board. From Sydney to Samoa, The Queen's guests have been entertained just as they would be at a royal palace on British soil.

For a state visit some five tones of luggage, including everything from The Queen's jewels to the famous bottles of Malvern water for Her Majesty's tea, would be brought on board. With The Queen came up to 45 members of the Royal Household, who together with Britannia's Officers and Yachtsmen ensured that each visit ran like clockwork and that no detail was overlooked.

As well as hosting royal banquets and receptions, Britannia was an ambassador for British business, promoting trade and industry around the globe. Indeed the Overseas Trade Board estimates that £3 billion has been made for the Exchequer as a result of commercial days on Britannia between 1991 and 1995.

A romantic retreat
For four royal couples, Britannia was to provide a honeymoon sanctuary before the onset of married life in the world's most photographed family. Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones were the first royal honeymooners to enjoy Britannia's inimitable star treatment when, in 1960, the Yacht took them on a 6,000 mile voyage to the Caribbean. Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips were next to honeymoon on Britannia cruising the West Indies in 1973. In 1981 the Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles and Diana) flew to Gibraltar to meet Britannia at the start of their sixteen-day honeymoon voyage in the Mediterranean. Five years later Britannia hosted her final honeymoon for the Duke and Duchess of York who spent five days aboard the Yacht cruising around the Azores.

http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a74/reelmonkey/Scotland/December%202007/Britannia/

As Ray and I walked the yacht, we felt at complete ease. Sure, it’s a palace on the sea, but it felt warm and inviting. Even the crews’ lodgings were playful and festive. The only downside was that people moved in flocks around the boat. Most were listening to their little hand-held fact-sharers and we started out doing that as well, but we soon were crowded by people and, well, rude people at that. We gave up on most of the listening and just walked around, reading signs and discussing the boat. When we had a free moment, we’d tune in to the recording for neat little tidbits about the wooden monkey that would mysteriously move around the yacht to a new location and the games of wombat tennis that frequented the Royal Families free time.

It was lots of fun and a really exciting experience. I took lots of pictures of the walk-through and the surrounding areas and it was so much fun. The only place I really didn’t get a picture of, because people were being really difficult (this one couple in particular) was the Honeymoon Suite. But I saw it and that’s all I need. Haha!

Afterwards we just wandered around the mall. There was a huge climbing cage of sorts for kids and parents. It looked neat, but I don’t think I could have gotten up the nerve to climb to the top of that. Then again. . . I’m always good at climbing up something, but rarely good at climbing down and all you had to do here was jump and it slowly lowered you to the ground. Oh well. I also bought our stockings at Build-a-Bear. They were the nicest stockings I had seen anywhere in Edinburgh AND they were cheaper than some of the lame, felt ones we saw. So I snatched those up for St. Nick. Then we had a small lunch at a small sandwich shop and wandered a little more. Ray wanted to go to the game store, so we went in and they had Guitar Hero III on display with a wireless guitar remote. He asked if he could play and then started rocking out. This made many of the kids in the store very excited and soon enough, there was a line of kids waiting to play and begging for their parents to buy them it for Christmas. It was really lots of fun.

And that was our day out! Sometime around this, we did also get Ray’s first fake Christmas tree and a string of lights. Poor guy doesn’t have any of his ornaments and he’s missing the smell and feel of a real tree. We agreed it was best to have a fake tree while living in an apartment, because it would also cut down on the mess. We can easily store the tree under our new bed. Oh yes, our new bed came, but we had to compromise with the “owners.” Messages were still not relayed properly by the letting agency, so the bed was ordered and we owed them 30pounds. When we move there will be a discussion over this 30pounds, since it is the exact cost of the mattress and they made this such a stressful situation that things were not discussable. We are, for the most part, happy with the flat, just not with the letting agency. They are ghastly and we intend to do some write-ups on them once we leave this flat and/or the country.

Aside from all that, we have been making our rounds to most of the Christmas activities. We rode the huge ferris wheel and “watched” the ice skaters. We went to the Highland market and bought some jam and honey. We went to the German Christmas Market and ate delicious currywurst, potato noodles and German waffles with cherries and vanilla custard, drank mulled spice wine, and sampled delicious German cookies. We also bought some German sausages which were delicious and hopefully they’ll make it to the states alright. We were told as long as they were sealed by the manufacturer, there wouldn’t be a problem. They were both boar sausage, which is really good and is only sold by this one company that we bought it from. At least, that’s what they told us. We ate the turkey sausage, which was so good we bought two more to have on hand.

To eventually be continued with the following exciting adventures:
~ Trip the Highlands and Skye
~ My Birthday Trip
~ Our Christmas
~ Our New Years
~ What We’re Up to Now?
~ Pictures/Videos