Monkey in the Wrench

Posted on by thehay

Hola, wee while since my last post!

Been a busy few months! Glasgow, Edinburgh, T in the Park!

Had a wee jaunt to Glasgow to see the awesome Belle & Sebastian at the SSE Hydro. See some photos here.  The gig was awesome and was the first one I’ve ever been to at the Hydro. Not a bad venue!

The next ‘wee jaunt’ was to Edinburgh to see the Foo Fighters! Except there were no Foo Fighters, Arg! Gig was cancelled due to Dave Grohl’s leg knack. Quite disappointed as myself and wife were really looking forward to it.

We decided that as we had already booked trains, hotel and time off work to head down anyway for a mini break and see some sights. Most of the sights we saw were the inside of restaurants and pubs but we did also fit in a trip to the really cool botanic gardens.

While having dinner at the awesome Restaurant Mark Greenway on Tuesday night we met literary legend Ian Ranking, who was sitting at the next table. Had a brief chat with him, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy and was happy talking to us till his dinner guests arrived. I am a massive fan of his Rebus books and my wife said she’s not sure when she’s seen me that excited!

Saw a very large ‘Corpse Flower’ at the Botanic Gardens, was pretty neat!

Some photos of the trip on Flickr!

And finally a few weeks ago we were at T in the Park. It’s been a few years since I’ve been (2009) and the wife had never been before. We had an ace time, saw some cracking bands including War on Drugs, Kasabian, Marina and the Diamonds, The Vaccines, The LIbertines, Idlewild and Noel Gallagher. We gave the camping a miss though and stayed at a caravan park in Scone. So still technically camping but not Proper Festival Camping. Was nice to be at a festival and be feeling fresh in the morning though!

Not sure about the new festival site at Strathalan. I think they will need to alter the layout a bit as there was a pretty bad bottleneck around the King Tuts Tent and by all accounts getting a bus at the end of the day was apparently a nightmare. Glad we had the car with us, our car park experience was thankfully ok. Well, apart from taking about 10 minutes to find the car on the Friday night hah.

T in the Park Photos here!

Campeo de Lliga!

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Yay! Barcelona have just won the league! A joyous football season for me. Aberdeen finishing 2nd in the SPFL Premiership and Barcelona winning the Spanish La Liga. Do like it when both of my teams have an awesome season. Barcelona became my second team when I spent several months there on an Erasmus exchange from University. I was studying at the rather cool Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Terrassa, just outside Barcelona, where I happened to meet my lovely wife and generally had an awesome few months of partying, watching football and falling in love.

Barca won the treble that season and the celebrations after the Champions league win were crazy. I was at Placa Catalunya with friends and my now wife after having watched the game down at Maremagnum. I had thought the celebrations after they won the Copa del Ray were mad (watched the match in a pub with some Scottish and Dutch friends then headed to Placa Catalunya).

Other than football related joy its been a busy few weekends recently. Was at my second cousins wedding last Saturday then a slightly disappointing football game on Sunday.

The previous weekend had a rather cracking meal with friends at Maggie’s Grill. Ace food and ace beer! Moving on from the restaurant myself and wife had a bit of a Detective Murtaugh moment after ending up in a club:

Definition here

Yup our days of clubbing are certainly over!

Adios fot now.

Visca Barca!

Bier und Wurst!

Posted on by thehay

Ahoy!

Well me made it to Nuremberg eventually after the train driver strike episode. After a night in the weird Zoo hotel in Karlsruhe (not the nicest I’ve ever stayed in) we caught the train at 9am. It was pretty packed and not the most comfortable but when we arrived in Nuremberg it was glorious sunshine so all seemed well!

We met up with Older Brother in Erlangen after a brief trip on yet another train and he gave us a tour of a rather well known sports brand where he happens to work. Was rather impressive! After his lunch time was up we headed back to Nuremberg and upon walking back to our hotel realised it’s proximity to the red light district! Walking down the street and spotting scantily clad ladies casually hanging out a window in conversation at 3.30 in the afternoon was not expected.

Tried some famous Nuremberg sausages for dinner in a traditional pub called The Gold Post Horn then hit a cool bar called Street Art. Arty Designer wife had some sort of crazy but tasty cocktail while me and the brother hit the beer. Tried a Helles type beer which was quite nice. I’m usually a Weiss beer man when it comes to German beer but was nice to discover something new! We then hit another bar called Ludwigs down the road then called it a night.

Street Art

Street Art

On Saturday we met up with Brother and headed to the Adidas factory outlet store and we bought some much reduced Adidas goodies as well as having a bit of a wander around Herzogenaurach. I had the most ridiculous ham and egg baguette in a wee place in Herzo, it had 3 fired eggs. 3! Glorious.

Herzogenaurach

Herzogenaurach

Had a wander round Nuremberg then found ourselves in very non German but Mexican restaurant for dinner. I ended up having to drink Arty Wife’s overly strong cocktail and sacrificed my Mojito for her! An event called Beer and Bühnchen – Kneipenfestival Gostenhof was taking place in the district of Gostenhof and we duly headed there in search of some music and beverages. It seemed like most of the bars were packed and they had underestimated just how popular an event it would be! We met up with some of Older Brothers friends and headed to a place which is some sort of Ice cream cafe/bar/gig venue! A great combination!

On Sunday we had the joys of travelling from Nuremberg back to Aberdeen via Amsterdam. We did have time to pop to the castle in Nuremberg before we left tho so that was cool.

All in all a cracking week away in Germany. For more of my photos check my Flickr album here.

Not quite Nuremberg…

Posted on by thehay

We have been undone by the train driver strike! The train we had planned to go on was cancelled and apparently what I got told yesterday about getting a convoluted combination of others was wrong. So still in Karlsruhe, DB (German train company) have put us up in a hotel for the night and booked us on a train tomorrow morning. The hotel we are in is close to the station so at least that’s handy!

Wrapped up the second training course I was on today, was certainly more interactive than the first I was on, did some practical group work. Learned a few things that will be handy for future projects and was cool to work with some interesting folk who were also attending. Met a couple of guys from the Czech Republic who work with some guys from Siemens in Norway that I know. One of them also worked on a project I was on a  few years ago (before I became involved tho) and had worked with a couple of my colleagues. There were a couple of guys from Siemens in Sweden, one from Gothenburg other from Stockholm. I was picking their brains about stuff to do as Arty Designer Wife has Stockholm on her list of places she wants to go!

After the train debacle was sorted went to a cool place called Bratar for dinner. Had a really nice steak then wandered back to the hotel via a supermarket to grab a bottle or two of nice German beer including something called Rothaus Hefeweizen which I have not sampled before. It’s quite nice! Sipping it as I type 🙂

I now have my Flickr photostream at the bottom of the page, not much photos of this trip so far as my phone is still refusing to cooperate with the Flickr app! Other cool stuff in there so check it out.

Cheers for now!wpid-wp-1429818539861.jpeg

Walks in the sun and terrible Wi-fi

Posted on by thehay

Ahoy!

Yes another post already! Have changed the Worpdress Theme of the blog about 5 times while I was bored earlier and waiting for Arty Designer Wife to finish some work she was doing. Alas she did not finish and I was dispatched into the Karlsruhe night to fetch pizza! It’s quite a nice place to walk around in so I wasn’t too gutted! I have taken a fair few photos and have attempted to upload them to Flickr but the basic free hotel Wi-Fi does not seem to want to allow my phone to do this. Don’t fancy paying the 6 euros for the ‘Premium’ Wi-Fi either so I will upload when I hit some better internet. Hopefully tomorrow when we move on to Nuremberg after what it seems will be an Epic Series of Train Journey’s due to a Deutsch Bahn train drivers strike.

Photo above is from when we went for a wander around town yesterday. There’s a nice park called Schlosspark and it was PACKED with folk. It seemed like everyone packed in their work for the afternoon and went outside when the temperature hit 20 degrees. I was chuffed that the first part of the training courses I am here on finished mid afternoon yesterday, so I got to enjoy the sun wife with Arty Designer Wife.

Anyway here’s a nice song from the new Go! Team album. Been listening to it a lot lately and it’s pretty good. A few other musicy of note I’m liking at the moment are Seasick Steve’s new album and a few tunes from my T in the Park playlist I’ve go on the go on Spotify. Playlist here: T in The Park 

Ahoy there!

Posted on by thehay

Ahoy there!

So this is my first blog post. I’ve started this blog so I can learn a bit about WordPress so that I can help Designer Arty Type Wife maintain the blog she is currently putting together.  Hers wil no doubt look a heck of a lot better than mine!

I guess it’d also a nice way of writting stuff down so I can remember where I’ve been, who I have met and what I’ve seen while being here there and everywhere.

Currently I am in the rather nice city of Karlsruhe for a couple of training courses at Siemens. Hence the image above!