Sunday, November 26, 2006

Castles



We visited Edinburgh Castle for the 4th time I think. We love this castle in the heart of the city and always visit it every time we come to the city.

We also saw Eilean Donan Castle on the way to Skye and Dunvegan Castle on Skye. Dunvegan is home of the Macleod Clan and the Fairy flag. Eilean Donan Castle is one of the most photographed castles.

Edinburgh



The flat we rented was right in the middle of the Royal Mile. A few blocks down from the castle and a few blocks up from Holyrood house where the queen stays.

We stayed in a very nice flat on the 4th floor just above the Worlds End Pub. There was no elevator so walking up and down 4 flights of stairs was fun!

We were able to walk just about everywhere we wanted to go.

Spamalot!


We bought tickets to see Spamalot our last day in London.

We sat in the 2nd row and had a great view of the cast including Tim Curry playing the lead role of King Aurther. He played the same part in the Broadway version that won the Tony award for 2005.

Chris had the soundtrack and knew most of the numbers. I was a virgin and laughed the entire time. It is pretty funny.

Back from the UK

We just got back from our trip to London and Edinburgh. I have a ton of pictures and plenty of stories to tell. I'll try to give you a quick run down on what we did and upload a few pics with some more detailed posts.

We took off Friday morning Nov 10th and flew to Chicago and then to London. It was 11:30am Saturday when we landed. We took the tube to Paddington station and then walked a few blocks to the Westpoint Hotel. After cleaning up and taking a quick nap we were off to explore. We got tickets to see Donkey Years a funny comedy. The next day we went to the National Portrait museum and the Victoria Albert Museum. On Monday we went to Spamalot and set in the 2nd row and had a great time. We packed our bags and caught a flight to Edinburgh out of London on Tuesday. Derick from Claymore travel picked us up at the airport and drove us to our flat on the royal mile. We stayed in a 4th floor flat above the Worlds End Pub. We did some shopping and explored the castle. On Wedenesday Chris' birthday we went to the Witchery a great resturant and had a fine time. On Sunday we packed a few small bags and Derick picked us up for a 3 day trip to Skye. We drove most of the day with Derick giving us all sorts of history and local background. We stayed in a small B&B in Portree the bigest town on the island (which wasn't very big). The next day we set out for Dunvegan castle (home of the Macleod clan) and we saw the Fairy flag. We also visited Talisker Whiskey Distilery and had a wee nip. We headed home on Tuesday and stopped at Culloden Mour and saw were the Scotts lost their last battle. Back in Edinburgh we visited the Royl Botanic Gardens and then took a trip to see the famous Roslyn Chapel. On Friday we started our trip back home early in the morning flying out of Edinburgh and then from London to Chicago and finally arriving in Portland around 10pm. We took the day on Saturday to catch up on our sleep and get used to the time change and are still adjusting today. Thats the quick version of the trip pictures to follow.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Friday, November 03, 2006

We are on the Cover of Haunted Attraction Magazine



We got our copy of haunted attraction magazine the other day and it was all about the Hauntcon convention we went to in May. So we ended up on the cover and also inside in the big pic of people in costume.

Halloween

We had Jeff, the KOIN 6 weather guy, to contend with while we were setting up and as the first trick-or-treaters came by. The crowds grew steadily larger and as the KOIN 6 crew were leaving the gates were packed with people and the traffic on JCB was backed up and the cars were clogging our little 43rd ave. There must have been 1500 people that came by, maybe even more? We were prepared with tons of candy and PEZ despensers. Our supply lasted the whole night and the place was deserted by 10pm. All in all a great night.

We were on TV



Starting Saturday with the KOIN 6 News van that stopped by and interviewed me and then took some video of the yard. They ended up using this on the 6pm and 11pm news on Sunday.

Tuesday morning we got up at 4:30am and started setting up the yard at 5am when the Good Day Oregon KPTV Fox 12 showed up with their van and went live at 5:45am. They interviewed us and did several shots until about 9:10am.

am Northwest showed up with their van about 8:30am and they filmed a couple of interviews with me and were done by 10am. They also filmed some video and did a quick interview for the evening news on KATU 2.

Tuesday night as we were getting ready for the big show KOIN 6 News showed up and wanted to do their Weather remotely from our yard for the 5 and 6pm news.