The Days of Long Walk #1

 Good evening... gentlemen... (and ladies of course ^^)

And thus begun a period in our lives that can be the most accurately described as 'The Days of the Long Walk'. We would go almost every day on some trip or another, exploring the surroundings of the city, making an excursion to a nearby town, or just walking around Aberdeen and the beach. And of course visiting our favorite Lidl, what in itself is a good 2+ hours trip there and back from where we live (as we found out lately, that one is actually the furthest of the 3 closest to our apartment :P But hey, at least we got some exercise :D ).

This part of the blog will be children-friendly, meaning lots and lots of pictures. ^^

So, first off, we went to the Sea-shore, past Asda, when...

Dinner!!

Ehm, I mean... Bunny!!

The shore. :) It was a bit cloudy that day, not cold. By Scotland standards that is :P

And by the way, yeah, that's your typical Scottish weather right there. Cloudy, overcast sky and yet somehow the sun is shining. And there are examples of just the opposite as well. Beautiful clear sky, whit just a small white cloud, and suddenly you get a cast of light rain on you, and you're just looking "Whaa, where did that come from?"

Pity I can't show you moving pictures. Those clouds were fast!

The shore-line. It's near  the hight of the tide here, so most of it is under water.

It's a strangely enthralling feeling watching the waves clash against the pavement. At low-tide these walkways lead down to sandy beach. But now, they are just an instrument of the hypnotic ocean music.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the clothing: these pictures are still from August. :P

The same beach an hour or so later. The sea is retreating, and those walkways are already fully exposed.

The waves are still mesmerizing though ^^

Found a crab-scissor on the beach ^^ No sign of the owner. Either the seagulls got him, or he just lost his paw and continues to crawl around in the sea. It happens to crabs.

 And yep :D That's a kid, swimming in the sea. :P Please note that Vika is wearing a jacket. And that this is the North Sea. The water temperature is around 4 degrees..

From the mouth of the harbour.

And the shore right across it. The harbour itself is actually the mouth of the river Dee. (like Dee-Dee in Dexter :P )

That's the ruins of a small fort right across. It's no more then a stone wall from the land-side, and earth-ramparts from the sea, with 2 artillery positions within it.

Fast-forward two days, and this here is part of the University campus.

A little secluded area, with a small fountain, pond, and the measuring statue on it. We were heading to the Seaton park again when we discovered this little atmospheric place.

No idea what the proper name for this instrument/statue it is, but it's cool ^^

And just as we were entering the park from the cemetery side, we noticed this lovely little path to the left.

The whole path is made of slates of granite.

It's like a granite river ^^

Which leads to a throne :P

(Oh, on a side note: the shoes. They were perhaps the first thing we bought here. They are completely water-tight, and trust me, you need to have them if you're around here.)

The Seaton park, in the center of it.

And remember I told you the river Don runs along it's western border? ^^

Well, ok, the previous picture was actually just a small side-branch of it, with a small island between it and the main river.

That's the Don.

Lovely, very scenic river. Not as big as the Danube, naturally, but hey. Pity you can't go with a canoe on in :/

So now we're following the river's path all along the Seaton park. It goes around to the north, past the park, encircling the hill with the student-village on top of it, and then east again to flow into the sea.

I just couldn't stop taking all those pictures :P Acting like a natural-born tourist :D

The river is actually pretty low, lower then it usually is. The black muddy parts are usually underwater.

This is how the path around the student-village looks like ^^

And now we are slowly coming to the mouth of the river.

That's the bridge I took the pictures from. We didn't cross it, but continued on this side of the river. And these are a few cottages just by the bridge, all alone on this side. Must be lovely to live here.

And that's the view from their front-yard. And that's the main Bridge of Don over there, across which the main road Kings Street goes. (For the first few weeks I actually though that the 'Bridge of Don' is that bridge. As it turns out, no, the Bridge of Don is actually the name of the district on the north side of it.

There was a small wooden-earthen step that led down from the path to this little alcove in the river, but it was terribly muddy.

Still, it was worth it, as we got a beautiful view of the first bridge and the cottage alongside it.

Sorry if I'm making you jealous :D (No, we didn't yet encounter any hobbits :P)

Buuut, we did encounter these things here ^^

Yup, seals ^^

We have finally made it all around the hill of the student-village, and came upon a field. Also, I just wanted to show you that they do have a few high-rise building in Aberdeen, though you don't find the 'lakópark' styled districts here as you would in Budapest, at least not with hight-rises.

And this is the Don-mouth.

A view over the bridge. Again, the river is very low right now. Note that green strip that runs along the bottom of that stone-mound? That's where the water-level usually is.

And that's there is a swimming seal :P

When I saw this I had to take a picture of it. If you have to put up a sing like that at the North Sea, then you know you have Russians living in the region. :D

Nearing the sea.

They have this lovely wooden walkway leading to the shore, covered with netting. And also, as you can see on the right, there are cases with life-rings all along the sea shore, every 100 meters or so.

The green moss-like thingie is until where the water usually goes up.

Strange as it seems, the whole of the river mouth is filled up with sand, and it's only that stretch on the right side through which the river flows into the sea. The one of the left soon ends in a dead-end bay.

That's the river-mouth.

Those are the fishing ships just off the coast. There is a big fish-farm right along the shore, and these ships are out day and night harvesting.

We started off back towards the city center, this time along the sea.

Starting from here up until the harbour, the whole shore is divided by these wooden 'separators'.

This is how it looks from the other side.

The role of these separators is to catch the sand as the waves bring it in, and to make it pile-up, so that the constant waves are actually slowly building the beach instead of eating further into the land.

As you can see here, in some places the entire fence is almost completely covered by sand by now. But in other places you still have the effect of the beach being higher on one side and lower on the other.

Look whom we met along the road ^^

This is the top of the same kind of walkway that you can see as at the start of the blog. Except here it's all buried up.

And we're back again at the University. Yup, those buildings are the university. Well, part of it, there are at least 50 of them strewn over the area, with facilities and student homes and everything.

Miu >^^<

Nighty-night everyone!

Food is Life

Welcome back! Next on your station is the Monday evening news broadcast, brought just for you!

So, we left of with Lidl. There are quite a few food shops in Aberdeen: There is Lidl and Aldi, the classical arch-rivals. Then there is Morrisons, M&S (yes, Mark and Spencers. Just they have a foodshop branch here also. And a buffet. And a bank! Oh, and they are also the company who offers food to buy on the London-Aberdeen airplane). There is Asda (Imagine a big Tesco, just near the sea shore). And then there are the smaller ones, like Tesco itself (only the express variants around here), Sainsbury, Farmfood, and some others. And they vary quite a bit when it comes to prices. And I mean, quite a bit.

Basically, Lidl and Aldi are the cheapest, with Asda, then Morrisons following up. When Vika told me that Morrisons is considerably more expensive, I though ok, probably like 20-30% difference in prices, right? Nope. Just to give you an example, fresh refrigerated half a kg beef in Lild is around 2.90/Kg. In Morrissons you can get it for 8...

Lidl and Aldi are cheap in Budapest too. But here, the fact that they are discount-stores really becomes visible. Pity they are about 30-40 minutes walk from where we live :P

Mind you, not every product has such a big price-gap. And some things are cheaper in one shop and some in another. Morrisons has a lot bigger selection, and if you want things like frozen vegetable, or good smoked cheese, you go there. (Or snickers ice-cream!!! :D )

The smaller shops can get pretty expensive, again, with the exception of some items.

Speaking of very expensive.... Beer!!!! Darn is it expensive here. You get some discount lager at Lidl for 1,36 pounds / liter. That's 450 Ft. Not too bad... expect it's yeah, cheap lager. But anything else, and man... Basically speaking, if you get beer for 1 pound (330 Ft!) / half a litter, that is the cheap end. A lot of the bottled beers go for 1,5 pounds... Basically, anything below 2 pound / liter can be considered cheap. And to add insult to injury, most of the cans are 440 ml...

Not all is bad though. The bottled beers are for the most part still 0,5 , and they are also crafted beers, with some of them having a real good taste.

Guiness: Expensive? Nope. 10 cans of 440 ml for for 640 Ft / liter. (True, they had a discount). But that is still below the 2 pound price line, and compared to the average prices, it's not expensive at all.

And if anybody wondered what rattles inside the can, here it is:

And then you find things like this:

Yup, one pint (568 ml) beer. (And yup, the Bud :P It's a pity they don't have the brown version). And a pint is what you get if you go in a pub too :D



But instead of brown Bud, they have brown... This :D (Meli? ^^):

Aaaand then you have cider: 2 liter edition. 2 pounds. Yup, that's 330 Ft per liter.... (Strongbow is still expensive here though...)

Fun part about buying alcohol: You have to be above 18, but if you look below 25, they need to and will ask for you ID. And same goes for buying kitchen knives apparently. :D Vika bought one, and the computer beeped, (they have self-service machines like in Tesco almost everywhere here), and the assistant came, looked at her, and said: 'Ok, lets see your ID'. And then she asked: 'You are not going to stab anyone in the back with it, will you?' XD.

No, no, of course not, we only attack our enemies face-to-face...

Oh, and while we are on the extra-large editions...

Do you guys see this????






.... ....




...What do you mean 'So what?'

THIS WHAT!!!




(And yup, you read it right. Only 2 pounds/The. Whole. Bag...)

Magnum anyone? 4 pcs, 1,75 pounds... That's 145 Ft/pcs...

Or 60 Ft snickers maybe?

Just 50 Ft if you get a discount :P

Vika's favorite :D

And one of mine ^^ . Pure smoothie, 100% fruit, great taste, 340 Ft/L.

In Morrisons (and some other shops) you can get another kind of  smoothie as part of your 3 pound meal-deal that contains no banana, only red berries. Tastes really great ^^

And to close the day off, here is our newest addition to the household >^^<



See you guys later ^^

The first day - Aka: Welcome to UK!

My first 'real' view of the city. Rested, eaten and not so cold, I could appreciate a lot more of the town around me.

This is what it looks. The town is famous for its grayness. In the past, it had a very practical reason for this: The town had a granite-mine, and granite was very cheap here. Nowadays I think it's more because they want to keep it the way it was. I don't know if the locals actually like it this way, or are just proud of it, but I can say that it has indeed justfully earned the title 'Granite City'. After getting used to it, I find I quite like its esthetic. I don't know yet how it will be in the winter, Vika says it is a rather depressing a town, with long nights, little sunshine and cold winds. But now in the summer, I find it quite nice.

Btw, this picture perfectly summarizes a lot of what Aberdeen streets look like. Gray walkways, gray buildings, but with quite a bit of green in it. Not all, but many of the houses have small front-gardens, and you find tree-lanes, bushes and lots of tiny parks strewn about, and several large ones too. You'll find that a lot of the streets look like they were built at the same time, by the same company: The whole of the street has the same copy-paste house design, made with the same color.

A quick photo-fight on the street-corner. :P

(Did I win? ^^)

Even Vika's phone was in a catty mood :D

Anyway, we went to the bank to arrange some things, and to open my account. Turns out you need a National Insurance number to do that, so here I am waiting for it to arrive...

But the bank itself is rather pleasant, and I had a look at the accounts, (and Vika told me quite a bit about them), and it's not quite the same as in Hungary. Shortly put, there are a lot less fees. No account-charge, no transfer cost between banks. Free cash withdrawal. (not everywhere in the UK from what I read, but still in a lot of places. Even more so in Scotland). You get a normal account, and a saver account that gives you some interest, with free transfer between them. No bank-card fees either. And there is an interesting option for saving too, where every time you use your credit card, it will round up the amount to a whole pound, and send the difference from the main account into the saver. Though that is optional, and probably just a feature of that one bank.

Also, it's a lot more common here to set up direct debit on your account by default: For example, for our internet, when we formed the contract they asked us for our bank details. And when the invoice arrives, we don't make the transfer to them, but they withdraw that amount automatically. Same for our rent.

After the bank, we went exploring a bit.

Through the town center: Imagine two big streets meeting in a square, the Union Street, and the south end of the Kings Street, that continues to run north and out of the town. The entire Union Street is filled with shops and cafes and all, and clustered around the Union Street are 3 plazas and yet another square, named aptly the Union Square, with the bus station. And that's basically the town center. Right next to these are the quays.

And then along the University (we just walked past it, pics later :P ).

And after that, we arrived in Seaton Park.

I'll let the pictures talk for themselves.

(Got sunny here ^^)

This is just a part of the park. We went along the 'main' road that runs from the cemetery in the south, through the center, then to the eastern exit. The the west, right along the edge of the park runs the river Don. And to the North of the park, on a hill, is the Student-Village. But these have to wait before I tell you about them. Our destination that day was of a higher priority than mere beauty and nature: Lidl. (Food :P)

Which brings me to our next, very important chapter ^^

UN-LIMITED INTERNEEEEEET!!!!

Muhahahaha!!!

Soo, we Finally got internet in our apartment. 52mbit!!!! Wow. And that's fast here :P

We have a little cute router sitting under our table, beaming wifi all over the place :P (Ok, ok, he is actually quite cool looking). I got my main computer up and running again, and boy does it feel good to have all this speed and processing power (not to mention large monitor) at your disposal.

As I found out, they are still in the process of installing fiber-cables throughout the city. In some parts, the most you can get is 17 mbits.... yaiks... When I was searching for net, I almost got desperate as most companies I checked didn't even have the fiber option for our street...

Btw, for those of you in Budapest who think 52mbit is slow, try using a 10+ year old laptop with Windows XP, connected to the internet via your phone's hotspot :P (Fun fact: They have 4G everywhere. Except at night. Interestingly, I always got only H at night :P I guess they switch off some of the transmitters to save energy...?)

So, as I was trying to say, welcome back everyone :) Now that we are back in business, I'm planning on continuing with the blogging. There is a lot of things I want to share with you guys, and I have quite a big collection of pictures and interesting tidbits, so what I will probably do is release several smaller blogs, each covering one topic or another. Or maybe I will just talk about whatever comes to my mind :P Well see ^^

So, where were did I left of . . . ?

Ah yes, we arrived to our new home ^^

Basically, my first impression that  it's gray. Like, almost every building you see here is like this gray. Admittedly, by this time I was quite tired, and it was a bit hard to appreciate anything new at that point.

 This helped :P

And this is how the place looks.

LOTS of crafted, taped beer (about 20+), with great burgers. And the best part, they came in a menu. So for 5,5 Pounds (1815 HUF) you get a menu of burger, pomes, and beer :D McDonalds version 18+ (with better burger) :P

Btw, as I found out later, they do have McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, and everything else here. Also Fridays, Costa and Starbucks. Except here these are not actually expensive. They are the same price, or sometimes even cheaper then in Budapest, except the average salary is about three times higher.

And finally, we visited the sea, before heading off to our temp-apartment for rest. It was a long day.