Surprise Adventures in Aberdeen: Part 2

As a surprise, I was taken on a trip to Aberdeen two weekends ago. So much spending and eating dinner in random places then ensued that I had to split our adventures up into two parts. Part 1 is here.

Sunday: After heading out early to grab breakfast, Dave discovered Gregg's wasn't open - so I joined him and we headed out onto the streets in search of Books & Beans on Belmont Street, finding it reasonably quickly with our growing knowledge of Aberdeen geography.

Books & Beans was lovely. If you're in Aberdeen, and like books and/or good food, go there. Tasty breakfast food, freshly baked cakes and shelves of reasonably priced second-hand books. Dave had a chicken and bacon sandwich and a coke, while I took the more decadent route of pancakes with Herseys chocolate syrup and a smoothie. It was a strawberry smoothie with Cherry Sourz in it - something I didn't quite twig until after ordering it. So a breakfast boozy smoothie was odd, but nice nonetheless. I grabbed an Anne MacAffrey book while I was there, and we met up with last night's fashion show DJ, Debra, so she could collect some of her things from our hotel room.

Aberdeen has a lot of shops similar to Inverness (and almost identical shops to Edinburgh, but less of them). The Bon Accord centre is particularly eerie because as soon as you walk in it's almost a mirror image of Inverness' Eastgate Phase II.

One difference is that the Thorntons chocolate fountain still exists, where I tried a Thorntons chocolate shot (£2 each). You can't drink one of those without feeling ridiculous happy about it, but they also make you feeling a bit silly as you try to drink it all before it solidifies, and then leave you wondering if it would be acceptable to take the last bits out with your fingers.

Later, we headed to popular comic book, cult movie and generally geeky shop Forbidden Planet (similar to Inverness' Heroes For Sale, but it's part of a large chain) which had a nice 3-for-2 deal on. We ended up buying the first 3 volumes of Marvel Zombies for superhero comic fan Dave, the first 3 Scott Pilgrim books for my more indie tastes, and a brilliant Doctor Who poster showing the inner workings of a Dalek.

Returning back to the hotel room, we spent a few geeky hours reading through the comics, drinking tea and coffee and eating Milka chocolate. We also watched a movie about Genghis Khan, for no real reason, before dashing back to Forbidden Planet to get the next lot of our comics. Alas, it was closed.

That night we headed to Slains Castle for dinner, a horror-themed pub that's part of the Eerie Pub Co. chain, which make some of my favourites cocktails. I didn't get ID-ed at any point here! It was pretty amazing. We grabbed a pair of their 7 Deadly Sins cocktails, and the barman confused us both by putting whipped cream and toffee sauce on top of them - he was brilliant. Dave had Lust (Russian Standard Vodka, Malibu, cranberry juice and a lime) in a ridiculously girly, long-stemmed wide cocktail glass, and I had Sloth (Baileys, Kahlua, Russian Standard, and Disaronno with cream and milk).

For dinner I had a nice chicken tikka masala with white rice, and naan bread, Dave had hunter's chicken (chicken breast wrapped in bacon) and we both had garlic bread. It was all good, the garlic bread was burnt but still delicious and Dave was eager to tell the barman how much he enjoyed what he called "half a chicken on a plate".

After that, Dave had Envy (Creme de Menthe Green, Creme de Cacao white with cream and milk poured over ice) and I had some tea, and we headed out.

Down an alley next to Slains, we found a well hidden Baskin Robins! Unable to resist it's retro decor and promise of delicious ice cream, we got a sundae each coffee, rum & raisin and candy floss for Dave and caramel banana, cookie dough and candy floss for me, both with an unnecessary helping of hot fudge sauce. The server got confused half-way through over who's was whos, and was very glad when we both wanted the same sauce and no other toppings.

Monday: Most of the packing was done the night before, but we woke up early to finish off the last few items on our to-do list. For breakfast we called at the nearest Wetherspoons, the Archibald Simpson, which doesn't look much like a Wetherspoons from outside apart from having 'J.D. WETHERSPOONS' printed on barrels at the door. I got ID-ed, though it was far too early for drinking so we just had a full Scottish breakfast and coffee for Dave, and a bacon roll and tea for me. The bacon roll was a bit rubbish, with only one piece of burnt bacon, but the full breakfast was good. Isn't it odd how cafes and restaurants can always get perfect toast?

After that we grabbed our suitcases and were off to Forbidden Planet to grab the last volumes of Scott Pilgrim!, a Scott Pilgrim Who's Who shirt for Dave and Marvel Zombies Volume 4, Dead Days and Marvel Zombies Return.

Returning to Union Square, it was time to check out Hobbycraft to get some things for Dave's craft-y mum and little brother. It's a huge shop of artsy goodness, and if I'd had more time I would have gladly spent hours pouring over their stationary, paper, brushes and inks. Fortunately for my bank balance we didn't, and it was off to grab the train. I got a Juicemaster smoothie along the way and it wasn't that good, very watery.

Taking trains anywhere outside of Inverness is a bit odd, because Inverness and Nairn don't use the ticket-accepting barrier system and you just get your ticket checked on-board. So I needed to remember to have my ticket ready, then feed it to the machines and cross my fingers they'd give it back.

Getting the 11.59 train, we were back in Nairn was around 14.00, trundling our suitcases across the work-in-progress streets. I saved the last few pages of Scott Pilgrim until I'd arrived home, rushed out for milk and made a cup of tea to enjoy with it, and we chilled out with our comic books until later that afternoon (you can read a gushing post about how much I love the Scott Pilgrim series here). Then Dave's cousin, 3-year-old Chloe arrived and Dave spent the evening playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with his little brother while Chloe, myself, Dave's sister Ashley and Dave's mum all headed out to the newly arrived showies.

All in all, a great - if expensive - weekend away. Aberdeen, you're pretty cool, I'll see you again some time.

Surprise Adventures in Aberdeen: Part 1

It's Dave and I's 3-year anniversary today. I'm very proud that we've lasted this long, especially as a young couple, and I'm love how we've matured without forgetting how to have fun and enjoy ourselves. I'm more than certain that he's too good for me, but I am very glad to have him. AND THAT IS AWESOME.

I hope you guys are having a fantastic day and that work, if you are there, is not too terrible. Here's the first part of our Aberdeen adventures - Part 1 will go up on Friday.

Hello internet friends, I am back from a SURPRISE ADVENTURE. It was surprising.

Thursday Night: I come home from work and there are PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE! FLOWERS ON THE TABLE! NO DIRTY DISHES AROUND THE SINK! The coffee machine was on! A mug was awaiting my tea! I was bemused, and wandered through to the living room to find fiance Dave not at work as expected, but hiding in the living room with his family. Then we all had a curry and watched Dave play Call of Duty: MW2 with his little brother.

Friday: I'm on holiday! No work! But I also had to wake up early so I was quite (very) grumpy. I had to go try and sort out Dave's mum's slow running PC, so I spent the morning sitting with breakfast trying to get things ready, needing to burn software to disks which meant plugging the CD burning back in and UGH. I just wanted WAFFLES and tea and also a lie-in please.

All the while Dave is getting on at me to put make-up on and I'm busy plotting out the best methods to sort out the PC while he goes out learning to drive. Time is running out and I'm grumping around the house before getting pulled out into the car. Dave stops by the train station to practice his parking and pick up some tickets for his little sister.

BUT WAIT SUDDENLY THERE IS A SUITCASE IN THE BOOT OF THE CAR AND IT IS OUR SUITCASE WHAT IS GOING ON WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT ABERDEEN WHY AM I NOT STILL ASLEEP

Then I was on a train to Aberdeen, still going "WHAT IS GOING ON I AM NOT PREPARED OH GOD MY HANDBAG I HAVE LEFT MY HANDBAG BEHIND ARE WE REALLY GOING TO ABERDEEN?" which, throughout the train journey, gradually became "I HAVE NO MAKE-UP ON AND EVERYTHING I NEED IS IN NAIRN". Though Dave did bring my phone, DS and iPod so I wasn't too angry. I have my priorities - if my glorious gadgets had been missing all Hell might have broken loose.

In Aberdeen I slowly discovered just how much was missing (outfits! shoes! eyeliner! handbaaag!) and was a huge girl until Dave took me out and got me a handbag and some make-up basics. He's lovely. And I'm such a female sometimes, argh. We grabbed a Poundland pot noodles for lunch, stopping at Poundstretchers for cutlery because Poundland don't sell anything even slightly pointy to under-21s.

Then we met up with some mates in Pizza Hut, nommed some pizza and I had one of their awesome berry smoothies. We also did a lot of wandering around Aberdeen.

It's bigger than I expected! There are a lot of crossings, some huge and cool-looking boats, and a huge range of shops - most of the shops you'd find in bigger cities like Edinburgh were here, though it didn't quite match up to the 'burgh itself. It was much better than Inverness though, with all of its shops and more, which is all we really need.

Union Square shopping centre is great, with a good mix of shops. There are at least five different shopping centres around Aberdeen, which seems like a lot but didn't feel like to many by the end.

To get around Aberdeen we relied mostly upon Google Maps on my HTC Desire phone, coupled with Dave's uncanny sense of direction.

Saturday: During out stay, we used to the Aberdeen City Center Premier Inn. It was a pretty good stay - the bed's were almost too short for Dave, the rooms were basic but generally good. The paint was flaking off our bath, but the shower had the pressure yanked right up which made it FANTASTIC first thing in the morning. The location was very central, no more than 10 minutes from anywhere.

For breakfast, we went to Greggs - a good quality, fairly priced chain of bakeries that we became fans of in Edinburgh. Rumor has it that one of these is going to be arriving in Inverness high street soon. We picked up a meal deal each (baguette/crisps/fizzy drink) and a sticky toffee muffin, and it was all good fresh food as usual. While we sat eating it on a bench just off the high street, Dave made a fatal and touristy mistake...

He gave a piece of his sandwich to a pigeon.

Like a scene out of Hitchcock's the "Birds", about twenty pigeons swooped down in search of this source of nourishment. We were left stranded in a sea of feathers, guarding out meal deals and stamping uselessly at the wide-eyed, cooing beasts.

The annoying thing about being somewhere on holiday and staying in a hotel is that you can't cook anything, and there's nothing to do in the hotel room apart from watch TV - so the day gets broken down into going out for food, and shopping, with the odd night out. So if the hotel fees and transport isn't enough, there's not really much to do except... keep spending. Arranging activities like walks or museums can kill time for cheap or for free, but for young holiday-makers that doesn't always suit.

We stopped by a few stops and got some gifts, as well as raspberry marshmallow fluff from T.K.Maxx! It's a American spread made of marshmallows, basically. Sort of like a gooey jam or a sweeter Nutella. It's very sweet, so I can't really imagine starting the day with it, but it's still fantastic. Marshmallow toast! I need to try the Fluffernutter some time, though I can't imagine it working with unsweetened peanut butter, which is more common in Europe.

After ripping up and blistering my feet wearing new shoes around the town (a stupid idea), I hobbled to watch a charity fashion show for the Samaritans, wearing a mini-skirt and feeling awkward about it. It was at TigerTiger, which has nothing to do with tigers but is in fact a nice looking club with awesome furniture. I ordered drinks, getting ID'd as always, and as they didn't have Kopparberg I ended up buying an Appletiser because Dave thought there was alcohol in it. Turns out it's just fizzy apple juice. Putting pear Bulmers into it didn't really help the situation much, but we tried.

The fashion show itself was good fun, lots of fashionably dressed guys and girls striding up and down the cat-walk. The DJ's picks were right up our alley as well including a fantastic mix of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman" (see the vid below). And I won a prize in the raffle! Afterwards we went out to city centre club Espionage, which wasn't any fun but that was mostly because we're both pub people rather than club people.

This was the only day I managed to complete the monkey challenge, a challenge to go an entire today without seeing moneys, hearing money noises, or in some way, shape or form being reminded of monkeys. Working as a tech monkey, it's a bit of a tricky challenge and a text on Friday and being pelted with monkeys on Monday didn't help. But on Saturday, I succeeded! I will probably never succeed again. (OH WAIT! I did it this Saturday as well. I'm getting good!)

Next in Part 2: Comic book geekery, more smoothies, pubs and Scott Pilgrim! Click here to read Part 2!